Marinda the later stages of his career, Gates

Marinda the later stages of his career, Gates

Marinda Hall Business Communications Dr. Joseph Jang Rise of an Empire- Bill Gates Introduction William Henry “Bill” Gates III is an American business philanthropist, author, and is chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen.

He is consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with more than 8 percent of the common stock.He has also authored and co-authored several books. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Although he is admired by many, a number of industry insiders criticize his business tactics, which they consider anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.

In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill ; Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. Early LifeAt age 13, Gates was enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school. This is where he began to show an interest in computer programming. While at Lakeside School. He wrote a tic-tac-toe program in BASIC computer language that allowed users to play against the computer. During this time, Gates developed a payroll program for the computer company the boys hacked into, and a scheduling program for the school. In 1970, at the age of 15, Bill Gates went into business with his pal, Paul Allen.

Later on they developed “Traf-o-Data,” a computer program that monitored traffic patterns in Seattle, and netted $20,000 for their efforts.Gates graduated from Lakeside School and enrolled in Harvard University in the fall of 1973. The History of Microsoft Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. The history of Microsoft began on April 4, 1975, when it was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. With annual revenues of more than $32 billion, Microsoft Corporation is more than the largest software company in the world: it is a cultural phenomenon.The company’s core business is based on developing, manufacturing, and licensing software products, including operating systems, server applications, business and consumer applications, and software development tools, as well as Internet software, technologies, and services.

Led by Bill Gates, the world’s wealthiest individual and most famous businessman, Microsoft has succeeded in placing at least one of its products on virtually every personal computer in the world, setting industry standards and defining markets in the process. Founding of Microsoft and BASIC After reading the January 1, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics that demonstrated the Altair 8800 ( a microcomputer), Bill Gates called the creators of a new microcomputer, MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), offering to demonstrate an implementation of the programming language BASIC (in computer programming, BASIC (an acronym which stands for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages designed to be easy to use) for the system.Gates had neither an interpreter nor an Altair system, yet in the eight weeks before the demo he and Allen developed the interpreter.

The interpreter worked at the demo and MITS agreed to distribute Altair BASIC. Gates left Harvard University, moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where MITS was located and founded Microsoft there. Gross income of the young company was $1 million in 1975. The company’s first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, entitled “ASCII Microsoft” (now called “Microsoft Japan”), and on November 29, 1979, the term, “Microsoft” was first used by Bill Gates.On January 1, 1979, the company moved from Albuquerque to a new home in Bellevue, Washington. The company restructured on June 25, 1981, to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington (with a further change of its name to “Microsoft, Inc. “).

As part of the restructuring, Bill Gates became president of the company and Chairman of the Board, and Paul Allen became Executive Vice President. * IBM Partnership Microsoft’s big break came in 1980 as IBM began developing its Personal Computer, or PC.While IBM contracted Microsoft to develop languages for the PC, IBM’s first choice to provide an operating system was the leader in the field, Digital Research; however, IBM and Digital Research were unable to agree on terms, so the contract for the operating system was awarded to Microsoft. As Microsoft was under a tight deadline and did not have an operating system of its own, the company purchased the rights to one from Seattle Computer Products for $75,000. Originally dubbed Q-DOS (for “Quick and Dirty Operating System”), the product was renamed MS-DOS (for “Microsoft Disk Operating System”) and modified for IBM’s purposes.

Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft retained the right to sell the operating system to other companies and to consumers, while IBM could not. Neither company could have foreseen the value of this arrangement as other manufacturers developed hardware compatible with the IBM PC, and as personal computing became a multibillion-dollar business, the fast and powerful MS-DOS became the industry’s leading operating system, and Microsoft’s revenues skyrocketed. PhilanthropyThe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF or the Gates Foundation) is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. The foundation is driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family.

The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington is controlled by three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffet. As of December 31, 2009 the foundation has had an endowment of $33. billion. In 2007, the founders were named as the second most generous philanthropists in America. The Gates Foundation gives away approximately $1 billion annually.

Its overarching philanthropic goals are to promote education and health for the world’s underprivileged. The Gates Foundation funds a variety of health initiatives in the developing world, such as the search for vaccines for AIDS and malaria. Its educational initiatives include a minority scholarship program and a campaign to provide computers to needy public libraries across the United States and Canada.The foundation has three main program areas, each with a specific focus. * Global Health Program The Global Health program work in infectious diseases focuses on developing ways to fight and prevent enteric and diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and neglected and other infectious diseases.

The program also works on integrated health solutions for family planning, nutrition, maternal, neonatal and child health, tobacco control  and vaccine-preventable diseases. Three cross-cutting programs help us successfully address our areas of focus.These include: * Discovery – Closing gaps in knowledge and science and creating critical platform technologies in areas where current tools are lacking.

* Delivery – implementing and scaling up proven approaches by identifying and proactively addressing the obstacles that typically lie in the path of adoption and uptake * Policy ; Advocacy– Promoting more and better resources, effective policies, and greater visibility of global health so that we may effectively address the foundation’s priority health targets * United States ProgramThe United States Program works with partners to tackle some of the difficult problems we face in the United States. The primary focus is on improving public education. The focus on these priority areas: * Education: We work to make sure high school students graduate ready for success and prepared to earn postsecondary degrees. We fund college and graduate school scholarships.

We support high-quality early learning programs in Washington State. * Libraries: We support efforts to supply and sustain free public access to computers and the Internet through local public libraries. Pacific Northwest: We assist struggling families by supporting innovative community organizations located in the Pacific Northwest and efforts that help break the cycle of homelessness. * Special Initiatives: We explore new ways to increase opportunities or respond to unique challenges in the United States. These currently include grants that support Postsecondary Education and Emergency Relief efforts. We also offer support to many dedicated and innovative community organizations in the Pacific Northwest * Global DevelopmentThe mission of Global Development is to increase opportunities for people in developing countries to overcome hunger and poverty. The Global Development Program seeks to increase opportunities for people in the developing world to lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.

Rooted in the belief that all lives have equal value, we are resolved that all people even those who are severely impoverished should have the chance to lead healthy, productive lives. Grant Highlights: • $23. million to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) to explore how the poor could use cell phones and other technologies to use financial services more efficiently.

• $5. 5 million to Aga Khan Foundation U. S. A.

to provide micro insurance and help poor families in Pakistan and Tanzania protect themselves from financial shocks such as the death of a breadwinner or loss of business or crops. • $5. 5 million grant and $10 million low-cost loan to Opportunity International Inc. to dramatically expand a network of commercial banks in some of the poorest parts of Africa.

Recognition In 1987, Bill Gates was officially declared a billionaire in the pages of Forbes 400 Richest People in America issue, just days before his 32nd birthday. As the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, he was worth $1. 25 billion with over $900 million more than he’d been worth the year before, when first debuted on the list. Bill Gates was ranked number one in the “Top 50 Cyber Elite by Time in 1998, and also was ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the “Top 100 influential people in media in 2001.Time magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and U2’s lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts. In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of “Heroes of our time”.

. In October 2009, it was announced that Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership of The Franklin Institute for his achievements in business and for his philanthropic work.In 2010 he was honored with the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America, its highest award for adults, for his service to youth. Conclusion In conclusion, Bill Gates is a man who has reached his American Dream of success through hard work and determination. By working with Microsoft as an organization, Gates strives to offer technology to facilitate social and economic opportunities to underserved communities throughout the world. He works to offer new technologies so underdeveloped communities are able to foster new skills and educational opportunities.By helping those who lack educational opportunities and are downtrodden with risks of disease and turmoil, Gates is giving them all a chance to live healthy lives so they will be able to pursue their own American Dreams, even if outside of America.

Essentially, the basic foundations of the original American Dream can be applied anywhere as long as there is a seed of hope to start from. Bill Gates exemplifies both sides of this ambiguous American myth by living and giving it. The American Dream could be fulfilled through any means possible.

Works Cited “Bill Gates. ” 2011.Biography. com. 22 Apr 2011. <http://www. biography.

com/articles/Bill-Gates-9307520> “Microsoft Corporation-Company History”. 2011. Funding Universe. com. 22 Apr 2011. <http://www.

fundinguniverse. com/company-histories/Microsoft-Corporation-Company-History. html> “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-Company History”. 2011. Funding Universe. com.

23 Apr 2011. <http://www. fundinguniverse. com/company-histories/Bill-amp;-Melinda-Gates-Foundation-Company-History.

html> “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”. 2011. Gates Foundation. org. 22 Apr 2011.

<http://www. atesfoundation. org/programs/Pages/overview. aspx> “Bill Gates-Recognition”. 2011. Wikipedia.

com. 21. Apr 2011.

“http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Bill_Gates” Abstract This paper presents a brief biological background and career of computer genius and the head of the Microsoft Empire Bill Gates. This paper states how Bill Gates started from his beginnings as a high school student interested in computers to the designing of his first computer with Paul Allen, the “Traf-O-Data”. The paper then shows how Gates moved to the development of BASIC and the founding of the Microsoft Company.Also, included in this paper are the development of Bill Gates’ foundation called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Table of Contents Page Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………….

. IV Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Early Life………………………………………………………………………………………… 2 History of Microsoft………………………………………………………………………………2 Philanthropy………………………………………………………………………………………4 Recognition………………………………………………………………………………………. 7 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………….

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