Bill Gates Biography, Net Worth & Business Profile

Bill Gates

Bill Gates (Williams Henry Gates III) is an American business magnate who co-founded Microsoft Corporation in 1975 with a net worth of .$114.4 billion as at 2023.

Bill Gates (Williams Henry Gates III) is an American business magnate, born on 28th October, 1955 and co-founded Microsoft Corporation in 1975, which brought about the Microcomputer revolution.

Find details about Bill Gates' biography, net worth, business and philanthropy profile 

Bill Gates was born October 28, 1955 in Seattle Washington DC, United States and founded one of the largest technological company in the world.

Gates co-founded Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend, Paul Allen in 1975.

Education

He attended the private Lakeside prep school at aged 13 where he wrote his first software program.

Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and he was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine, an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly.

Gates was an undergraduate student at Harvard University but later dropped out, to pursue the vision that gave birth to Microsoft Corporation.

Family

Gates parents are Bill Gates Sr. (father) and Mary Maxwell (mother).

Gates married Melinda French on the Hawaiian Island of Lanai on January 1, 1994. They met in 1987 after Melinda began working at Microsoft.

Although, at the time of their marriage, Gates was given permission by Melinda to spend limited time with his ex-girlfriend, businesswoman Ann Winblad.

Bill and Melinda have three children: Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe. Gates and Melinda marriage was dissolved on August 2, 2021.

Business Profile

Gates is a Software developer, investor, entrepreneur and co-founder of Microsoft and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Titles attributed to Gates are as follows: Co-chairperson of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chairman and founder of Branded Entertainment Network, Chairman and founder of Cascade Investment,

Chairman and co-founder of TerraPower, Founder of Breakthrough Energy, Technology advisor of Microsoft and Board member of Berkshire Hathaway company.

Net worth

In 1987, Gates was listed as a billionaire in Forbes magazine's 400 Richest People in America issue, worth $1.25 billion at the time, and was the world's youngest self-made billionaire.

Gates was the wealthiest person from 1995 to 1996, 1998 to 2007, 2009, and held the spot until 2018 before being overtaken by Jeff Bezos. Gates was number one on the Forbes 400 list from 1993 through to 2007, 2009, and 2014 through 2017.

In 1999, his wealth briefly surpassed US$101 billion.

By 2017, Gates had held the top spot on the list of The World's Billionaires for 18 out of the previous 23 years. Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of US$616,667 and US$350,000 bonus totalling US$966,667. In 1989, he founded Corbis, a digital imaging company.

In 2004, he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.

In 2022, Gates net worth was valued at $111 (Forbes).

In May 2023, Forbes enlisted Bill Gates as the 6th wealthiest person with a net worth of $114.4 billion.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and donated some of his Microsoft stock in 1994 to create the "William H. Gates Foundation".

In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations and Gates donated stock valued at $5 billion to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was identified by the Funds for NGOs company in 2013, as the world's wealthiest charitable foundation, with assets reportedly valued at more than $34.6 billion.

As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity; the couple plan to eventually donate 95% of their wealth to charity.

The foundation is organized into five program areas:

- Global Development Division,

- Global Health Division,

- United States Division, and

- Global Policy & Advocacy Division.

On February 4, 2014, Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft to become "technology advisor" at the firm, alongside CEO Satya Nadella.

As of January 2014, most of Gates's assets are held in Cascade Investment LLC, an entity through which he owns stakes in numerous businesses, including Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and Corbis Corp.

Business ventures and investments

AutoNation, automotive retailer that Gates has a 16% stake in trading on the NYSE.

bgC3 LLC, a think-tank and research company founded by Gates.

Canadian National Railway (CN), a Canadian Class I freight railway. As of 2019, Gates is the largest single shareholder of CN stock.

Cascade Investment LLC, a private investment and holding company incorporated in the United States, founded and controlled by Gates and headquartered in Kirkland, Washington.

Gates is the top private owner of farmland in the United States with landholdings owned via Cascade Investment totalling 242,000 acres across 19 states. He is the 49th largest private owner of land in the US.

Carbon Engineering, a for-profit venture founded by David Keith, which Gates helped fund. It's is also supported by Chevron Corporation and Occidental Petroleum.

SCoPEx, Keith's academic venture in "sun-dimming" geoengineering, which Gates provided most of the $12 million for.

Corbis (originally named Interactive Home Systems and now known as Branded Entertainment Network), a digital image licensing and rights services company founded and chaired by Gates.

EarthNow, Seattle-based startup company aiming to blanket the Earth with live satellite video coverage. Gates is a large financial backer.

Eclipse Aviation, a defunct manufacturer of very light jets. Gates was a major stake-holder early on in the project.

Impossible Foods, a company that develops plant-based substitutes for meat products. Some of the $396 million Patrick O. Brown collected for his business came from Gates around 2014 to 2017.

Ecolab, global provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services to the food, energy, healthcare, industrial and hospitality markets. Combined with the shares owned by the Foundation, Gates owns 11.6% of the company. A shareholder agreement in 2012 allowed him to own up to 25% of the company, but this agreement was removed.

ResearchGate, a social networking site for scientists. Gates participated in a $35 million round of financing along with other investors.

TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company co-founded and chaired by Gates, which is developing next generation traveling-wave reactor nuclear power plants in an effort to tackle climate change.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a closed fund for wealthy individuals who seek ROI on a 20-year horizon (see next section), which "is funding green start-ups and a host of other low-carbon entrepreneurial projects, including everything from advanced nuclear technology to synthetic breast milk." It was founded by Gates in 2015.

Ginkgo Bioworks, a biotech startup that received $350 million in venture funding in 2019, in part from Gates's investment firm Cascade Investment.

Luminous Computing, a company that develops neuromorphic photonic integrated circuits for AI acceleration.

Mologic, British diagnostic technology company that Gates purchased, along with the Soros Economic Development Fund, "which has developed 10-minute Covid lateral flow tests that it aims to make for as little as $1."

Books by Bill Gates

Gates has written four books, namely

1. The Road Ahead (November 1995)

2. Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999)

3. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (February 2021)

4. How to Prevent the Next Pandemic (April 2022)

FOB News

Comments