Matthew Gibson
Writer’s Workshop 7/8 A
Most people see Bill Gates as the richest person in the world, but he is also the most charitable person in the world with a total of just below $30 billion donated. Co-founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of over 90 billions dollars. Since he retired from Microsoft, he has dedicated his time to advancing healthcare and education for those in need. Gates is a exemplary role model because he has gained mass fortune without losing his passion for helping others and improving the world.
Bill was born as a middle child. He had an older sister, Kristianne, and a younger sister, Libby. His family was known to be very competitive. They always had a prize for winning, and a penalty for losing. At 13 Bill started attending the Lakeside School, a private preparatory school. In his eighth grade year, one of the clubs at school raised enough money to buy some computer time. Gates became fascinated with the machine. He started to code BASIC on it. Soon the school excused him from math class in order to advance his skills on the terminal. After the funds from the club ran dry, he spent time on other computers. During the summer, Bill and three other students (Paul Allen was one of them) were banned from the use of a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC) after they were found to be taking advantage of bugs to gain more computer usage time. When the ban ended, Bill and the other students offered to fix the problems they had exploited. While helping them program, Bill learned other coding languages like Fortran and Machine Language. Those four students coded for the CCC until 1970 when the company went out of business. Because of their programming prowess, they gained several more jobs from a variety of places. One of the most notable was their own school, where his administrators chose Gates to write a program that would make schedules for students. He secretly changed the code so that he had no classes on Fridays and his classes contained a larger amount of interesting girls.
When Bill was 17, he and Paul Allen created Traf-O-Data. Traf-O-Data set out to improve data reports for traffic engineers. Bill is quoted saying, “Doing this traffic analysis software was pushing the limits... But, when the guy from the County that Seattle's in came to see it, it didn't work… We ended up being okay successful, not seriously successful… So, we made a little bit of money and had some fun with it.” According to Allen, “Even though Traf-O-Data wasn't a roaring success, it was seminal in preparing us to make Microsoft's first product a couple of years later. We taught ourselves to simulate how microprocessors work using DEC computers, so we could develop software even before our machine was built.”
Bill gates gained his fortune after founding Microsoft in 1975. He and Paul Allen came together to revolutionize the personal computer industry. Their goal was to make code interpreters for the Altair 8800. By the 1980’s, Microsoft was the main operating system developer and seller after their success with MS-DOS. In 1985, MS-DOS was transformed into Microsoft Windows, the most popular PC OS at the moment. In 1986, Microsoft went public and the inflow of money created three billionaires and over ten thousand millionaires. In 2000, Bill Gates gave up his spot as the CEO to Steve Ballmer.
Bill Gates always has a passion for helping others who are in need of help. After he left Microsoft, Bill dedicated his time towards more philanthropic efforts. In the same year he and his wife started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation was funded by Gates and is currently the largest private foundation in the U.S. with its total assets being over $38 billion in value. The main goals and efforts made by the group are advancing healthcare and spreading vaccines.
Bill Gates has improved the world in countless ways. Other than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill also created the Giving Pledge with Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway). The Giving Pledge was made to encourage other billionaires to take part in more charitable actions. So far as of 2017, the Giving Pledge has 158 different signatories with most of them being billionaires. All have pledged over half of their wealth to amass over $350 billion.
Bill Gates is a wonderful role model change maker because throughout his life he has never lost the passion to help those in need. He founded Microsoft, a technology giant, and made billions. Then in his later years at Microsoft, he spent more time to create the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Through the foundation he became the most charitable person in the world. Bill Gates is definitely a role model change maker for both his philanthropic and technological advancements to society.
Sources
“Bill Gates.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/.
“GFO Home.” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, www.gatesfoundation.org/.
Gates, Bill and Melinda. “10 Tough Questions We Get Asked.” Gatesnotes.com, www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter.
Gates, Bill and Melinda. “8 Great Questions from Readers.” Gatesnotes.com, www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/2018-Annual-Letter-questions-from-readers.
Layton, Lyndsey. “How Bill Gates Pulled off the Swift Common Core Revolution.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 June 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html?utm_term=.a663bfa1c9c5.
Martin, Tanza Loudenback and Emmie. “The 20 Most Generous People in the World.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 12 Oct. 2015, www.businessinsider.com/most-generous-people-in-the-world-2015-10/#1-bill-gates-20.
Bill Gates. “Bill Gates (@BillGates).” Twitter, Twitter, 1 Mar. 2018,twitter.com/BillGates?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author.
“About - The Giving Pledge.” Giving Pledge, www.givingpledge.org/About.aspx.
