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William Henry Gates III
Bill Gates at IT Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark, November 16, 2004, photo by Kees de Vos
Born (1955-10-28) October 28, 1955 (age 69)
United StatesSeattle, Washington, USA
Occupation(s)Chairman, Microsoft
Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
SpouseMelinda Gates
Children3
WebsiteMicrosoft PressPass
Gates Foundation
For other people named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation).

William Henry Gates III (born October 28 1955 in Seattle, Washington) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder, chairman, former chief software architect, and former CEO of Microsoft, the world's largest software company. Forbes magazine's list of The World's Billionaires has ranked him as the richest person on earth for the last thirteen consecutive years, with a current net worth of approximately $53 billion. When family wealth is considered, his family ranks second behind the Walton family.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is widely respected by people who see his wealth as a product of intelligence and foresight, his business tactics have often been criticized as unethical or anti-competitive, and have, in some instances, been ruled as such in court. Since amassing his fortune, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

GATES HAS SEX WITH MALES

Microsoft

Main article: Microsoft

BASIC

Microsoft is a lovechild of Bill Gates and his male partner. Someday in the future, possibly around 2010, it will eat dog poop, regurgitate the poop, then eat the regurgitated poop-vomit.

Personal life

Bill Gates and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Davos. January 26 2003

Gates married Melinda French of Dallas, Texas on January 1 1994. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002). Bill Gates' house is one of the most expensive houses in the world, and is a modern 21st century earth-sheltered home in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. According to King County public records, as of 2006, the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is just under $1 million. Also among Gates' private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci which Gates bought for USD $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.

Gates's e-mail address has been widely publicized, and he received as many as 4,000,000 e-mails per day in 2004, most of which were spam. He has almost an entire department devoted to filtering out junk emails. Gates says that most of this junk mail "offers to help get out of debt or get rich quick", which "would be funny if it weren't so irritating".

Wealth and investments

Gates has been number one on the "Forbes 400" list from 1993 through to 2006 and number one on Forbes list of "The World's Richest People" from 1995 to 2006 with around 50 billion U.S. dollars. In 1999, Gates's wealth briefly surpassed $100 billion causing him to be referred to in the media as a "centibillionaire". Since 2000 the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In May 2006, Gates said in an interview that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world, stating that he disliked the attention it brought.

Gates has several investments outside Microsoft. He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by longtime friend Warren Buffett. He is a client of Cascade Investment Group, a wealth management firm with diverse holdings.

Philanthropy

Gates in Poland, 2006

In 2000, Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organization, with his wife. Bill Gates Sr. has credited David Rockefeller's generosity and extensive philanthropy as an influence on his son. The two of them met several times with him and have modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus on global problems being ignored by governments and other organizations.

The foundation's grants have provided funds for college scholarships for under-represented minorities, AIDS prevention, diseases prevalent in third world countries, and other causes. In 2000, the Gates Foundation endowed the University of Cambridge with $210 million for the Gates Cambridge Scholarships. The Foundation has also pledged over $7 billion to its various causes, including $1 billion to the United Negro College Fund. According to a 2004 Forbes magazine article, Gates gave away over $29 billion to charities from 2000 onwards. These donations are usually cited as sparking a substantial change in attitudes towards philanthropy among the very rich, with philanthropy becoming the norm.

Public school support

One of Gates' primary interests is improving the public schools. He has donated substantially toward that goal, and also appeared on programs with personalities such as Oprah Winfrey to emphasize the crisis in American education. He has also appeared before Congress for this purpose.

Transition

On June 16, 2006, Gates announced that he would move to a part-time role with Microsoft (leaving day-to-day operations management) in July, 2008 to begin a full-time career in philanthropy, but would remain as chairman. Gates credited Warren Buffett with influencing his decision to commit himself to charitable causes. Days later, Buffett announced that he would begin matching Gates' contributions to the Foundation.

Publicity

Bill Gates at Consumer Electronics Show, January 4, 2006

Awards and recognition

Time Magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005 and again in 2006. Gates and Oprah Winfrey are the only two people to make all four lists. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and U2's lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts. That same year Gates was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2006, Gates Foundation was awarded the Premio Príncipe de Asturias en Cooperación Internacional. In a list compiled by the magazine New Statesman in 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of "Heroes of our time". Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999, named CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the "Top 50 Cyber Elite" by Time in 1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the "Top 100 influential people in media" in 2001.

Gates has received three honorary doctorates, from the Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands in 2000, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden in 2002 and Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan in 2005. Gates was also given an honorary KBE (Knighthood) from Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom in 2005, in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.

Bill and Melinda received the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation on May 4, 2006, in recognition of their world impact through charity giving. In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".

Popular portrayals

Main article: List of portrayals of and references to Bill Gates

Gates is often characterized as the quintessential example of a super-intelligent "nerd" with immense power and wealth. This has in turn led to pop culture stereotypes of Gates as a tyrant or evil genius, often resorting to ruthless business techniques. As such he has been the subject of numerous parodies in film, television, and video games.

References and footnotes

  1. Year 2006 compensation: salary $616,667, bonus $350,000. From Microsoft's Proxy Statement
  2. Net worth: from Forbes: The 400 Richest Americans, dated March 9 2006.
  3. "The 100 Richest In The World". Times Online. Times Newspapers. April 22, 2006.
  4. "Sunday Times Rich List - Rules of engagement". Times Online. Times Newspapers. April 26, 2006.
  5. Staff writer (2006-04-22). "Vietnam gives Gates star welcome". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
  6. Baldauf, Scott (2002-11-14). "Gates, the biggest thing in India since the Beatles". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
  7. Shenk, David (1998-01-26). "Slamming Gates" (PDF). The New Republic. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  8. Findings of Fact. United States v. Microsoft (1998)
  9. http://www.mos.org/leonardo/bio.html
  10. Staff writer (2004-11-18). "Bill Gates 'most spammed person'". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
  11. Gates, Bill (2003-06-23). "Why I Hate Spam". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
  12. "Bill Gates - Founder of Microsoft". Lycos Canada Money.
  13. Bolger, Joe (2006-05-05). "I wish I wasn't the richest man in the world, says Bill Gates". The Times. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
  14. Fried, Ina (2004-12-14). "Gates joins board of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway". CNET News.com. Retrieved 2006-11-19.
  15. A 25 February, 2006 survey of philanthropy by The Economist noted, "The media, which used to take little notice of charitable donations, now eagerly rank the super-rich by their munificence..."
  16. Carol J. Loomis (2006-06-25). "Warren Buffett Gives Away his Fortune". Fortune. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
  17. NPR: "Buffett Gift Sends $31 Billion to Gates Foundation," NPR All Things Considered, 26-June-2006, webpage: NPR-Buffett.
  18. Jason Cowley (May 22, 2006). "Heroes of our time - the top 50". New Statesman.
  19. nyenrode.nl
  20. BBC, Knighthood for Microsoft's Gates, March 2 2005
  21. Bill Gates' Flower Fly Eristalis gatesi Thompson
  22. Bill and Melinda Gates named in Top 10 Persons of 2006, Retrieved May 9, 2006
  23. http://diariooficial.segob.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=4936346 (Spanish) Diario Oficial de la Federacion, Proclamation of the Award

Further reading

  • Bank, David (2001). Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft. Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-0315-1.
  • Edstrom, Jennifer (1998). Barbarians Led by Bill Gates: Microsoft from the Inside. Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-5755-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Gates, Bill (1999). Business @ The Speed of Thought. ISBN 0-446-67596-2.
  • Gates, Bill (1995). The Road Ahead. ISBN 0-14-026040-4.
  • Lesinski, Jeanne M. (2000). Bill Gates. Lerner Publications Company. ISBN 0-8225-9689-X.
  • Lowe, Janet (1998). Bill Gates Speaks: Insight from the World's Greatest Entrepreneur. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-29353-9.
  • Manes, Stephen (1993). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself the Richest Man in America. Touchstone. ISBN 0-671-88074-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Rivlin, Gary (2000). The Plot to Get Bill Gates. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-8129-9073-0.
  • Wallace, James (1993). Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. Harper Business. ISBN 0-88730-629-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Wallace, James (1997). Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-18041-6.

External links

Profiles and Biographies

Pictures

Interviews

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