Net Worth: $151 Billion
Salary: $1 Million
Date of Birth: Oct 28, 1955 (65 years old)
Gender: Male
Height: 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Profession: Entrepreneur, Programmer, Investor, Software Architect, Businessperson
Nationality: United States of America
Last Updated: 2021
Introduction:
Bill Gates Net Worth: The American business magnate Bill Gates was the founder and former CEO of Microsoft, philanthropist, and author. Since around 20 years ago, Bill Gates has been the richest person on Earth. As of July 2017, Jeff Bezos became the world’s second-richest person, overtaking him.
The software company Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates with Paul Allen, a pioneer in the personal computer revolution. His share of Microsoft is less than 1.3% today. Microsoft shares worth tens of billions have been sold by him over the years.
Early Life:
In Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955, William Henry Gates III was born. While a child, Gates suffered from bullying. After enrolling at Lakeside prep school at 13, he wrote his first program. In BASIC, Gates developed an interest in GE computers. His first program was a game of tic-tac-toe written on this computer. The computer played the game against the players. When they were caught exploiting a bug in the operating system, Gates and his friends Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans were prohibited from using the school’s computer. Lakeside Programmers Club was formed by four students to make money.
As soon as their ban ended, the boys offered extra time on the computer in exchange for hunting down bugs in the software. In order to learn how the computer worked Gates started studying code including Fortran, Lisp, and machine language. In 1971, Gates and Evans were asked by Lakeside teachers to automate their task of scheduling classes. Specifically, Gates rewrote the code to place him in classes with a greater number of interesting girls. Evans and Gates wanted to put the new system in place during senior year. Evans was killed in a mountain climbing accident at the end of the junior year. Allen assisted Gates in finishing a project for Lakeside.
They formed a company called Traf-O-Data and developed traffic counters on the Intel 8008 processor during their senior year. His career at Harvard began in the fall of 1973 after completing Lakeside School. Gates studied graduate-level computer science and mathematics at Harvard. At Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer. As a sophomore, Gates dropped out of college.
KEY FACTS:
- When Microsoft went public in 1986, its net worth exceeded $350m
- Becomes a billionaire for the first time in 1987. His age was 31
- Mansion is a 66,000 square-foot property worth $147 million
- Dividends from Microsoft since 2003 total at least $50 billion
- Currently owns approximately 1.3% of Microsoft
- He intends to donate 99.96% of his wealth to charity before he dies
- Planned to leave $10 million each to his three children
Career:
As a result of the release of the MITS Altair 8800, based on the Intel 8080 CPU, Gates and Allen realized they had the opportunity to create their own business. As a result of their collaboration, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) created a microcomputer that used either an Altair emulator or a BASIC interpreter, which ran on a minicomputer. On November 26, 1976, Microsoft was registered as a trade name. Gates personally reviewed every line of code released by Microsoft during the first five years of the company, often rewriting code as needed. The first version of Microsoft Windows was released to the public on November 20, 1985.
The company went public in 1986. $21 was the opening stock price. Bill’s 45% of the stock was worth $350 million after its closing price of $27.75. Soon after, his stock rose and he was a billionaire. His age was 31 at that time.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced he would step down on March 13, 2020, as a chairman.
Personal Life:
Melinda French joined Microsoft’s product development division in 1987. Sometimes during a business dinner, she and Bill happened to sit next to each other. Over the course of her career, she rose to a position as General Manager of Information Products. It was 1996 when she left Microsoft.
A golf course on the Hawaiian island of Lanai marked the ceremony of Bill and Melinda’s marriage on January 1, 1994. Jennifer Katharine, Rory, and Phoebe Adele are their three children.
At an auction in 1994, Gates bought the Codex Leicester, a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci, for $30.8 million.
By combining his three family foundations into the Gates Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates created the largest and most transparent charitable foundation in the world.
Net Worth Details:
Since the IPO of Microsoft in 1986, Gates has sold at least $40 billion in Microsoft stock and accrued over $12 billion in dividends. In addition to investing in Canadian National Railway and AutoNation, Cascade Investment grew as a result of these investments. His Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation received a payout of $3.3 billion from Gates in 2004. Microsoft still owns 1.3 percent of his shares.
Bill Gates Net Worth Milestones:
1986 $350 million
1987 $1.25 billion
1990 $2.5 billion
1990 $15 billion
1997 $40 billion
1999 $85 billion
2000 $63 billion
2008 $58 billion
2009 $40 billion
2014 $76 billion
2020 $130 billion
2021 $151 billion
Summary:
A net worth of $151 billion is held by Bill Gates. From $250 million to over $100 billion, Bill has seen his net worth grow since Microsoft’s 1986 IPO. In 1999, at the peak of the dot-com boom, Gates’ fortune briefly topped $99 billion. Taking inflation into account, that would be about $153 billion today.
Citation Information :
Article Title: Bill Gates Biography
Author: odishapaper.com Editors
Website Name: odishapaper.com
Access Date: September 24, 2021
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