Bill Gates doesn't teach at any university - in fact he left without ever completing his first degree. He doesn't join the lecture circuit nor is he a prolific author. He has only ever written two books and very few articles.

He got hooked on primitive computers at an early age, along with his friend Paul Allen. Then he and Paul stumbled across an advert for a small kit computer called the Altair 8800 and they started to write a programme for it, dreaming about what it would mean if everyone had their own affordable and easy-to-use computer.

Bill left his degree programme at Harvard to try to live that dream and between them, Bill Gates and Paul Allen created the world's first microcomputer software company. They called it Microsoft. It was 1975 and the world was about to change.

The US Government's anti trust action against Microsoft that started in 1998 confronted Gates with something new for him - unpopularity.

He has responded by giving up day-to-day control of his firm and giving more of his attention to the gigantic charitable foundation that he and his wife Melinda have set up. As he has said, when children are dying and starving in parts of the world, easier internet access seems almost beside the point.

Bibliography:
'The Road Ahead', 1995
'Business @ the Speed of Thought', 1999


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