Bill Gates was born to William Henry II and Mary Maxwell Gates on 28th October, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. Bill Gates is the only son of his parents and has two sisters; the elder sister is Kristianne and the younger sister is Libby. As a young child, Bill Gates enjoyed the game of monopoly as well as athletic games, the family played at their summer house (Biography.com).
Bill Gates met his future wife at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan, New York in 1987 and proposed to her in 1993. The couple married on January 1, 1994 on the Hawaiian Island of Lanai. Bill and Melinda Gates have three children the eldest of which is Jennifer Katharine Gates, born in 1996. The second is a son named Rory John Gates who was born in 1999 and the youngest daughter is Phoebe Adele Gates who was born in 2002 (Stritof and Stritof). Bill and Melinda Gates founded William H. Gates Foundation in 1994 which eventually became Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000. The couple is now fully committed to their philanthropic goals (Biography.com).
Bill Gates attended a private school named Lakeside School where he excelled at several subjects including Math, Science, and Drama. It was at Lakeside where Bill Gates first encountered computer and became interested in it. At Lakeside, Bill Gates met Paul Allen who had similar interests in computer and the two became close. In 1973, Gates enrolled at Harvard University to study Law but dropped out to pursue commercial opportunities in software development. Gates and his business partner Paul Allen wrote their first software “Traf-o-Data” in 1970 which monitored traffic patterns in Seattle (Biography.com).
Bill Gates is famous for not only helping make PC a household commodity but also for his philanthropic endeavors. Gates achievements in the computing sector have made him the richest person in the world and he is now using his fortune to help the less fortunate people of the world.
- Biography.com. “Bill Gates.” 3 November 2013 http://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520?page=1
- Stritof, Bob and Sheri Stritof. Bill and Melinda Gates. 3 November 2013 http://marriage.about.com/od/entrepreneurs/p/billgates.htm
