Celebrated Name:Bill GatesReal Name/Full Name:William Henry Gates IIIParents:Bill Gates Sr., Mary Maxwell GatesAge:65 years oldBirth Date:28 October 1955Dead or Alive:He is Alive and Kicking, Not Dead.Birthplace:Seattle, Washington, United StatesEducation:Harvard College (1973–1975), Lakeside School (1967–1973)Nationality:AmericanEthnicity:WhiteReligion:Christianity/Believe in GodHeight:In centimeters- 177 cm
In meters- 1.77 m
In Feet Inches- 5′ 8″Weight:In Kilograms – 61 kg
In lbs – 135 lbsBody Type:AverageFamous For:Founder of Microsoft CorporationProfession:American business magnate, investor, author, philanthropist, and humanitarianNet Worth:$105 BillionLast Updated:22nd June 2021
Bill Gates is perhaps the wealthiest person who has ever lived on earth, but now its official Bill Gates is no longer the wealthiest person on earth as we speak. He has been dethroned from the number one position as the world richest man by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos whose net worth currently stands at over $130 billion making him at least $30-$35 billion richer than any individual on earth.
The American based business magnate, former chairman of the giant tech company Microsoft which he co-founded, an author, an investor, the philanthropist has a whopping net worth fortune of billion dollars just enough to place him as the second richest man on earth. Bill Gates has held the number one position in the list of world’s wealthiest persons for many years and only losing on a handful of occasions such as this one although this is a bit different since the margin is too broad.
Bill Gates co-founded the software giant Microsoft together with an entrepreneur Paul Allen, and together they revolutionised the world of personal computers. Today the former Microsoft CEO takes care of his charitable foundation along with his wife, Melinda. If you’re curious to know about his biography and how much is Bill Gates net worth as of 2021, well keep here and find out even more things you probably don’t know about the second wealthiest man on the planet earth, Bill Gates.
Table of Contents
Early Life
William Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955, to a successful Seattle attorney William Henry II and Mary Maxwell Gates who was a teacher in Kristi Washington USA. He was the second child of the three children others were Libby young sister and Kristianne the older sister hence the only son in the family.
Bill Gates grew up like any other normal kid as he loved sports, joined Cub Scouts, and many are the times he would show signs of competitiveness as he would coordinate family-based athletic games. At the age of 11-12 Bills parents got a little bit concerned about Gates behaviour which portrayed him as a loner and they took precautionary measures by enrolling him at Lakeside preparatory school where he did exemplary well in subjects such as English, Science math and a bit of drama.
It was at Lakeside School that Bill gates developed early interests in computer science as he would spend hours and hours in the computer lab where he met Paul Allen who had similar interests as his. Before graduating from Lakeside in 1973, he wrote a tic-tac-toe program that allowed students to play a game against the computer. Gates went ahead to join Harvard University where he didn’t have a definite career plan and never took seriously his degree in law as he put much of his time in the computer lab. Within two years at the University, Gates had enough of law and decided to drop out to pursue his career.
Age, Height, Weight, Body Measurements
As of 22nd June 2021, Bill Gates is 65 years old, and he is alive and kicking, not dead. He is 1.77 m tall and has a body weight of 61 kg. His body type is Average.
Personal Life: Is Bill Gates Married?
In 1994 Gates tied the knot with Melinda French in Hawaii island and today they have three children Jennifer Katharine (b. 1996), Rory John (b. 1999), and Phoebe Adele (b. 2002). He resides in a mansion located in Washington State United States and loves reading, playing golf, tennis, and bridge.
Professional Career
Gates and Allen have reunited once again when they read an article on the Altair 8800 mini-computer kit, and they offered a company to develop a software that can run it. After successful demonstration of Altair Basic functionality which is the first program language, Microsoft developed MITS and Gates hired Allen came along to work with him. Microsoft was created in 1976 and the company expanded by creating other languages such as Fortran, Basic, Pascal, and others, and it was just a few months the company had already made more than one million in profit. Word went around rather quickly about Microsoft, and the first visitor was IBM.
The partnership between IBM and Microsoft, where Microsoft would provide an operating system for IBM ( MS-DOS )personal computers marked the beginning of his success and the realisation of Gates dream of one computer per household. Microsoft would get some profit from the sale of every computer with MS-DOS product, and they would still retain licensing fee.
After a while, the partnership between Gates and Allen would end because unfortunately, Aleen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, thus left Gates as the sole controller of the Microsoft empire. He went ahead to introduce Microsoft Windows operating system which turned out to very successful commercially as it is one of the most used operating systems, then he developed windows 3.0 turned out to be the best market seller too, before slowing down things after the development of Windows 95.
The slowing down of his work was due to concentration with family as he had already got his first daughter with his wife, Melinda French. It was during this period that saw Gates introduce web-browser Explorer which was met with the most severe lawsuit related to technology ever that saw the company lose millions and made him step down as Microsoft CEO a position which was taken by Steve Balmer and he took the Chairmanship position. Bill Gates stepped down as the chairman of Microsoft in 2014 and assumed the role of a technology advisor to date.
Awards & Achievements
Apart from being one of the most influential people on earth and the most richest in the planet he has been given several accolades among the honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Bower Award for Business leadership, Legion of Honor in France, Padma Bhushan by Government of India, Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America among many others.
Bill Gates Net Worth, Salary & Income in 2021
As of June 2021, Bill Gates net worth is estimated to be about $105 billion. The figure puts Bill Gates at the second position in the list of top 10 richest people on earth, meaning he has been ousted from the top spot by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. It’s not the first time Bill Gates has been dethroned from the list of the world’s richest man, but this time around Jeff Bezos has opened an enormous gap with around $40 billion.
Most of Bill Gates wealth is what he has accrued on his Microsoft company over the years a company that now he owns 2.3% of Microsoft shares which account for 13% of his wealth. But why is Bill Gates getting richer and richer everyday yet he is selling off his Microsoft Company Shares? What you don’t know is Gates has a personal investment company known as Cascade Investment LLC, which he hired a man by Larson to run it. Cascade has diversified Bill Gates wealth to vast holdings in real estate and other non-tech companies such as Tractor Maker Deere & Co, AutoNation, Canadian National Railway, Republic Services Inc among others.
Bill Gates as a philanthropist
With so much wealth Bill Gates and his wife Melinda decided to be a philanthropists and opened Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1994, the world’s largest private charitable organization where its primary role was giving funds to charity in the umbrella of key areas such as education, improved health care, youth, poverty, empowerment of women and young girls, and investments in low-income communities among other areas. As of today, Bill Gates has donated over $36 billion to charity and encouraged other billionaires to sign his “giving pledge” which its objective is to make these billionaires donate most of their wealth during their lifetime.
7 Facts you need to know about Bill Gates
Now that you know Bill Gates is no longer the world’s richest person and he has sold nearly all his shares at Microsoft; why don’t I even go ahead and give you more surprises on a few things you probably don’t know about Bill Gates.
1. Bill Gates doesn’t depend entirely on Microsoft, but he has another investment company known as Cascade investment LLC, which has been running for close to 20 years.
2. The origin of the word Microsoft is a combination of the word microcomputer and software.
3. There is a fly which is named after Bill Gates called Bill Gates flower fly or Eristalis Gatesi. The fly is typically found in the forest of Coast Rica.
4. He has been arrested twice in his life, and on both occasions, he was driving without a driver’s license.
5. Did you know that Gates can only speak one language alone?
6. Even though today Bill Gates is no longer the chairman of the Board or the CEO of Microsoft, he still has an advisory role to the CEO.
7. He does love and listens a lot to alternative rock no wonder he loves the American rock band Weezer.
Indeed we owe special thanks to this man as he changed the way the world operates today and much of the functions that go on. Microsoft has made life more comfortable for many people on earth as we can get tasks done in microseconds. Bill Gates will always be remembered as the legend who changed the technology on this planet, the great investor, most generous philanthropist and a business mogul.
