The Richest Man In The World 2014
Bill Gates Is The Richest Person In The World 2014
Born to William Henry Gates and Mary Maxwell in 1955, Bill was the middle born of a family of three children. At a tender age of 13, he showed major interest in computer programming, which saw him grow to become one of the wealthiest men in the world. He was a voracious reader which made his parents worried, fearing that he might turn out to be a loner. This was what prompted them to take him to lakeside school. At lakeside, he met Paul Allen, who was to later become his partner when forming Microsoft. Though Paul was two years older than Bill, they were both enthusiastic about computers. This saw the two argue over who was supposed to run the computer lab. At one point, they were banned from going back into the computer lab because of hacking into the systems. Well, let’s say they were allowed back when they promised to debug the program.
At age 15, Gates and Paul started their first business known as Traf-o-Data. It was a computer based program which supervised traffic patterns in Seattle. It fetched $20,000. Bill obviously knew that he wanted to venture into business. However, at that time, his parents did not allow it. They wanted him to go through college first as they hoped that he was going to become a lawyer. He graduated from lakeside in 1973. When he sat for his SAT test, he scored 1590 out of the possible 1600. This score corresponds to an IQ of about 170.
How Bill Gates became the Richest Man In The World
Though he enrolled for a law career in Harvard University, he spent most of his time in the computer lab rather than in class. By then, Paul had dropped out of Washington University after two years and was living in Boston while working for Honeywell. Later, Bill Gates joined him. Their breakthrough came in when they promised MTIS that they were capable of developing a software which could run the Altair, which was a mini computer kit developed by MTIS. After working on it for two months, it worked out. This led to the hiring of Allen. Bill went to work with him and they formed a partnership which they named Micro-soft. Later, they got rid of the hyphen.
Another breakthrough came by when they were contracted to provide software which could work in the IBM’s PC. The contract brought great success and saw an increase in staff members to 128 from 25 in around 1981. In the same year, bill was appointed the president of Microsoft while Allen became the executive vice president. By 1983, the company had gone global and had opened offices in japan and Great Britain. However, thing were not as good since Allen fell ill and had to leave Microsoft. In 1985, he launched windows. In 1986, Bill Gates decided to take Microsoft public. The initial public offering was $21 per share which rose to $90.7 per share in 1987. Considering that he owned 45% of the company, this made him an instant billionaire. Since that time, he has remained one of the richest men in the world.
It has never been an easy ride for Bill Gates. For him to achieve his success, he had to work tirelessly each day to an extent that he would have to sleep in his office at times. He has also been through certain accusations of unfair dealings. At one time, his company almost faced a division of its two sections. However, it survived the ordeal.
Despite having dropped out of college, he now has several honorary doctorates from various universities. He also received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II. Among his many philanthropic awards is being named one of the most influential people of the 2oth century. In February 2014, Bill surprised many when he stepped down from the Microsoft’s chairmanship to dedicate his time and energy to charity. He then took up the role of the technology adviser.
There are many interesting facts about this great business man that many do not know about. For instance, not many now that he got married on New Year’s Day to his beautiful wife Melinda with whom they have three children. He lives in a lavish house which is famous for its technological features. Most of the house is built under a hill which makes it look smaller than its actual size. “The geek who changed the world” as BBC referred to him surely deserves to be called the richest man in world ever.
The World’s Richest Man List 2014
Now you know who richest person in 2014 is, but if you want to see The World’s Richest Man List 2014 then take a look at The Richest People In The World 2014.