Bill Gates Biography & Net Worth

Bill Gates Biography & Net Worth

Bill Gates is phenomenal businessman, philanthropist and software developer. He is one of the founders of Microsoft, one of the biggest corporations in America. He is known as one of the richest men in the world and one of the people who revolutionized the microcomputer back in the 1970s and 1980s. Bill Gates net worth in 2020 is estimated at $112.8 billion and this article covers his business, and other important facts about him.

Bill Gates Early Life

Bill Gates was born in Seattle, Washington on 28th of October, 1955. His parents are Mary Maxwell Gates and William H. Gates. His mother served on the board of United Way of America and First Interstate BancSystem, while his father was a Lawyer. He is of English, German and Scottish ancestry. His siblings include two sisters, an older one ( Kristianne) and a younger one (Libby). The family lived in Sand Point, Seattle until their house was destroyed by a tornado when Bill was about seven years old.

Bill wrote his first software while attending Lakeside prep school and was just 13 years. He went ahead to form a Lakeside programmers club with four others students . He also formed another venture when he was just 17 years old called Traf-O-Data for making traffic counters.

Bill’s parents planned for him to become a lawyer like his father and this looked certain as he graduated from Lakeside School as a National Merit Scholar. His Scholastic Aptitude Test was 1590 out of 2600 and he gained admission to Harvard University the same year. At Harvard, he was taking a pre-law major but his love for computers ensured he still took courses in mathematics and computer science.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University after two years and teamed up with his friend Paul Allen to birth their own software company.

Bill Gates Career

Bill and Allen started out building an Altair emulator and BASIC interpreter for MITS. Bill contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) informing them that he and his team were working on a BASIC interpreter for Altair 8800 after reading about the computer in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. However, the reality was that Bill and Allen had no such code and only wanted to see if MITS would be interested in such. Ed Roberts, president of MITS agreed to meet them for their presentation and they quickly developed an Altair emulator which ran on a minicomputer in addition to the BASIC interpreter. The presentation which held at MITS’s offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico was successful leading to a deal with MITS for the distribution of the interpreter as Altair BASIC. MITS hired Allen and Gates went to work with his friend after taking a leave of absence from Harvard in  November 1975. The partnership was named “micro-soft” by Allen, which was coined from “microcomputer” and “software”. Their first office was located  in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The company dropped the hyphen in its name within a year and was officially registered as “Microsoft”  in November 26, 1976 with the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.

In late 1976, Microsoft became independent of MITS , and went on developing programming language software for various systems. The company’s  office was also moved  to Bellevue, Washington from Albuquerque on January 1, 1979.

Microsoft transformed to become a world leading software company after striking a partnership with IBM to create PC DOS operating system. The company was restructured in 1981 with Gates as the president and chairman and Allen as vice-president and vice-chairman. Allen left the company in early 1983 after a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis and this ended their business relationship which had been strained due to dispute over equity. However over the years they became friends again and remained so until Allen’s death in 2018.

Bill Gates Personal Life

Bill Gates is happily married to Melinda (nee French). They got married on 1st January 1994 and the union is blessed with 3 children, two girls (Phoebe Adele, Jennifer Katherine) and a boy (Rory John).

Bill Gates Philanthropic Endeavors

Bill Gates is also a renown philanthropist who has donated to lots of worthy causes. Some of his philanthropy includes $50 million for Alzheimer’s disease discovery fund in 2017, with a promise of another $50 million. $600 million through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to assist victims of flood in Kerala, India in 2018.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is rated as the largest charitable foundation in the world at the moment. The foundation in 2016 had assets in excess of $41 billion with over $2 billion personally donated by Gates.

Bill Gates is also one of the brains behind “The Giving Pledge” where the world’s billionaires have been encouraged to donate generously to charitable causes.

Bill Gates Net Worth

Bill Gates has made the  Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest documented individuals since 1987 and held the title of the richest person in the world from 1995 to 2007, 2009, 2014 and 2017.

Bill Gates net worth was estimated at $113.7 billion making him the third richest person in the world. In 1987, with a net worth of $1.25 billion, he was among the 400 richest people in America according to Forbes magazine and was also the youngest self made billionaire in the world at that time.

Bill Gates was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world and one of the 100 people who influenced the 20th century so many times. He was also listed as the 8th person on the list of Heroes of our time in 2006.

The major portion of Gates financial assets are managed by Cascade Investments LLC and these are invested in corporations. Cascade holds well diversified investments for Gates ranging from over $2 billion of Republic Services ( a waste management company) , over $680 in AutoNation (National Car dealership franchise), $2 billion in Ecolab (producers of cleaning supplies). Cascade also reportedly owns almost 50% stake in Four Seasons Hotels, 10% of Canadian National Railways, 7% of Arcos Dorados (largest McDonald’s franchisee in the world and a huge portion of tractor maker John Deere, in addition to other investments.

Bill Gates net worth enables him live in a 66,000 square feet mansion in Medina, Washington, with his family. The estate which is estimated to be worth about $147.5 million, has a 60 foot swimming pool, 2500 foot gym and 1000 dinning room, six kitchens, 24 bathrooms and six fireplaces. It also has top-of-the-line technology and gadgets and almost every amenity is computer controlled including automatic lights and music which follow you from one room to the other.

Gates also purchased a mansion in Florida in 2013. The house which costs an estimated $8.7 million comes with extensive equestrian facilities, like a show jumping area and 20 stall horse barn.

He also reportedly owns Grand Bogue Caye, a 314 acre island,  in Central America, off the coast of Belize. The island which cost over $25 million is the largest in that country. The island is home to abundant marine life, pristine beaches and excellent diving.

Bill Gates net worth enables him own top of the range planes and automobiles. He owns a Bombardier BD 700 Global Express which is estimated to cost $45 million. He also owns a share of Boeing Business Jets through his membership in NetJets.

Gates is a lover of fancy automobiles and owns a number of Porsche automobiles like, 1999 Porche 911 Carerra convertible, a 930 Turbo, and a rare 1988 959 Coupe.

Gates also has an enviable collection of precious, irreplaceable collectibles. He paid $30.8 million at an auction for a celebrated Leonardo da Vinci manuscript in 1994. The manuscript known as Codex Leicester, documents many of da Vinci’s scientific discoveries and observations. He also paid $36 million to acquire the painting ” Lost on The Grand Banks” by Winslow Homer in 1998. His vast art collection includes George Bellow’s “Polo Crowd” purchased for $28 million, Frederick Childe Hassam’s “Room of Flowers” for $20 million and others.

Conclusion

This article is about Bill Gates biography, net worth , his childhood , career, and other achievements. Bill Gates is a phenomenal entrepreneur and also an inspiration for generations to come. He has built a massive fortune through hard work and is actively giving out his wealth to fund worthy causes.