Windows
Gates oversaw Microsoft’s company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board. Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, mounting creative differences undermined the partnership. Gates distributed an internal memo on May 16, 1991 announcing that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would shift its efforts to the Windows NT kernel development.Management styleBill Gates giving his deposition at Microsoft on August 27, 1998From Microsoft’s founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company’s product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company’s range of products, and wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it.As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft’s senior managers and program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company’s long-term interests at risk. He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” and, “Why don’t you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?” The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced. When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, “I’ll do it over the weekend.”Gates’s role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company’s programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100 line, but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company’s products. On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.Antitrust law violationsMany decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft’s business practices have had Gates’s approval. In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words like “compete,” “concerned,” and “we.” BusinessWeek reported:Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying ‘I don’t recall,’ so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology chief’s denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail Gates both sent and received.Gates later said that he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, “Did I fence with Boies? … I plead guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first degree.” Despite Gates’s denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization and tying, blocking competition, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.The European Union Microsoft competition case is also a case brought by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft for abuse of its dominant position in the market (according to competition law). It started as a complaint from Novell over Microsoft’s licensing practices in 1993, and eventually resulted in the EU ordering Microsoft to divulge certain information about its server products and release a version of Microsoft Windows without Windows Media Player.Appearance in adsBill Gates decided in 2008 to appear in at least 1 commercial in a series of ads to promote Microsoft. This commercial, co-starring Jerry Seinfeld, is a 1 and a half minute talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe store (Shoe Circus) in a mall and notices Bill Gates buying shoes inside. The salesman is trying to sell Mr. Gates shoes that are a size too big. Mr. Seinfeld begins to inform him about a pair of shoes called Conquistadors that run “a little tight” and sells him on them in a size 10 (whereas the store clerk was attempting an 11). As Mr. Gates is buying the shoes he holds up his discount card, this card uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in 1977 for a traffic violation . As they are walking out of the mall, Jerry Seinfeld asks Bill Gates if he has melded his mind to other developers, after getting a yes, he then asks if they are working on a way to make computers edible, again getting a yes. Most critics are still in debate over the exact meaning of this commercial saying that it is too vague to make sense to them, but that it is unlikely that Microsoft is attempting to make edible computers. Some say that it is an homage to Mr. Seinfeld’s own show about “nothing”(Seinfeld). Bill Gates has also appeared in commercials in 2008, aimed at countering the popular Apple Mac “I’m a Mac” commercials. The “I’m a PC” commercials feature short back-to-back clips of various people explaining that they are a PC and one other trivial fact about themselves. Bill appears once in a run of the commercial which does not feature the trivial facts, and as such there is no trivial fact to associate with him on this page. The email addresses of several of the characters or actors in the commercials (it is unclear which, as it is also unclear whether all the actors play themselves) appear in the bottom right corner of the screen. Bill’s is cited as “bill@windows.com”. The actor who appears to resemble John Hodgman (from the “I’m a Mac” adverts) in the PC commercial is cited as “sean@windows.com” and his trivial fact is that he has become a stereotype.Personal lifeGates married Melinda French from Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1994. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine(1996), Rory John(1999) and Phoebe Adele(2002). The Gates’s home is an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. According to King County public records, as of 2006 the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is $991,000. Also among Gates’s private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994. Gates is also known as an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby. He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.Gates was number one on the “Forbes 400″ list from 1993 through to 2007 and number one on Forbes list of “The World’s Richest People” from 1995 to 2007. In 1999, Gates’s wealth briefly surpassed $101 billion, causing the media to call him a “centibillionaire”. Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft’s stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In a May 2006 interview, Gates commented that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought. Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667, and $350,000 bonus totalling $966,667. He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.PhilanthropyGates began to realize the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted that he could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world. The foundation is set up to allow benefactors access to how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust. The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a major influence. Gates and his father have met with Rockefeller several times and have modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family’s philanthropic focus, namely those global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations. As of 2007 Bill and Melinda Gates were the second most generous philanthropist in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.The foundation has also received criticism because it invests the assets that it has not yet distributed, with the exclusive goal of maximizing the return on investment. As a result, its investments include companies that have been criticized for worsening poverty in the same developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include companies that pollute heavily and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world. In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its investments to assess social responsibility. It subsequently cancelled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.RecognitionTime magazine named Gates one of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Time also collectively named Gates, his wife Melinda and alternative rock band U2’s lead singer Bono as the 2005 Persons of the Year for their humanitarian efforts. In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of “Heroes of our time”. Gates was listed in the Sunday Times power list in 1999, named CEO of the year by Chief Executive Officers magazine in 1994, ranked number one in the “Top 50 Cyber Elite” by Time in 1998, ranked number two in the Upside Elite 100 in 1999 and was included in The Guardian as one of the “Top 100 influential people in media” in 2001.Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands in 2000, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden in 2002, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan in 2005, Harvard University in June 2007, and from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008. Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005, in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program “Un país de lectores”.InvestmentsCascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland, WA. bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates. BibliographyGates has authored two books:The Road Ahead (1995) Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999) Notes^ Lombardi, Candace (2007-06-08). “Bill Gates “graduates” from Harvard 30 years after dropping out”, CNET News.com. Retrieved on 4 August 2008. ^ a b “The World’s Billionaires #3 William Gates III”. Forbes (2008-03-05). Retrieved on 2008-03-06. ^ (Manes 1994, p. 11) ^ a b Chapman, Glenn (2008-06-27). “Bill Gates Signs Off”, Agence France-Presse. ^ Wahba, Phil (2008-09-17). “Bill Gates tops U.S. wealth list 15 years in a row”. Reuters. Retrieved on 2008-11-06. ^ Gates regularly documents his share ownership through public SEC form 4 filings. ^ (Manes 1994, p. 459) ^ (Lesinski 2006, p. 96) ^ (Manes 1994, p. 15) ^ (Manes 1994, p. 47) ^ (Manes 1994, p. 24) ^ (Manes 1994, p. 27) ^ a b (Gates 1996, p. 12) ^ (Manes 1994, p. 34) ^ (Gates 1996, p. 14) ^ (Lesinski 2006, p. 25) ^ (Gates 1996, p. 15) ^ http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/MCReport/mcreport.html ^ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/1013/6008040a_2.html ^ Gates, William (1979). “Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal”. Discrete mathematics 27: 47–57. doi:10.1016/0012-365X(79)90068-2. ^ a b (Gates 1996, p. 19) ^ (Wallace & 1993 59) ^ (Gates 1996, p. 18) ^ a b c . “Microsoft Visitor Center Student Information: Key Events in Microsoft History” (.DOC). Microsoft. Retrieved on 2008-02-18. ^ a b c d “Microsoft history”. The History of Computing Project. Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ (Manes 1994, p. 81) ^ Gates, Bill. “Remarks by Bill Gates” Waterloo, Ontario (2005-10-13). Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ Maiello, John Steele Gordon Michael (2002-12-23). “Pioneers Die Broke”. Forbes. Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ (Gates 1996, p. 54) ^ (Manes 1994, p. 193) ^ “May 16, 1991 internal strategies memo from Bill Gates”. Bralyn. Retrieved on 2008-04-04. ^ Rensin, David (1994). “The Bill Gates Interview”. Playboy. ^ Ballmer, Steve (1997-10-09). “Steve Ballmer Speech Transcript — Church Hill Club”. Microsoft. Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ a b Isaacson, Walter (1997-01-13). “The Gates Operating System”. Time. Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ Bank, David (1999-02-01). “Breaking Windows”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ a b Gates, Bill. “Remarks by Bill Gates” San Diego, California (1997-09-26). Retrieved on 2008-03-31. ^ Herbold, Robert (2004). The Fiefdom Syndrome: The Turf Battles That Undermine Careers and Companies - And How to Overcome Them. ^ “Microsoft Announces Plans for July 2008 Transition for Bill Gates”, Microsoft (2006-06-15). ^ “Gates deposition makes judge laugh in court”. CNN (1998-11-17). Retrieved on 2008-03-30. ^ “Microsoft’s Teflon Bill”. BusinessWeek (1998-11-30). Retrieved on 2008-03-30. ^ a b Heilemann, John (2000-11-01). “The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth”. Wired. doi:10.1007/s11517-008-0355-6. PMID 18509686. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/microsoft_pr.html. Retrieved on 31 March 2008. ^ http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/gatesmug1.html ^ http://adblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/08/1362333.aspx ^ (Lesinski 2006, p. 74) ^ Paterson, Thane (2000-06-13). “Advice for Bill Gates: A Little Culture Wouldn’t Hurt”, Business Week. Retrieved on 28 April 2008. ^ “Bill Gates: Chairman”. Microsoft Corporation (2008). ^ “Profile: Bill Gates”. BBC news (2004). ^ (Fridson 2001, p. 113) ^ Bolger, Joe (2006-05-05). “I wish I was not the richest man in the world, says Bill Gates”, The Times. Retrieved on 31 March 2008. ^ “Microsoft 2006 Proxy Statement”. Microsoft (2007-10-06). Retrieved on 2008-02-14. ^ Fried, Ina (2004-12-14). “Gates joins board of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway”, CNET. Retrieved on 31 March 2008. ^ “Flat-pack accounting”. The Economist (2006-05-11). Retrieved on 2008-04-01. ^ Cronin, Jon (2005-01-25). “Bill Gates: billionaire philanthropist”. BBC News. Retrieved on 2008-04-01. ^ “Our Approach to Giving”. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved on 2008-04-01. ^ (2006-01-01). “2005 Annual Report” (PDF). Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Retrieved on 2008-02-14. ^ The 50 most generous Americans ^ Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation, Los Angeles Times, 7 January 2006 ^ Gates Foundation to review investments, The Seattle Times, 10 January 2007 ^ Gates Foundation to maintain its investment plan, The Austin Statesman, 14 January 2007 ^ (Lesinski 2006, p. 102) ^ Cowley, Jason (2006-06-22). “Heroes of our time — the top 50″, New Statesman. Retrieved on 17 February 2008. ^ “Gates ’second only to Blair’”. BBC News (1999-09-26). Retrieved on 2008-03-30. ^ Nyenrode Business Universiteit (2003-08-13) (in Dutch). Eredoctoraat Universiteit Nyenrode voor Wim Kok. Press release. http://www.nyenrode.nl/news/news_full.cfm?publication_id=599. Retrieved on 2008-02-18. ^ Hughes, Gina (2007-06-08). “Bill Gates Gets Degree After 30 Years”, Yahoo!. Retrieved on 18 February 2008. ^ Svärd, Madeleine (2008-01-24). “Bill Gates honored with a doctor’s cap”. Karolinska Institutet. Retrieved on 2008-02-18. ^ “Knighthood for Microsoft’s Gates”, BBC News (2005-03-02). Retrieved on 18 February 2008. ^ Thompson, F. Christian (1999-08-19). “Bill Gates’ Flower Fly Eristalis gatesi Thompson”. The Diptera Site. Retrieved on 2008-02-18. ^ “Proclamation of the Award”. Diario Oficial de la Federación. Retrieved on 2008-03-30. ReferencesFridson, Martin (2001), How to be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0471416177 Gates, Bill (1996), The Road Ahead, Penguin Books, ISBN 0140260404 Lesinski, Jeanne M. (2006), Bill Gates (Biography (a & E)), A&E Television Networks, ISBN 0822570270 Manes, Stephen (1994), Gates: How Microsoft’s Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Touchstone Pictures, ISBN 0671880748 Wallace, James (1993), Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, New York: HarperCollins Publishers
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