Biography

Bill GATES

2003 ranking: 20

William Henry Gates III (b. 1955) is a computer executive based in an office on the second floor of building number eight of his company's headquarters in Redmond, CA. He hasn't strayed far. Gates was born in Seattle, Washington. His parents nicknamed him Trey from the III in his name and members of the family never called him anything else.

Gates' high IQ and massive personal drive ensured him a place at Harvard University. He arrived at America's most respected seat of learning in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall of 1973, all brain with no real sense of direction. Later, he would say that he went to Harvard to learn from people smarter than he was … and was disappointed. The comment probably says as much about Bill Gates opinion of himself as it does about Harvard.

In 1975, while still at the university he teamed up with Paul Allen once more to develop a version of BASIC, an early computer-language. Fired up with the new world at his finger tips, in 1977 Gates decided to drop out of Harvard to work full-time at a small computer software company he had founded with his friend. The company was called Microsoft. The rest is history.

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