From 1995 to 2007, the only person who remained as the richest man in the world was Bill Gates. Then came Warren Buffett in 2008, but that didn’t last too long as Gates made a quick comeback in 2009 to return to his usual spot. From 2010 to 2013, Carlos Slim became the richest man. From 2014 to 2016, Gates was back at Gates before being overtaken by Jeff Bezos in 2017.
Being the founder of Microsoft who came to be one of the main sources of his fortune, Bill Gates is a businessman, investor, philanthropist and humanitarian who became one of the richest and most influential people in the world. . Although he retired from Microsoft, he is still involved in many things with his wife, Melinda Gates.
Biography of Bill Gates
The billionaire was born William Henry Gates in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. While his father, William Gates Sr was a lawyer, his mother Mary worked as a bank executive. With that, young Gates was brought up in a family that was quite comfortable. Of English, German, Irish and Scotch-Irish descent, he was raised alongside two sisters attending Lakeside Private School where he had his first encounter with computers. He learned basic programming which would be his first starting point.
By age 17, Gates had already formed aTraf-O-Data, a system that reads data from traffic counters and generates reports for engineers. In 1973, Bill Gates graduated from Lakewood and he went to Harvard College after scoring 1590 out of a possible 1600 in his SAT. However, instead of continuing to study the math and computer science he was studying, he didn’t give up until two years after starting his own programming.
In 1976, Bill Gates founded Microsoft, and in 1980, IBM commissioned the company to develop a new BASIC operating system for its new computer, marking the beginning of what would later be Microsoft’s dominance. The 1990s saw the birth of Windows and its continued growth that took the world of technology to the next level. However, in 2014, Bill Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft at the age of 58.
Woman – Melinda and children
After graduating from Duke University, Melinda French had numerous job offers, including one with IBM in Dallas and Microsoft. Although IBM was a good place, Microsoft had more opportunities for advancement and as such accepted the offer.
Shortly after her arrival as product director, Melinda was approached by the company’s CEO who parked his car near her to ask if she would be free to have dinner with him in two weeks. His simple response to the doors was that it wasn’t spontaneous enough for her, so an hour later he called to ask if she would be free that night and she said it was pretty spontaneous.
On January 1, 1994, Bill and Melinda married after more than five years together. Since then they have remained very close, doing many things including charity together.
Their marriage was blessed with three children – Jennifer Katharine, Rory John and Phoebe Adele, born in 1996, 1999 and 2002 respectively.
Foundation
Beyond making money, what can become One of Bill and Melinda Gates’ greatest legacies is their charitable work around the world. The couple have various charitable programs, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was established in 2000.
Through the foundation which has more than $50 billion in assets, the powerful couple are working to improve healthcare and alleviate extreme poverty, among other things. Besides Bill and Melinda, Warren Buffett is also a trustee of the foundation.
Bill Gates net worth, house and cars
Since 1995, when his net worth exceeded that of every other country in the world, Bill Gates remained either the richest man in the world or the second richest for many years.
In 2019, Forbes puts his net worth at a whopping $90 billion, which is a drop of $4.8 billion from the previous year, 2018. However, he is still only the second most world’s richest after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Gates has been known to indulge a time or two; he owns many expensive cars and properties that many cannot imagine, such as his home, Xanadu 2.0, which is valued at over $150 million and is among the most expensive celebrity homes. In addition to this mansion located in Washington, he also owns properties in different parts of the world.
As for cars, Gates has a good number of cars, including a Porsche 959 and a Porsche 911 supercar that he once sold for $80,000. Beyond cars, one of his biggest playthings is his private jet, the Bombardier BD-700 Global Express.