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Essay on Bill Gates
Bill Gates is no ordinary multi-billionaire. He has been at the center of developments in computer software since the 1970s, and has done more than almost any other single individual to shape the information revolution in modern business and society; only Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, can claim to be his equal in influence. Gates has also shown himself to be one of the most talented entrepreneurs of his generation, building up a company of global influence based on an almost instinctive understanding of the principles of marketing and an ability to manage a flexible, sometimes volatile but always creative organization. In an industry where companies rise and fall almost overnight, Gates's company Microsoft has proved to be one of the few enduring success stories.
William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington on 28 October 1955. He was educated at Lakeside School in Seattle, where he shone at science and particularly maths, and reportedly was tested as having an IQ of between 160 and 170. He became interested in computers while at school, and befriended another young computer enthusiast, fellow pupil Paul Allen. While still in their teens, Gates and Allen set up their first computer company, Traf-O-Data. Computers in the early 1970s were still relatively primitive affairs, large and slow, and used primarily to conduct numerical analysis. Gates and Allen, however, were among those who believed that computers were the technology of the future.
Bitten by the bug, Gates went off to Harvard University and also took a summer job working for the electronics company Honeywell in 1974 (Allen had also taken a job at Honeywell). He entered the mainstream of the computer world just as it was on the basis of a major revolution. This was the introduction of the integrated circuit, or microchip....
