Leaders in Commanding Heights : Bill Gates (co-founder of Microsoft)

Bill Gates Biography (William Henry Gates III): Microsoft Founder
Famous for : Being the richest man in the world, a cofounder of the software company Microsoft, and for being one of the world's most generous philanthropists.
Gates details : Born - USA October 28, 1955 Lives - United States of America

Bill Gates is one of the most influential people in the world. He is cofounder of one of the most recognized brands in the computer industry with nearly every desk top computer using at least one software program from Microsoft. According to the Forbes magazine, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and has held the number one position for many years.

Gates was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington USA. His father, William H. Gates II was a Seattle attorney and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates was a school teacher and chairperson of the United Way charity. Gates and his two sisters had a comfortable upbringing, with Gates being able to attend the exclusive secondary "Lakeside School".

Bill Gates started studying at Harvard University in 1973 where he met up with Paul Allen. Gates and Allen worked on a version of the programming language BASIC, that was the basis for the MITS Altair (the first microcomputer available). He did not go on to graduate from Harvard University as he left in his junior year to start what was to become the largest computer software company in the world; Microsoft Corporation.

Bill Gates and the Microsoft Corporation
"To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential." Microsoft Mission Statement
After dropping out of Harvard Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen set about revolutionizing the computer industry. Gates believed there should be a computer on every office desk and in every home.

In 1975 the company Micro-soft was formed, which was an abbreviation of microcomputer software. It soon became simply "Microsoft"® and went on to completely change the way people use computers.

Microsoft helped to make the computer easier to use with its developed and purchased software, and made it a commercial success. The success of Microsoft began with the MS-DOS computer operating system that Gates licensed to IBM. Gates also set about protecting the royalties that he could acquire from computer software by aggressively fighting against all forms of software piracy, effectively creating the retail software market that now exists today. This move was quite controversial at the time as it was the freedom of sharing that produced much innovation and advances in the newly forming software industry. But it was this stand against software piracy, that was to be central in the great commercial success that Microsoft went on to achieve.

Bill Gates Criticism
With his great success in the computer software industry also came many criticisms. With his ambitious and aggressive business philosophy, Gates or his Microsoft lawyers have been in and out of courtrooms fighting legal battles almost since Microsoft began.

The Microsoft monopoly sets about completely dominating every market it enters through either acquisition, aggressive business tactics or a combination of them. Many of the largest technology companies have fought legally against the actions of Microsoft, including Apple Computer, Netscape, Opera, WordPerfect, and sun Microsystems.

Bill Gates Net Worth
With an estimated wealth of $53 billion in 2006, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and he should be starting to get used to the number spot as he has been there from the mid-ninties up until now. The famous investor Warren Buffett is gaining on Gates though with an estimated $46 billion in 2006.

Microsoft hasn't just made Bill Gates very wealthy though. According to the Forbes business magazine in 2004 Paul Allen, Microsoft cofounder was the 5th richest man in the world with an estimated $21 billion. While Bill Gates' long time friend and Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer was the 19th richest man in the world at $12.4 billion.

See more information the Bill Gates Net Worth page.

Bill Gates Philanthropy
Being the richest man in the world has also enabled Gates to create one of the world's largest charitable foundations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of more than $28 billion, with donations totaling more than $1 billion every year. The foundation was formed in 2000 after merging the "Gates Learning Foundation" and "William H. Gates Foundation". Their aim is to "bring innovations in health and learning to the global community".

Bill Gates continues to play a very active role in the workings of the Microsoft Company, but has handed the position of CEO over to Steve Ballmer. Gates now holds the positions of "Chairman" and "Chief Software Architect". He has started that he plans to take on fewer responsibilities at Microsoft and will eventually devote all his time to the Foundation.

In 2006, the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett pledged to give much of his vast fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates Receives a KBE
In March 2005 William H. Gates received an "honorary" knighthood from the queen of England. Gates was bestowed with the KBE Order (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his services in reducing poverty and improving health in the developing countries of the world.
After the privately held ceremony in Buckingham Palace with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Gates commented on the recognition..
"I am humbled and delighted. I am particularly pleased that this honor helps recognize the real heroes our foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) supports to improve health in poor countries. Their incredible work is helping ensure that one day all people, no matter where they are born, will have the same opportunity for a healthy life, and I'm grateful to share this honor with them."

The KBE Order of the British Empire is the second highest Order given out, but it is only an honorary knighthood as only citizens that are British or a part of the Commonwealth receive the full Order. This means that Gates does not become Sir Bill Gates.

Bill Gates lives near Lake Washington with his wife Melinda French Gates and their three children. Interests of Gates include reading, golf and playing bridge.

Sergey Brin (born August 21, 1973 in Moscow, Russia) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Google

Sergey was born in Moscow, Russia, to a Jewish family, the son of a mathematician and economist. In 1979, when Sergey was six, his family emigrated to the United States. Brin attended grade school at Paint Branch Montessori School in Adelphi, Maryland, but he received further education at home; his father Michael Brin, a professor in the department of mathematics at the University of Maryland, nurtured his interest in mathematics and his family helped him retain his Russian language skills. In September 1990, after having attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Sergey enrolled in the University of Maryland, College Park to study Computer Science and Mathematics, where he received his Bachelors of Science in May 1993 with high honors. After graduating from Maryland, Sergey received a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation, which allowed him to study for his masters degree in Computer Science at Stanford University. Sergey received his masters degree in August 1995 ahead of schedule in the process of his Ph.D. studies. Although he is still enrolled in the Stanford doctoral program, Sergey has suspended his Ph.D. studies indefinitely while he is working at Google. Sergey also received an honorary MBA from the Instituto de Empresa.

Brin is currently the President of Technology at Google and has a net worth estimated at $18.5 billion as of March 9, 2007, making him the 26th richest person in the world and the 5th richest person in the United States together with Larry Page .^[3] He is also the 4th youngest billionaire in the world.

Sergey expressed interest in the Internet very early on in his studies at Stanford. He authored and co-authored various papers on data-mining and pattern extraction. He also wrote software to ease the process of putting scientific papers often written in TeX, a text processing language, into HTML form, as well as a website for film ratings.

The defining moment for Sergey, however, was when he met future co-president of Google, Larry Page . According to Google lore, Page and Brin "were not terribly fond of each other when they first met as Stanford University graduate students in computer science in 1995."^[5] They soon found a common interest: retrieving relevant information from large data sets. Together, the pair authored what is widely considered their seminal contribution, a paper entitled "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine." ^[6] The paper has since gone on to become the tenth most accessed scientific paper at Stanford University.

http://itleaders.blogspot.com/2007/05/sergey-was-born-in-moscow-russia-to.html

India One-Day squad - Matches 1-3 (September 18, 2007)

MS Dhoni Captain/keeper Age 26 years 73 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm medium		Rahul Dravid Age 34 years 250 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm offbreak
Gautam Gambhir Age 25 years 339 days Batting Left-hand bat Bowling Legbreak		Sourav Ganguly Age 35 years 72 days Batting Left-hand bat Bowling Right-arm medium
Harbhajan Singh Age 27 years 77 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm offbreak		Dinesh Karthik Age 22 years 109 days Batting Right-hand bat
Zaheer Khan Age 28 years 346 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Left-arm fast-medium		Irfan Pathan Age 22 years 326 days Batting Left-hand bat Bowling Left-arm medium-fast
Piyush Chawla Age 18 years 268 days Playing role All-rounder Batting Left-hand bat Bowling Legbreak		Ramesh Powar Age 29 years 121 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm offbreak
Rudra Pratap Singh Age 21 years 286 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Left-arm fast-medium		S Sreesanth Age 24 years 224 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm fast-medium
Sachin Tendulkar Age 34 years 147 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm offbreak, Legbreak googly		Robin Uthappa Age 21 years 311 days Batting Right-hand bat Bowling Right-arm medium
Yuvraj Singh Age 25 years 280 days Batting Left-hand bat Bowling Slow left-arm orthodox