Everyone knows the most recent headlines about our country’s greatest leaders. In this feature, we’d like to shed some light on the lesser-known facts about these folks in hopes of giving you a little greater insight as to what makes them tick.
Bill Gates
- William Henry Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, USA.
- His father William was a corporate lawyer, and his mother Mary was a schoolteacher.
- By the age of 17, Gates had sold his first computer program, a time-tabling system for his high school, for $4,200.
- Gates scored 1590 on his SAT standardized test. The top score for the test is 1600.
- Gates told his university teachers he would be a millionaire by age 30. He became a billionaire at age 31.
- While at Harvard, Gates co-wrote Altair BASIC, which became Microsoft’s (then called Micro-Soft) first product.
- He met his wife, Melinda French, in 1987 at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan while she was a worker for the company. They would go on to get married on New Years Day in 1994.
- In 2002, Bill Gates was considered more idolized than Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung in a poll of teenagers in Hong Kong and China. The survey was conducted by the City University of Hong Kong.
- In 2005, Gates was honored with the title Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II of England.
- As of the March 2007 issue of Forbes magazine, Bill Gates has been listed as Number 1 on “Forbes’ Richest People” list for 13 years in a row. His current net worth is about $56 billion.
- Gates has recently announced that he will be reducing his involvement at Microsoft and will be devoting more time to his charity work.
- He is currently having a building named after him at Carnegie Mellon University, called the Gates Building of Computer Science.
- Gates is the current owner of the Codex Leicester — a 72-page collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific writings. The writings are a mixture of observations on water properties, astronomy, and rocks and fossils. Gates puts the Codex on public display once a year in a different city around the world.
- Bill Gates earns $250 every SECOND; that’s about $20 million a DAY and $7.8 billion a YEAR!
- If he drops a thousand-dollar bill, he needn’t even bother to pick it up because in the four seconds it would take him to pick it up, he would’ve already earned it back.
About Harry K. Jones
Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.
i hear Bill Gates is very shy and non-social kinda person. Seems like all work and no play made Bill a billionaire.
Bill Gates is sooooooooooo rich can a brother get $5
Man, I wish I can be as rich as Bill. =[
Its a dream i’ll never reach.
i think that this is a really in tresting pience of facts and it is good for my research on leaders and by the sounds of it you was a very good leader in all of the things you did.
I’m doing a report on Bill, so most of these facts will help me with it. Thanks, whoever made this. 😀
Looks like I made a mistake 😛 I should’ve said, “Thanks, Harry K. Jones” instead of what I origionally put (“whoever made this”).
its sad that the economy is struggling and hes stil living large , must be nice
‘Thanks harry k jones’ to share about bill gate my favorite personality.
every person is wonder how it is possible in little short time he became billionaire.
but in my words he is genius and legend of IT
Alexander
Let’s create a speculative monetary unit of constantly increasing billions & call it: a billgates.
I wonder if bill gates might have recieved more credit than he deserves for the creation of microsoft im sure there was people that help him they should be credited too just liike the blockers on A football team with out them the ball carrier cnt go any were.
I’m certain you’re absolutely right about Bill Gates having received a great deal of support along the way. However, unlike blockers on a football team, Bill Gates chose those people himself based on their education, experience, track record, and shared beliefs and values. He also rewarded them very well with Microsoft stock which resulted in the majority of them being retired millionaires today. If you’ve followed news reports on this man and the phenomenal growth of Microsoft, I’m certain you’re aware of the fact that he has recognized and credited these people time and time again over the years. He has also shared his success and wealth by creating the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has provided BILLIONS of dollars in medicine and medical care, research, housing, food, water, transportation, education, technology, and agriculture development to MILLIONS of people worldwide. In fact, he spends the majority of his time at the helm of this Foundation after choosing Steve Ballmer to lead Microsoft. In short, he’s been a pretty good ball carrier.