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"I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act."
-Bill Gates
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At A Glance
NAME: William Henry Gates III
OCCUPATION: Entrepreneur
BIRTH DATE: October 28, 1955 (Age: 57)
EDUCATION: Lakeside School, Harvard College
PLACE OF BIRTH: Seattle, Washington
In Depth
Economic: The Entrepreneur
Bill Gates is the world's second richest man and the 4th person on Forbes' Powerful People list (Forbes.com). In fact, he is the richest self-made man. Based off of these illustrious achievements, It is no surprise that he has impacted the economy, both nationally and globally.
Computers fascinated him from a young age. This fascination would bloom into an enormous success later on. In his junior year at Harvard, Gates left to help find and eventually lead Microsoft to its future success. Under his guidance, what was once a budding software company grew to become a worldwide leader in software, services and solutions dominating the software industry. He was its former CEO but now currently holds the positions of chairman and adviser of a corporation that now produces products millions of people use, employs nearly 100,000 people, generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. In addition, he founded Corbis Images, which is developing one of the world's largest resources of visual information - an inclusive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections all around the world (Microsoft.com). Gates also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a company that invests in other companies dealing with various activities and is also worth billions.
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Ethical: The PhilanthropistBill Gates has been a dedicated philanthropist since he resigned as CEO of Microsoft. With his wife Melinda Gates, Gates founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has dedicated more than $28 million to various relief efforts world-wide. Forbes, in the article “Powerful People: November 2010”, wrote, “No longer the planet’s richest person, but that’s because he’s given nearly $30 billion philanthropically.”
Gates has already made so many steps in the right direction, supporting research for malaria and polio vaccines, encouraging others to adopt philanthropic mentalities, and improving the lives of those in developing countries. In 2012, Gates’ support and investments in vaccine development has enabled India to declare its first polio-free year (Forbes.com). The Gates Foundation has recently taken up improving toilets for developing countries without water or sewage systems. The foundation stated that about 1.5 million children under five years of age die each year due to sanitation problems. Most underdeveloped countries use latrines or defecate in the open, which promotes the spread of disease. Eight grants had been given to universities around the world to make this goal a reality. Caltech received a $100,000 prize for developing a self-contained toilet that reuses water and converts wastes into energy (Netburn, “Bill Gates: Reinvent the toilet, save the world”). Not only that, but Gates, an avid reader of Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, worked with billionaire Warren Buffet to found the Giving Pledge, a movement to get Americans to pledge their wealth to philanthropic causes. As of now, 92 billionaires have taken up the pledge. Both Gates and Buffet have pledged to dedicate at least half their fortunes. (Forbes.com) |