Bill Gates Success Story | Microsoft | Biography | Richest Person In The World | Startup Stories

Visit our website StartupStories.in for more inspirational stories and updates from the startup world. Startup Stories in association with Olook.in If there is someone who epitomizes the late 20th century legend of the entrepreneur, then there is just one person. He is the one who started a small business out of a tiny space and grew it into one of the most powerful companies in the world, changing millions of lives and amassing a vast fortune in the process. He started his company way back in 1975 from the poker room at his Harvard dorm, and today his company is ranked under 30 in the Fortune 500 list, while he being the richest person alive on the planet today with a net worth of 86 billion dollars. Today we are going to talk about the rise and rise of the world's biggest technology company, Microsoft, and this is the success story of William Henry Bill Gates. Born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Bill Gates is one of the world's most iconic and influential technology innovator. Unlike many of the computer world's other innovators, Gates was relatively privileged as a young child. He attended Lakeside School in his native Seattle, which was a fairly high-end school where children were exposed to, at the time, revolutionary computers. Gates quickly grew passionate about new computer systems and began spending a great deal of time programming using basic language. In 1970, at the age of 15, Bill Gates went into business along with his friend Paul Allen. Together, they developed Traf-O-Data, a computer program that monitored traffic patterns in Seattle and netted $20,000 for their efforts. Gates and Allen were determined to start their own company, but Gates' parents wanted him to finish school and go on to college, where they hoped he would work to become a lawyer. He later joined Harvard University, however, lacking a firm grasp on college's purpose and increasingly disillusioned with higher education, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard University much to his parents' dismay. He, along with his friend Paul, started working on one of the first PC software, which was coded for the MIT's Altair computer system. Later in 1975, Gates and Allen formed a partnership company that they called Microsoft, a blend of microcomputer and software. However, Microsoft started off on a shaky ground. Though their basic software program for the Altair computer netted the company a fee and royalties, it wasn't meeting their overhead. Microsoft's BASIC software was popular with computer hobbyists, who obtained pre-market copies and were reproducing and distributing them for free. According to Gates, only 10% of the people using BASIC in their Altair computer had actually paid for it. In February 1976, Gates wrote an open letter to computer hobbyists, saying that continued distribution and use of software without paying for it would prevent good software from being written. Apart from this, Gates had a more acrimonious relationship with MIT's president Ed Roberts, often resulting in shouting matches. The combative Gates clashed with Roberts on software development and the direction of business. Roberts considered Gates spoiled and obnoxious. In 1977, Roberts sold MIT's to another computer company and went back to Georgia to enter medical college and become a country doctor. Gates and Allen were on their own. The pair had to sue the new owner of MIT's in order to retain the software rights that they had developed for Altair. Later, Microsoft wrote software in different formats for different computer companies. And at the beginning of 1979, Gates moved the company's operation to Washington. With his acumen for software development and a keen business sense, Gates placed himself as the head of Microsoft, which grossed approximately $2.5 million in 1979. At that time, Gates was only 23. Gates personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, often rewriting code himself whenever he saw it necessary. As the computer industry began to grow, with companies like Apple, Intel, and IBM developing hardware and components, Bill was continuously out on the road, tooting the merits of the Microsoft software applications. He often took his mother along with him. His mother was highly respected and well-connected, with her membership on several corporate boards including IBM. It was through his mother that Bill Gates met the CEO of IBM. In November 1980, IBM was looking for software that would operate their upcoming personal computer, and they approached Microsoft for this. Gates bought an operating system that was developed to run on computers similar to IBM's PC. Gates had to adapt the newly purchased software to work for the IBM PC. He delivered the software for a $50,000 fee, the same price that he had paid for the software in its original form. IBM wanted to buy the source code, which would have given them the information to the operating system. Gates refused it. Instead, he proposed that IBM pay a licensing fee for copies of the software sold with their computers. Doing this allowed Microsoft to license the software that they called MS-DOS. Between 1979 and 1981, Microsoft's growth exploded, and staff increased from 25 to 128. The revenue also increased from $2.5 million to $16 million. Well, with the increasing popularity of Microsoft, there was another company which was posing a serious threat to their technology province, and that was Steve Jobs' Apple. Though their rivalry is legend, Microsoft and Apple shared many of their early innovations. In 1981, Apple invited Microsoft to help develop software for Macintosh computers. It was through this knowledge sharing that Microsoft was able to develop Windows OS, a system that used a mouse to drive a graphic interface, displaying text and images on the screen. Bill Gates quickly recognized the threat this kind of software might pose for MS-DOS and Microsoft overall. For the unsophisticated user, which was most of the buying public, the graphic imagery of the competing VC Corp software, which was used in a Macintosh system, would be so much easier to use. In order to counter this threat, Gates announced in an advertising campaign that a new Microsoft operating system was about to be developed that would use a graphic interface. It was to be called Windows and would be compatible with all PC software products developed on MS-DOS system. Well, the announcement was a bluff, and Microsoft had no such program under development. But as a marketing tactic, it was a sheer genius as nearly 30% of the computer market was using the MS-DOS system and would wait for Windows software rather than change to a new system. Without people willing to change formats, software developers were unwilling to write programs for the VC Corp system, and it lost its momentum by early 1985. In the same year, Microsoft launched Windows, nearly two years after his announcement. And since then, there's no stopping to this ever-growing company. Later, in March 1986, Bill Gates took Microsoft public with an initial public offering of $21 per share. Gates held 45% of the company's share and became an instant millionaire at the age of 31. Later, on 1st January 1994, Bill married Melinda, who was Microsoft's product manager. With Melinda's influence, Gates took an interest in filing his mother's role as a civic leader. Later in 1999, with the stock prices at an all-time high and the stock splitting eightfold since its IPO, Gates' wealth briefly topped $101 billion. In the year 2000, the couple combined several family foundations to form Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They started the foundation by making a $28 billion contribution. In the same year, Bill Gates stepped down from the day-to-day operations of Microsoft, turning over the job of CEO to college friend Steve Ballmer, who was later replaced by India-born Satya Nadanlal in February 2014. Well, Bill's intelligence allowed him to see all sides of the software industry, right When analysing any corporate move, he would develop a profile of all the possible cases and run through them asking questions about anything that could possibly happen. Well, just like every great story, it had many downward turns. But despite its mistakes in the 1990s and early 2000s, Microsoft remains one of the world's biggest and the most influential companies, with Gates as the industry's richest man. Bill Gates is a reminder to all people who focus, have an ambition and a long-term vision, which are essential for both cultural and financial success. Startup Stories salutes Bill Gates for his contribution to the world of technology, and we wish Microsoft remains as the top technology company for generations to come. Thank you so much everyone for suggesting us to bring the success story of Bill Gates and Microsoft. We hope you liked it. Do let us know whose story do you want to see next in the comment section below, and we'll soon have it uploaded on this channel. For more inspirational stories and updates from the startup world, visit our website startupstories.in. Till then, stay motivated.