Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. The size of his bank account? Just under 80 billion dollars. A number that makes you stutter. But: Gates has earned his fortune, starting at the bottom as a programmer and working his way up one step at a time. This fall, Bill Gates celebrates his 60th birthday. Birthday. Quick fiddle and in a good mood. Time to look back on a career that once began with the right string of zeros and ones.
At school, Bill Gates once boasted to his teacher that he would be a millionaire by the age of 30 – in fact, he was already a billionaire at 31. Today, Bill Gates has 79.3 billion US dollars in his bank account. This makes him currently the richest man on the planet. A title he has won 16 times in the last 21 years. He has also donated 28 billion US dollars to date. Until his death, he wants to donate 90 percent of his fortune to people in need.
Paul Allen, the co-founder, left Microsoft in 1983 when he was diagnosed with cancer. He also stepped down from the Board of Directors in 2000. With a fortune of 17.5 billion US dollars, Allen is ranked 51st on the Forbes list of the richest men in the world.
At 13, Bill’s parents sent him to Seattle’s Lakeside School, a private school for the gifted. At 17, he interrupted school to try his hand at programming. A year later, he went to Harvard University to catch up on his degree, but he dropped out of both his law and mathematics studies after a short time.
William Henry Gates III. was founded on 28. He was born in October 1955 in Seattle, Washington, the son of a lawyer and a teacher. He has a big sister and a little sister.
And what else? His hobbies are reading, golf and bridge, his nickname is “Trey”, he has a dog called “Oreo”, he is 177 cm tall, he doesn’t speak a single foreign language, he usually leaves the house without cash, and he is active on Twitter but not on Facebook.
In 1975, Bill Gates founded Microsoft with his schoolmate Paul Allen. The company is the largest software manufacturer in the world, currently employs 117,354 people (June 2015) and has an annual turnover of 93.58 billion US dollars.
In 1972, at the age of 17, Bill Gates sold his first computer program, a timetable system, to his former high school for USD 4,200.
In 1994, Bill Gates bought the 72-page “Codex Leicester” by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) at auction for approx. 30.8 million US dollars at auction.
On New Year’s Eve 1994, Bill Gates married his wife Melinda, who was a programmer and project manager at Microsoft at the time. Together they have two daughters (born in 1996 and 2002) and a son (born in 1999). He only wants to bequeath them a fraction of his assets (0.02% per child), as he believes that you are not doing your children a favor by showering them with money that they have not earned themselves. His children should shape their own lives.
In 2005, Bill Gates was honored by Queen Elizabeth II. knighted. He received the award for his extensive donations to combat poverty and for his services to the British economy. As an American, however, he is denied the title “Sir”.
Bill Gates currently earns approx. 50 US dollars per second, making an hourly wage of 180,000 or a reassuring 129.6 million US dollars per month. When he was still actively working at Microsoft, it was around 250 US dollars per second.
Bill Gates was arrested in 1977 for driving without a license and running a red light and spent a day in custody.
Bill Gates’ IQ is approx. 160. Only 0.1% of the population have an IQ at this level.
In 1999, Bill Gates and his wife founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With assets of almost 40 billion US dollars, it is the largest private foundation in the world.