William Henry Gate III is an American author, investor, philanthropist, software developer, and business magnate. Bill and his childhood friend, Paul Allen, founded Microsoft, one of the world’s biggest tech companies. Gates held the positions of CEO (chief executive officer), chief software architect, and chairman while maintaining the company’s biggest shareholder until 2014. Bill stopped doing the daily tasks at Microsoft in the year 2008. Gates has pursued his dream endeavors from that time, such as Philanthropy.
Along with founding Microsoft, Bill has also been a founder and a chairman of many other companies. BEN, bgC3, TerraPower, and Cascade Investment are some of those companies. Till today, Bill has donated an amount near to 35.8 billion dollars to his Gates foundation. When Bill left his position on the Microsoft board, he owned one percent shares of the whole company. All these things have caused his net worth to be around 131 billion dollars.
What Is Bill Gates‘s Net Worth?
| Net Worth: |
$36 Billion Dollars |
| Source of Wealth: |
Multiple Businesses, royalties, and premium on investments |
| Profession: |
Businessman, author, investor, software developer, and business magnate. |
| Nationality: |
American |
| Born: |
28th of October, 1955 |
| Age: |
65 Years |
| Height: |
5ft. 9 inches |
| Full Name: |
William Henry Gate III |
| Last Updated: |
2021 |
Bill Gates Biography & Wiki
Bill took birth on the 28th of October, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. William H. Gates Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates were the names of Gates’ father and mother, respectively. William Sr. used to be a prominent lawyer. Meanwhile, Mary was one of the servers to the United Way of America and Interstate BancSystem. Bill has two siblings, one younger sister, Libby, and one older sister, Kristi. Bill’s family lived in Seattle until it was damaged when he was seven by a rare tornado.
Gates wrote his first computer program when he studied at Lakeside Prep school when he was 13 years old. Gates, along with Paul Allen, Rick Weiland, and Kent Evans, was banned from the Computer Center Corporation as the management caught them exploiting bugs in the OS. Bill and Allen formed a venture at the age of 17, and it was called Traf-O-Data that was based on making traffic counters. Bill became friends with Steve Ballmer during his study time at Harvard.
Can you guess what can be the net worth of Bill Gates? The task seems to be quite difficult because we are trying to value someone who has given the world’s favorite machine which is now essential during pandemic times.
Another crazy fact about our American business magnate is that for 33 years this man has been on Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest documented individuals. From 1995 to 2017, Bill Gates has been the world’s richest person with an estimated net worth of $89.9 billion (at that time). Bill Gates was surpassed by Jeff Bezos – founder and CEO of Amazon eCommerce shopping site, with a net worth of $90.6 billion in October 2017.
Since then (October 2017) Bill Gates has been the 2nd richest person in the world, followed by the CEO of LVMH. Now, let’s come back to the net worth of Bill Gates. Well, it’s somewhere around $98 billion.
Bill Gates owns a mansion called Xanadu 2.0 that overlooks Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. IT’s some 66,000-square-foot mansion and architects have been drooling for its design and structure. Apart from owning this huge mansion, Bill Gates owns a private airplane and luxury car collection (just one of the few things he owns which adds up to his total net worth)
Let’s have look at his early life and how Bill Gates founded Microsoft.
Early Life of Bill Gates
Bill Gates was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and his ancestry includes English, German and Scottish-Irish. As a child, Gate’s parents wanted him to pursue his career in law.
When he was 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school where he wrote his life’s first software program. By the time he reached 8th Bill’s interest in programming grew more and more. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC and he was excused from math classes to pursue his interests.
He wrote his first computer program on this machine which allowed other users on the computer to play games. By this time, he and others around him realized that Bill was very much fascinated by computers and likewise machines.
By 17, Bill Gates formed a venture with Allen known as Traf-O-Data – to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. Before graduating from Lakeside School in 1973, Gates was already a National Merit Scholar and scored 1590 out of 1600 on Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) making him one of the rare brains to do that.
After reading insights about Bill Gates, you will come to know why connections and friends matter the most. While individuals are capable to ride the storm but with someone like-minded besides you, you can conquer the storms as no one else did.
Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Microsoft is just one out of many ventures that the duo formed. While they were in school, they have had a tremendous time of their life exploring the world of machines together and wooing their teachers.
Bill Gates didn’t only serve as CEO of Microsoft, rather he was there for his venture in whatever role Microsoft wanted Bill to be in. He served as a chairman, CEO, president, and chief software architect.
Bill was also the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. Bill Gates is also one of the best-known entrepreneurs and pioneers of the microcomputer revolution during the 1970 and 1980s. He still is someone who is not less than a savage. When we wanted a machine, which can work on multiple tasks faster than the human brain, he provided us!
Bill Gates Personal Life
Bill is quite a bookworm but also enjoys physical sports such as bridge, Tennis, and golf. Gates used to fly in economy class until he bought his pair of wings in 1997. Gates has also admitted that he is color blind. Bill married Melinda French on the 1st of January, 1994, at the Hawaiian island of Lanai. Gates and Melinda have three children, Rory, Phoebe, and Jennifer. The whole family lived in a mansion that was situated in Medina, Washington. They announced their divorce on the 3rd of May, 2021.
Bill’s other relationship with the convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, has also attracted quite a lot of attention to itself. Bill told the media in August of 2021 that he held a meeting with him to gather money for the Gates foundation but called doing so a waste of time. Bill is a catholic and has raised his children in the same religious way.
Bill Gates Professional Life
In 1975, Bill contacted MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) to inform them about the BASIC interpreter that he and his team were working on. This trial got them a demonstration meeting the MITS president Ed Roberts. The demonstration went as expected, and MITS hired Allen and Bill. Bill took a leave from his college to work at MITS. Microsoft was officially out on the 26th of November, 1976. Gates never went back to Harvard again. IBM led the supply of computer parts and approached Microsoft for a collaboration. This collaboration built IBM PC.
The first retail version of Microsoft Windows was released on the 20th of November, 1985. This was a competitive move made against Apple. Bill worked as a strategist at Microsoft for a period of 32 years (1975-2006). Bill left his throne in Microsoft in 2006 as he wanted to pursue Philanthropy by spending more time on the subject.
Post Retirement
Bill Gates announced his retirement in June 2006. It’s a long time! And his retirement was one of the happiest retirements every CEO desire. After making the company fall in the category of billion in worth, Bill Gates decided to work as a part-timer at Microsoft and divert the rest of the time working at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The day Bill Gates left Microsoft, his journey as a philanthropist started. You can guess how successful he is as a philanthropist when I say he was featured in Ted Talks. He was the highest-earning billionaire in 2013, and the net worth of Bill Gates at that time increased by $15.8 billion to $78.5 billion.
We will not talk about the philanthropy of Bill Gates because that would be a disrespect to a man who has been doing that for a long time. But one observation is that Bill Gates has played a crucial role in changing the world and raising the standards of society.
Public Image
The image of Bill Gates has changed many times and a lot after all these years. During the start of Bill’s career, he was perceived by the public as a ruthless “robber baron” but still a brilliant “nerd-turned-tycoon”. After coming down from his position at Microsoft, Gates and his wife started to serve the purpose of their foundation. After turning his attention to Philanthropy, he has donated more than 50 billion dollars for the cause.
These philanthropic and kind acts of Bill changed his image in public. People started to see him as a “huggable billionaire” instead of a “tyrannical technocrat.” But that image also received a massive shift in 2021, when Bill and Melinda announced their divorce. After that, Bill gained a lot of publicity worldwide for reportedly being in a long-term extramarital relationship with one of his employees and being friends with a convicted sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. These acts converted Bill from a “huggable billionaire” to “ just another creepy rich guy.”
Summing Up:
With more than $122 billion of net worth, Bill Gates stands tall, strong and he’s a hero to many. Satya Nadella is leading Microsoft from the front, but he is said to walk on the steps laid by Bill Gates. The man has been a visionary since his college days and his family would be so proud of him if they recall his journey from the start.
The more you read about Bill Gates more are the more chances you would fall for this man. 64-year-old business magnate, he’s the world’s favorite human resource.
FAQs Bill Gates:
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Is Bill Gates the wealthiest person on the planet?
From 2007 to 2021, Bill Gates kept getting in either the second or third position on the world’s wealthiest billionaires list. But Bill has achieved the 1st spot in the Forbes 400 list between 1993 to 2007, 2009, and 2014 to 2017.
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What is the political view of Bill Gates?
Bill rejected the idea of more regulations being needed in the software industry in front of the senate of the United States in the year 1998. This act showed his utter antagonistic approach to political matters.
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What are the views of Gates on climate change and energy?
Bill considers nature as a critical element for humanity and should be preserved more than anything else. To make sure that the increasing temperature of the world does not keep doing so, Bill has proposed that too many governments and private sectors invest in the research required to make cheap and reliable energy.
Most people often think that Bill tossed the name Microsoft, but Paul Allen did so during their partnership with MITS.
Bill Gates’s Social Profile:
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