Bill Gates - the greatest entrepreneur

Bill Gates is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. He is co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation - the world’s leading provider of software for personal computer, co-founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest charity in the world. He is the world’s third richest person since 2008 (Forbes, 2012) and one of the 100 most influential people in the world (Time Magazine). Bill Gates is the living statue for not only entrepreneur but also everybody in all over the world.

William Henry (Bill) Gates III was born on October 28, 1955 in a family having rich business, political and community service background. Since he was a child, he has showed his interest in computer system and software. In 1974, he attended Harvard University but left there after one year to focus on his interest, computer. With Paul Allen, he formed Microsoft - the leading company in IT and successfully drove Microsoft till 2008.  Then he almost left all the work in Microsoft to focus on his charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that he formed in 2000 with his wife.

To be a successful entrepreneur, Bill has some special characteristics. Firstly, he has a very broad vision. Since the first day he found out about his future work with computer, Bill has dreamed about “having a personal computer in every desk and Microsoft software for each and every computer”. He built his Empire around this vision and still continues working on it. Secondly, Bill is a person with high passionate. To follow his interest in computer and software, he dared to drop out of studying in Harvard University, a famous university that every single student would have wanted to be part of. His passion is one of the reasons to make him the richest man of the world. Bill is an intelligence person. It helped him to attain top position in the profession he chooses. Furthermore, he is also very intelligence to choose the way and chance to be successes. He knows how to borrow the idea, or even workforce from competitors to perfect his product. The symbolized evidences are MS-DOS and Windows.  Bill Gates is not only intelligence but also a hard working man. In his college days, he used to work all night long on his computer. When Microsoft was started, Bill used to sleep only 6 hours per day without skipping a single day of office. Hard working is one of the major keys for his success.  Gates is known as a IT architecture, however, his communication skill is also a key to success. He take an important role as a sale man for MS-DOS, and also through communication, he convinced many talents to work for him hardly and faithfully.

Bill Gates is an icon of the entrepreneur with his characteristics. However, thing that makes me admire him the most is his philanthropy. Bill and his wife gave over 28 billion USD to charity.  They also plan to eventually give 95% of their wealthy to charity. Thanks to them, the war against poverty and disease has gone to the new level.

Through his success, his characteristics and his generosity, Bill Gates is the greatest entrepreneur, in my opinion.

Minh Nguyen

Bibliography

Bellis, M., 2012. Bill Gates - Biography and History. [Online] Available at: http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventors/a/Bill_Gates.htm [Accessed 2012].

Forbes, 2012. Bill Gates. [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/ [Accessed 2012].

Miller, C., 2008. The secret of Bill Gates' success. [Online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7464074.stm [Accessed 2012].

Paluri, R.K., 2011. Bill Gates - A story of Success. [Online] Available at: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/7-19-2004-56835.asp [Accessed 2012].