28 октября 1955 года родился Уильям Генри Гейтс III

Today, the whole world knows who he is: a straight-A student, baggy clothes, slightly guilty look through his glasses. An intellectual dreamer, with a fortune of 66 billion dollars. However, during the time it took you to read these words, his wealth could have grown: the only place where Microsoft products are not in use would be the Moon.

In his final year of high school, he completed a commercial order for software, made $30,000 for it and arranged for it to be counted as his graduation project. A brilliant solution! Many more such solutions would follow.

Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University in his third year: and where would he find time for cramming if he spent it all developing a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800? His business acumen told Gates that a great future awaited personal computers. His company, co-founded with Paul Allen, was called Microsoft. The “Micro” in its name comes from microcomputers.

The deal made between the tiny company and the titan of the market, IBM, today is part of the curriculum for students to analyze. The official version says that IBM decided to play in the market of personal computers and commissioned an operating system from Bill Gates' company. Gates did not create DOS, but bought it from another company, and IBM not only paid for the program and undertook to supply computers with the program pre-installed, but also paid royalty on each unit sold. They became the source of Gates' massive wealth.

Gates did not invent the window system either; it was created and implemented by the father of the Apple computer, Steve Jobs. The business genius intercepted the clever idea and managed to make it above competition. Windows made it possible to use a computer for people who know nothing about programming. Sales of PCs with pre-installed Microsoft products grew exponentially, along with Gates' income.

Making puns about his name, competitors call him the “Gates of Hell" and “Gator.” With good reason: the alligator of capitalism has consumed all competitors and got the world hooked on his products.

Annoyed by their quality, users retaliate by making jokes about him: that Bill's mother gets mentioned more often, that his favorite composer must be Gluck (Russian for “glitch"), that the head of Microsoft won Nobel Prizes in economics and medicine for inventing a way to sell hemorrhoids for good money. Acrimoniously joking that the only product created by Bill Gates that would not go slow is a car, because the brakes wouldn't work.

The visible embodiment of the American dream, a self-made man, a business genius and a genius overall, he has pinned the planet to the mat. Even Harvard threw in the towel: just recently, it recognized Gates as its alumnus. In between works, the billionaire writes books where he teaches about life and business. And the young generation is studying them at night, hoping to discover the secret of his success.