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Sir William Henry Gates III KBE (195565438+1October 28th-), also known as Bill Gates, is an American businessman and billionaire. He is the founder of Microsoft. According to Forbes magazine, Gates is the richest man in the world. According to another statistic, Gates' wealth is more than that of the poorest 50% people in the world combined.

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Gates was born into an upper-class family in Seattle, the west coast of the United States, and his father was a famous local lawyer. Gates is an excellent student and is famous for his extreme individualism. According to one of his high school classmates, Gates once asserted that he would become a billionaire at the age of 25. 1970s, Gates and his partner paul allen, who were still studying at Harvard University at that time, designed an Altair BASIC interpreter for Altair 8800 computer. Altair is the first commercially successful personal computer, and BASIC language is an easy-to-learn computer programming language. The version of BASIC developed by Gates and Allen is the later version of Microsoft BASIC, which is also the basis of MS-DOS operating system and the key to Microsoft's early success. Microsoft Basic later became Microsoft QuickBasic, and gradually evolved into Visual Basic which is still popular today.

In the early 1970s, the young Gates/Kloc-0 wrote a famous "Open Letter to Enthusiasts", which shocked the computer world. Gates declared that computer software will be a huge commercial market, and computer enthusiasts are not allowed to copy computer programs without the consent of the original author. At that time, the computer industry was influenced by hacker culture, and thought that creativity and knowledge should be enjoyed by * * *. Gates then left the campus, founded one of the most successful enterprises in the world-Microsoft, and gradually industrialized the software.

However, Gates' business practices are often criticized, one of which is the source of MS-DOS. At the end of 1970, IBM planned to enter the personal computer market. In 198 1 year, IBM PC was officially listed. IBM needs to find a suitable operating system based on Intel x86 series processors for its products. IBM found Microsoft after a brief negotiation with another company. Microsoft, on the other hand, found Seattle Computer Company without telling itself that it was negotiating with IBM, and bought their operating system from the company for $50,000 (Microsoft supporters said that Microsoft had an agreement with IBM at that time, stipulating that Microsoft should not disclose the negotiation matters to the outside world). Microsoft later authorized IBM to use the operating system (renamed PC-DOS). Microsoft also negotiated with other computer manufacturers to install the modified MS-DOS system on each new computer. Afterwards, Seattle Computer Company accused Microsoft of buying the company's products at a very low price without telling the facts, but the two sides finally reached an out-of-court settlement. In the late 1960s, a series of cases accused by the American government of Microsoft monopoly once again damaged Gates' reputation.

In the mid-1980s, Gates was optimistic about the future of CD-ROM as a data storage medium, so he actively promoted CD-ROM.

Gates was also accused of business misconduct. Gates has been accused many times that under his leadership, many of Microsoft's business practices violated American laws.

In 2000, Gates appointed his old friend Steve Ballmer as the CEO of Microsoft, and he was also the "chief software architect".

In private life, Gates married Linda French on 1994 65438+ 10/0/. They have three children: Jennifer Catherine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002).

Gates and his wife founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Bill &; Melinda Gates Foundation. Critics believe that the foundation was established only to respond to negative public comments on Microsoft's monopolistic behavior. However, we should also see that no matter what the motivation, the foundation has made great contributions to providing scholarships for poor students and AIDS prevention and treatment.

In 2004, the British Foreign Office announced that Bill Gates would be awarded the Commander of the British Empire (KBE) by the Queen of England in recognition of his outstanding contributions to British enterprise development, employment, education and voluntary undertakings. KBE is the highest honorary title that the Queen can award to foreign citizens.