Bill Gates Modern Day Robin Hood?
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Bill Gates – Modern Age Robin Hood
Legacy is “something handed down or received from an ancestor or predecessor”(HarperCollins Publishers). It can also be referred to as something we receive from others with the value. There is no doubt that the person who fits the description of someone with legacy is Bill Gates. Bill Gatess legacy represents the greatest technological and computer aid in the history of mankind simply because computers shape the way humans live and think. Consequently, with the invention of the internet, the whole scale of possibilities for people was presented. Computer users can now communicate, socialize, find all kinds of easily accessible information, or even study online. The core part of the computer is its software, very similar to the human brain, that makes it possible for people to operate it. Without it, a computer would be just a box filled with various useless electronic devices that would look like a maze. The man behind the creation of such powerful tool is a college dropout, Bill Gates. His invention caused a technological boom in the area of computers, and gave rise to various computer industries, thus creating thousands of new jobs either directly or indirectly. Nonetheless, the invention of the software we all know as Windows was only the first significant step of this brilliant man on his way to the computer Olympus. He launched various utilities for computers as a CEO( Chief Executive Officer) of the company he founded called Microsoft. And even after he dropped the position of the Microsofts CEO, he remained actively participating in charity work and philanthropy activities by using the Gates Foundation, which he established with his wife. Though, no person is only Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. His legacy is closely linked with Microsoft, and according to Tim Ferguson “the company has also suffered from accusations of anti-competitive behavior with well-publicized battles with US regulators and the European Union.” Bill Gates, thanks to his hard work and great ideas, had become the richest man on the planet and remained on the top for many years. Bill Gates is an icon of entrepreneurial world and his legacy proves it.
William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates, and is one of three children. His dad was working as a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and United way. Since his young age, Bill has shown great competitiveness and skills for leadership and his hobbies only proved so, he was a brilliant at Monopoly and board games. At the age of 13, he enrolled in the Lakeside school. This was the place where was Bill for the first time introduced to the world of computers.
As a prominent preparatory school, Lakeside was granted an ability to provide computer time for its students and Bill Gates was no exception. He became soon deeply occupied by the “magic machine” and what possibilities it offered. He started to focus onprogramming and soon wrote his first program in BASIC computer language. It was a worldwide know tic-tac-toe game that allowed users to play against the computer.(bio.com, 2-3)
Lakeside school was also a place where great friendship and partnership was born. Bill met Paul Allen, a boy who was 2 years older, and soon found out they share common interests in computing. The company that owned the computer didnt offer the boys as much information as they were craving for, so as the Paul Allens book about Bill Gates says, they went dumpster diving to get the valuable information they needed. Once they found it, they hacked the companys administrative trying to get access to the account with no limitations. Before they were able to finish their vicious plot, they got caught and were banned to use the computer.(Rosoff)
In 1970, the first business opportunity for young masterminds appeared. At the time, Gates was only 15 years old. Him and Paul were asked by the state of Washington to develop a program that monitored traffic system in Seattle, and on this occasion they formed a company called “Traf-O-Data”. The program became very successful and their first achievement netted them approximately $20,000.(Paluri) Bill Gates was ready to hop into the entrepreneurial world but his parents stopped him to make the dreams of their son becoming a lawyer come true. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs, which is still one of the highest scores, and enrolled at Harvard University.
Even after the separation of Bill and Paul, they stayed in contact, often daydreaming about their future business plans. It was in summer 1974 when Bill Gates went to see Paul Allen who dropped out of Washington State University and started working for a computing company. Paul showed Bill the new edition of computing magazine that featured an article about the new Altair 8800, which was designed for programmers. They realized this could be the opportunity of their lives and Allen immediately contacted Ed Roberts, president of Altair manufacturer, and offered him a computer language software for the system called BASIC, even though the reality was that at the time they hadnt written a single line of code. After their agreement, Paul and Gates started relentlessly working on the new program, and two months later, when the time of their demonstration came, they had it ready. Actually, this was the first time they tried BASIC on Altair8800. It worked perfectly. Allen was hired at MITS( the company, which developed Altair) as the director of software, and Gates soon followed him, dropping out of his sophomore year at Harvard in 1975. On April 4th, only 21-years old, Bill Gates and Paul Allen create legal partnership Micro-soft, which according to Randy: “(It) will grow into one of the largest U.S. corporations and place them among the worlds richest people.”
Bill Gates, concerned with the piracy of BASIC software in 1976 wrote “An Open Letter To Hobbyists”. In the letter, he proclaimed that software engineers should protect their products and that free copies and its distribution destroys the software itself. He also stated that without payment, he could not continue to produce and distribute the high-quality software.(Usher) This behavior has made Gates couple of his first enemies who considered him spoiled and obnoxious. The opposite view showed that sharing the software among colleagues is necessary to improve it. The rejection of Gates proposal consequently led to the disintegration of Micro-soft from MITS, and moving it to its new home in Washington.
The fledgling company, renamed Microsoft, had about 25 employees at the beginning, and Gates put himself on its top. As the chairman, Bill personally reviewed every