Bill Gates (1955-present)

Bill Gates (1955-present) is a person.

• AKA: William Henry Gates III.
• Context:
  • They can be a Business Magnate, having co-founded and led Microsoft to become the world’s largest Personal Computer Software Company.
  • They can be a Philanthropist, focusing on global health, education, and poverty reduction through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
  • They can be a Software Architect, responsible for early software innovations at Microsoft, such as MS-DOS and Windows.
  • They can act as an Investor, managing significant holdings through entities like Cascade Investment.
  • They can embody a Tech Visionary, foreseeing the potential of software and personal computing in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • They can be a Public Figure, influencing global policy and initiatives such as The Giving Pledge.
  • They can range from being a Tech Pioneer to being a Humanitarian, impacting both the technology sector and global philanthropy.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Bill Gates (1950s): born in Seattle, Washington, and developed an early interest in computers and programming.
  • Bill Gates (1970s): dropped out of Harvard University to co-found Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975.
  • Bill Gates (1980s): negotiated a pivotal deal with IBM to provide the operating system, MS-DOS, establishing Microsoft as a key software provider.
  • Bill Gates (1990s): oversaw the dominance of Microsoft Windows in the personal computer market and expanded the company’s software portfolio.
  • Bill Gates (2000s): transitioned to a part-time role at Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic efforts through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
  • Bill Gates (2010s): advocated for global health initiatives, including campaigns against malaria and polio, through the foundation.
  • Bill Gates (2020s): shifted his focus to addressing climate change, and continued to fund research and policy initiatives to mitigate environmental impact.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Steve Jobs (1955-2011), who, unlike Gates, focused more on design and consumer electronics innovation than on software development and philanthropy.
  • Elon Musk (1971-), another tech leader, but with a focus on space exploration, electric vehicles, and AI rather than software and global health.
  • Jeff Bezos, whose primary business focus has been e-commerce and cloud computing instead of software and philanthropy.
• See: Business Magnate, Philanthropist, Investor, Microsoft Inc., Philanthropic Individual.

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References

2022

• (Wikipedia, 2022) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates Retrieved:2022-8-7.
  • William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, author, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. "Gates Steps Down from Microsoft Board but Stays as Advisor". Redmond. March 2020.</ref> During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a major entrepreneur of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Gates was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It became the world's largest personal computer software company. Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer, but he remained chairman of the board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings.In June 2008, Gates transitioned to a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife, Melinda Gates, established in 2000. He stepped down as chairman of the board of Microsoft in February 2014 and assumed a new post as technology adviser to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella. "Bill Gates steps down as chairman, will assist new CEO as 'technology advisor'". The Verge. Archived from the original on February 4, 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2014.</ref> In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change, global health and development, and education. Since 1987, Gates has been included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world every year except from 2010 to 2013. In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who had an estimated net worth of US$90.6 billion compared to Gates's net worth of US$89.9 billion at the time. As of August 2022, Gates had an estimated net worth of US$117 billion, making him the fifth-richest person in the world. Later in his career and since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued many business and philanthropic endeavors. He is the founder and chairman of several companies, including BEN, Cascade Investment, bgC3, and TerraPower. He has given sizable amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world's largest private charity. Through the foundation, he led an early 21st century vaccination campaign that significantly contributed to the eradication of the wild poliovirus in Africa. In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.

2015

• (Gates, 2015a) ⇒ Bill Gates. (2015). “Hi Reddit, I’m Bill Gates and I’m back for my third AMA. Ask me anything.." Reddit AMA.
  • QUOTES:
    • I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned.[1]
    • There will be more progress in the next 30 years than ever. Even in the next 10 [years,] problems like vision and speech understanding and translation will be very good. Mechanical robot tasks like picking fruit or moving a hospital patient will be solved. Once computers/robots get to a level of capability where seeing and moving is easy for them then they will be used very extensively.[2]

1994

• "Playboy Interview: Bill Gates," Playboy (July 1994), 63.
  • QUOTE: "When you have the microprocessor doubling in power every two years, in a sense you can think of computer power as almost free. So you ask, why be in the business of making something that's almost free? What is the scarce resource? What is it that limits being able to get value out of that infinite computing power? Software." (recalling his thinking when launching Microsoft in 1975)

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