See full version: How Bill Gates Started; Infographic Biography
It was a regular day in the Gates household. When the family was getting ready and Bill, known in his family as Trey, was still downstairs, his mother called down to his room in the basement, “Trey, what are you doing down there?”
“I’m thinking, mother. Don’t you ever think?” he shot back.
Steve Jobs showed up. He wanted Bill to write new software that was visual. Programs like Excel and Words. Programs that looked human. Bill got down to work. Jobs thought Bill’s team’s product was tasteless, but Bill kept at it. He got better and better until he got really good. Bill started to be a perfectionist. here
Five years later IBM knocked on Bill’s door to see if he had written an operating system they could buy. Bill hadn’t. But he said, “Yes.” Real quick, he found an operating system from another person in Seattle and bought it. With the copyright. Then he sold it to IBM. For a lot more. This was DOS. And without copyright – they never asked for it. “Who would pay for software?” they reasoned. It’s the hardware that people are after. Bill saw the opportunity to make people pay for software. Bill started to see the future. He was now a visionary. more
The Apple I was sold as a motherboard to a local store for $500 and shortly thereafter, the team continued on to create the Apple II computer. The founders' products and company became famous when they got a break from their Macintosh line of products, from which they earned millions of dollars. Now, Apple is leading a technological revolution with its various devices, including Mac computers, iPhones, iPods, and iPads. more
Yes, the world's most famous search engine was actually started in a garage. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, graduates of Stanford University, rented a garage from a friend, Susan Wojcicki, in September of 1998. They worked day and night for a number of months and developed what would be known as Google. Their main goal while creating the website was to organize and maintain all kinds of information on a single platform accessible to common people all over the world. Today, Google is the most commonly used search engine in the world and has also launched other useful websites and applications like Gmail, Google+, and Google Drive.
Amazon.com is a well-known online shopping website that was created in 1994 as an online bookstore by Jeff Bezos. He created the website in his garage in Washington, originally investing nearly $40,000 to enable him to order, sell, and deliver books to 48 different countries. He succeeded in selling his first book in July 1995, and since then has built Amazon into the largest online shopping store in world. here
Every computer user knows the Microsoft brand. It's the remarkable and famous software that was once created in a small Albuquerque garage by Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen. Both of them gave more importance to programming language and software operations and worked in collaboration with IBM. They got their first operating system licensed for $80,000. They kept working hard and some years later they developed their most impressive and exceptional operating system, called Windows. Today, Windows is the most widely used software on the globe. About 80% of computers worldwide are running this operating system. here
He continued to talk about the garages in his life. “There was this humble garage here in Seattle, and the garage in Albuquerque where we founded Microsoft. There’s no better symbol for the entrepreneur than the humble garage. Of course,” the mogul went on, “we founded our company in a garage to preserve the pile of money I got from my parents, but I assume other people do it because they’re poor.” more
As he walked into the detached two-car garage in Seattle’s Laurelhurst neighborhood, the billionaire paused briefly to address the reporters gathered. “When I die, I’ll be remembered for Microsoft, I’ll be remembered for my charitable foundation, and hopefully I won’t be remembered too much for Internet Explorer,” he said, eliciting a polite laugh from those present. “But few people will remember that none of that would’ve been possible had I not been born absurdly wealthy, something I decided to do right here in this garage.”
Popular author and expert on high achievement Malcolm Gladwell says that Bill Gates exemplifies what he likes to call the “10,000-Hour Rule.”
“To really succeed in business, you need to spend 10,000 hours working relentlessly in the pursuit of that thing, or you can have 10,000 dollars in a trust fund at birth that your parents make regular contributions to,” the Canadian said. “It’s hard to find any successful person that didn’t have one of those things.” here
The Gates Foundation used the opportunity of Bill’s nostalgic visit home to unveil the Bill & Melinda Gates Garage Campaign, which promises to spend $100 million building garages in poorer countries for children to be born rich in. here
In a tiny Albuquerque garage, with room for only two people, Gates and his friend, Paul Allen, started a firm, which was originally called “Micro-Soft”. [links]
All startups must begin somewhere, and some of the world’s largest, highest-grossing Startups That Started in a Garage.
After contacting Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the creators of the Altair 8800, Gates and Allen were invited to write a BASIC programming language interpreter for the microcomputer. [links]
The computer was sold as a motherboard, without a keyboard, monitor, or case. A local store agreed to buy 50 units of the Apple I, for $500 each, and the team completed their first order within 30 days.
Today, a plaque marks the spot where HP and Silicon Valley first started — in a California garage. more
Today, Microsoft is a multinational technology corporation, and co-founder Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world.