There is not a single person who hasn’t heard of Bill Gates. Co-founder of Microsoft, tech guru and one of the most influential people in the business world. Let’s find out what his life would look like as a chart.

Name: William Henry Gates III

Date of birth: 28/10/1955

Net worth: $119B

Starting point: Born to a rich and influential family, Bill Gates had access to the best education. During his days in a private school, he wrote his first software program and studied programming in general. 

Lower point: Although his parents wanted him to pursue a career in law,  Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University in 1973 to start his own business along with his friend Paul Allen.

  • Despite their common goal, they had many disagreements as to how the business should be handled.

  • While still in school, they managed to get kicked out of the computer lab for cheating the system to obtain more free computer time. This shows that even geniuses get caught sometimes.

High point: In 1975, they founded Micro-Soft (micro-computer and software combined). Their first product was a BASIC software that ran on an Altair computer.

  • Fun fact: they didn’t have an Altair computer, nor any drafts of their future software, but they still contacted the Altair’s company, MITS, to see if they would be interested. It turned out, they absolutely were! That’s how, without any software, they landed their first successful gig that kick-started their company.

Lower points:

  • In 1977, MITS was sold to another company, and that left Microsoft on their own.

  • Consequently, in 1979, Microsoft moved to Seattle.

High point: By 1980, Bill Gates released a new operating system for IBM called MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System). That earned him around $16 million.

Low point: In 1984, Macintosh strikes with a new computer. Its design and interface were way ahead of Microsoft, leaving Bill Gates’ success behind.

High points:

  • Microsoft releases a new Windows system for computers in 1985

  • IN 1986, Microsoft went public and gained immense popularity, making Bill Gates one of the wealthiest people in the country overnight.

Low point: Critics and users claimed the Windows system to be incredibly slow (and a rip-off of Macintosh).

High point: Microsoft developed its programmes that run smoothly with the system and beat Macintosh in court. Year after year, Microsoft Windows started spreading among computer users, making it the system that around 85% of all computers had installed.

Low point: In 1999, Microsoft was sued for monopoly in the desktop-computer operating systems.

High point: In 2013, Bill Gates was the world’s highest-earning billionaire.

Neutral point: In 2020, Bill Gates stated that from now on, he would focus on philanthropy and step down from his board position at Microsoft. 

Sharp intellect and out of the box thinking make Bill Gates one of the most interesting people alive, no doubts about it. We can all learn from him and his wise words:

It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.