BIOGRAPHY OF BILL GATES
Bill Gates, sometimes known as William Henry Gates III, is an American business tycoon and the cha
irman of Microsoft, the software corporation he and Paul Allen established. W. Gates, the largest indiv
idual stakeholder and holder of more than 8% of the outstanding common stock of the Microsoft Com
pany, is consistently listed among the richest individuals in the world. Additionally, he has written or
edited several books. Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to English, German, and Scotchrish pare
nts, William H. Gates, Sr., and Mary Maxwell Gates.
His mother was on the board of directors for First Interstate Bank System and the United Way, and her
father, J. W. Maxwell, was a wellknown lawyer who belonged to an upper middle-class family.
His parents wanted their kid to become a lawyer. William began attending the premium preparatory
Lakeside School when he was 13 years old. When he was in the eighth grade, the Lakeside School
Mothers Club purchased an ASR-33 teletype terminal and a block of computer time for the pupils of
the school using money from the school's rummage sale. W. Gates was granted a leave of absence
from his math studies to pursue his interest in programming the GE system in BASIC.
On this computer, he created his first computer software, a version of tic-tac-toe that let users compete
against the system. W. Gates was impressed by the device and the excellent manner it ran software
code. There was just something cool about the gadget, he remarked while thinking back on that
instance. Gates created the computer program used by the institution to register students for classes.
He altered the rules so that he was assigned to classes with a predominance of female pupils. It was
difficult for him to take himself away from a machine where he could so clearly show achievement,
he later remarked.