Biography Of Two Famous Entrepreneur

Where did Bill Gates grow up?

William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. He was the middle child of William H. Gates II, a prominent Seattle lawyer, and Mary Gates, who worked as a teacher before she had kids. Bill had an older sister, Kristi, and a younger sister, Libby.

Bill loved to play board games and was competitive at most everything he did. He was an intelligent student and his best subject in grade school was math. However, Bill got easily bored with school and ended up getting into trouble a lot. His parents kept him occupied with outside activities like Boy Scouts (he earned his Eagle Scout badge) and reading science fiction books.

Computers

At the time when Bill was growing up, there weren’t home computers like the PC, the laptop, or the tablet like we have today. Computers were owned by large companies and took up lots of space. Lakeside school purchased time on one of these computers that the students could use. Bill found the computer fascinating. The first computer program he wrote was a version of tic-tac-toe.

At one point, Bill and some of his fellow students were banned from using the computer because they hacked it to get extra computing time. They then agreed to look for bugs in the computer system in return for computer time. Later, while still in high school, Bill wrote a payroll program for a company and a scheduling program for his school. He even started a business with his friend Paul Allen writing a computer program that helped to track traffic patterns in Seattle.

College

After graduating from high school in 1973, Gates attended Harvard University. At first he planned to study as a lawyer, but he continued to spend much of his time on computers. He also kept in touch with his friend Paul Allen who was working for Honeywell.

When the Altair personal computer came out in 1974, Gates and Allen decided they could write a BASIC software program to run on the computer. They called up Altair and told them they were working on the program. Altair wanted a demonstration in a few weeks, but Gates hadn’t even started on the program. He worked hard over the next month or so and, when they finally went to New Mexico to run the software, it worked perfectly the first time.

Starting Microsoft

In 1975, Gates dropped out of Harvard to start a software company with Paul Allen called Microsoft. The company was doing well, but it was in 1980 that Gates made a deal with IBM that would change computing. Microsoft reached a deal to provide the MS-DOS operating system on the new IBM PC. Gates sold the software to IBM for a fee of $50,000, however he held onto the copyright of the software. When the PC market took off, Microsoft also sold MS-DOS to other PC manufacturers. Soon, Microsoft was the operating system in a large percentage of computers around the world.

Windows

In 1985, Gates and Microsoft took another risk. They released the Microsoft Windows operating system. This was Microsoft’s answer to a similar operating system introduced by Apple in 1984. At first, many people complained that Microsoft Windows wasn’t as good as the Apple version. However, Gates continued to press the open PC concept. Microsoft Windows could run on a variety of PC compatible machines, while the Apple operating system only ran on Apple machines. Microsoft won the operating system battle and was soon installed on nearly 90% of the world’s personal computers.

Microsoft Grows

Gates wasn’t satisfied with just winning the operating system portion of the software market. Over the next few years he introduced new products such as Windows Office programs like Word and Excel. The company also introduced new and improved versions of Windows.

World’s Richest Man

In 1986, Gates took Microsoft public. The company’s stock was worth $520 million. Gates owned 45 percent of the stock himself which was worth $234 million. The company continued its rapid growth and the stock price soared. At one point, Gates’ stock was worth over $100 billion. He was the richest man in the world.

Why was Bill Gates successful?

Like most successful entrepreneurs, Bill Gates’ success came from a combination of hard work, intelligence, timing, business sense, and luck. Gates constantly challenged his employees to work harder and innovate, but he also worked as hard or harder than the people who worked for him. Gates also wasn’t afraid to take risks. He took a risk when he dropped out of Harvard to start his own company. He also took a risk when he changed Microsoft’s operating system from MS-DOS to Windows. However, his risks were calculated. He had confidence in himself and his product.

Personal Life

Gates married Melinda French in January of 1994. They have since had three children including two daughters and a son. In 2000, Gates and his wife formed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today, this is one of the largest charitable foundations in the world. Gates personally has donated over $28 billion to charity.

Where did Steve Jobs grow up?

Steve Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco, California on February 24, 1955. His birth parents gave him up for adoption and he was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. Paul was a machinist and Clara an accountant. When Steve was five, the family moved to Mountain View, California where Steve went to school and grew up.

One of Steve’s favorite hobbies growing up was working with electronics in his garage with his dad. They would take apart electronics like radios and then put them back together. Steve was a smart student, but got bored with school. He often played pranks on others, getting into trouble. When he was thirteen, Jobs met eighteen-year-old Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was also into electronics and the two boys became friends.

Early Life

After graduating from high school, Jobs attended Reed College in Oregon. However, he found the classes boring and soon dropped out, taking a job with video game maker Atari. Jobs became more and more interested in philosophy. He quit his job and took a trip to India to find “enlightenment.” He spent seven months traveling around India and studying the religion of Zen Buddhism. Upon his return to California, he went back to work for Atari.

Apple Computer

Jobs began hanging out with Steve Wozniak again and the two of them were very interested in computers. Wozniak wanted his own personal computer and, being the electronics genius he was, he invented his own computer. Jobs was impressed. He said they should start their own company selling the computer and Wozniak agreed. In 1976, they formed the company Apple Computer and called their first computer the Apple I. They began making the computers in Jobs’ garage. Jobs was just 21 years old at the time.

Outof Apple

The next two personal computers from Apple, the Apple III and the Lisa, were not very successful. Jobs put all his efforts into the development of the Macintosh. The Macintosh was introduced with much fanfare during the Super Bowl. It was a huge success.

However, Apple was coming under increasing pressure from the PC designed by IBM. The PC was an open concept which could be cloned and made by multiple companies. The PC was much cheaper than the Macintosh and Apple sales began to decline. Jobs took the blame and resigned from Apple in 1985.

Next Computer

Always wanting to create that next great product, Jobs started a new company called NeXT Computer. The first products from NeXT were high-end personal computers. They were technically great, but too expensive for the average person and NeXT began to lose money. Jobs then turned NeXT into a software company and it began to have some success.

Pixar Movies

In 1986, Jobs purchased a graphics company for $10 million. He changed the name of the company to Pixar. At first the company sold 3D graphics software, but in 1991 they received a contract from Disney to create a full length film. Their first film was Toy Story which was a huge success. Pixar went on to make films such as Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Cars, WALL-E, and Up. Jobs actually made more money with Pixar than he did during his first stint with Apple.

Back to Apple

In 1997, Apple ended up purchasing NeXT from Jobs. He then returned to the company as the CEO. Apple was struggling at the time and needed some new ideas. With Jobs at the helm, Apple began to branch out into new products. They introduced the iPod music player and iTunes music software. Both were a huge success and gave Apple a new image of being on the cutting edge of consumer electronics. In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone which changed the way phones were used and took the mobile phone market by storm. Jobs became a celebrity and was considered by many to be one of the great innovators of the 2000s.

Personal life

In 1991, he married Laurene Powell, together they had three children and lived in Palo Alto, California.

In 2003, he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. Over the next few years, Jobs struggled with health issues and was often forced to delegate the running of Apple to Tim Cook. In 2009, he underwent a liver transplant, but two years later serious health problems returned. He worked intermittently at Apple until August 2011, where he finally retired to concentrate on his deteriorating health. He died as a result of complications from his pancreatic cancer, suffering cardiac arrest on 5 October 2011 in Palo Alto, California.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bill-Gates

https://www.biography.com/people/bill-gates-9307520

Biography of Bill Gates

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0423418/bio

https://allaboutstevejobs.com/bio/short_bio