Bill Gates Spotlight (4) 1998 on A&E Biography

Bill Gates Biography. Documentary on the legendary Bill Gates - founder of Microsoft, one of the most powerful and richest companies in the world.

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, investor, programmer, inventor and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world's largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. 

He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored and co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000. 

Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.

Reference: Bill Gates Biography - Documentary.

 

Bill Gates: Sultan Of Software. A&E Biography originally broadcast Sep 29th, 1998. Covers the period from birth to the start of the war on Netscape, but doesn't cover what he's done since then, which is to save the world from malaria and polio and other philanthropic efforts.

As a child, Bill Gates was extremely curious -- devoured encyclopedias as a kid -- and ultra-competitive -- relished competitive games against siblings on vacation. Was put in Lakeside private school because public school was too boring and easy. Computers were huge and expensive and filled rooms, but Gates got access to a computer because Lakeside arranged for access to a remote computer using a teletype. Bill Gates started spending all his nights and spare time in the computer room. Bill and his friend Paul Allen got very competitive writing software. The two founded Traf-O-Data together. Bill learned the value of contracts and had a contract with his older sister for use of her baseball mitt, which was a complete valid legal contract. He was accepted at Harvard and coasted, spending all his time at the Harvard Computer Center, having no social life. "What did you score on your SAT test?" [This was the question he'd ask a prospective date.]  He decided not to major in math because he couldn't be the #1 math major at Harvard (he was very competitive). Paul had moved to Boston and saw the announcement of the Altair 8800. Bill wrote BASIC for the Altair. Bill dropped out of Harvard and moved to Albuquerque where Altair was located and founded Microsoft. He wrote an open letter to computer hackers telling people not to copy software. He started suing people for copying software, and winning. Gates' well-connected mother played a pivotal role in getting Gates the IBM contract. The rest of the story, you all probably know. Gates bought an operating system for $50,000 and adapted it for IBM. IBM wanted to buy the source code, but Gates refused. IBM had to pay Microsoft a licensing fee, and other companies could license MS-DOS, too. Paul was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, and Bill took over as the singular face of Microsoft. Gates's management style was like math camp and very demanding. Gates told Steve Jobs Apple should license their software, but he refused, so Gates took knowledge of the Macintosh shared by Apple so Microsoft could develop apps for the platform, and developed Windows 1.0 to compete against the Macintosh. Gates is the only person to compete directly against Steve Jobs and win. Microsoft went public in 1986 and Gates became a billionaire at 31. IBM decided to take control of PCs away from Microsoft and started OS/2. Microsoft decided to lose IBM as a customer and continue to improve Windows. OS/2 failed in the marketplace and Gates won. The DOJ started its "monopoly" investigation; Gates said he was making better software at lower prices. Ads, Spock, Microgames. Married Melinda French. His mother died shortly afterward. Then Gates launched Windows 95 -- so easy to use, even a talk show host can figure it out. Saw the world, had a daughter, built a giant high-tech palace house, and committed himself to giving away the bulk of his fortune. Was falling behind Netscape, and bought Internet Explorer to catch up. Bill Gates is going to go down in history as the best businessman of the 20th century and Microsoft as one of the best companies of the 20th century.

Reference: Wayne Radinsky.