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Developed his first computer software program at the age of 13, while he attended Lakeside School and formed the Lakeside Programmers Group – which was formed with students who were fascinated with machines.
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Gates and his friend Allen eventually formed their first company known as Traf-OData, building a computer that could measure the flow of traffic and generated $20,000 in revenue.
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Wrote a computer language while at Harvard with his friend Allen for the company MITS, and in 1975 – Gates dropped out of Harvard University and began focusing on his new company Microsoft.
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Hackers in the early days of computers believed that software and tools for computers should be open source. Microsoft began noticing piracy for their software, in which Gates responded with his well-known “Open Letter to Hobbyist”. In the letter he addresses the idea that software should be bought and not copied without the permission of the developer.
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People often think that he was the perfect person, but in 1977, he was arrested in New Mexico for driving without a license and speeding.
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Gates applied his business skills to insist that IBM make Microsoft the “exclusive software licensee for their home computers…” – which allowed Microsoft to be such a huge success, becoming a house-hold name and becoming an industry standard.
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Approached by IBM to develop a new operating system for home use, Gates and his partner purchased an operating system called Q-Dos for $50,000. They adapted the operating system after naming it MS-DOS.
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As the competition between Microsoft and the other companies began, a company named VisiCorps announced a GUI based operating system, compared to MD-DOS, which was only text-based. Gates saw this as the future and took action! He announced that Microsoft would soon have their own GUI based system – but that was just a lie. It wouldn’t be until 1985 that Microsoft would release Windows 1.0.
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Gates in 1986 took his company Microsoft public, and with his ownership of shares, allowed him to have a net worth of $390 million.
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When negotiating with the Seattle Computer company when purchasing the original operating system, Gates failed to mention they were in the talks with IBM. They then took Microsoft to court, where the two companies were able to settle. This was a big controversy that, even today, people in the computer enthusiast community bring up.
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Gates and Microsoft were brought into the light when discovered about some of the unfair business contracts that were being forced on different computer manufacturers. This caught the attention of the U.S. government, and in 1997, a judge forced Microsoft to stop requiring manufacturers to install Internet Explorer as part of Windows 95.
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Soon after the courts accused Microsoft of being a monopoly and forcing the company to break up into several companies, Gates found himself stepping down from the CEO position and was not just a chairman of the company he helped build from the beginning.
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By 2004, he was still the world wealthiest person and at that point, he was worth $60.5 billion. His wife and him soon began a foundation for the purpose of promoting global health and learning.
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Bill Gates was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to the national public endeavors.
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Bill Gates as a boss, was not known for being a relaxing one. He has often been described as having an eccentric work ethic and he expects the same for his employees. In the prime of his life, even being worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he would still work 16 hour days.
