Entrepreneurial Attributes

Entreprenuership
Contents
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Background Information..............................................................................................................................2
Entrepreneurial Attributes...........................................................................................................................2
Spotting Opportunities.................................................................................................................................3
Evaluating the Environment........................................................................................................................3
Venture Financing.......................................................................................................................................4
Success Factors...........................................................................................................................................4
Lessons Learned..........................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................6
Background Information
In this report, a comprehensive discussion will be laid on one of the globally acclaimed leader
Bill Gates who is a role model of every budding business man looking to make it big in the
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business. The report will discuss some background insights of the leader, his entrepreneurial
attributes, how he was able to spot opportunities. Also, an evaluation will be done on his
environment venture, factors related to his success, financial analysis along with some key
learning points that we can gain from him.
William Henry Gates III, popularly known as Bill Gates was born in 28th October, 1955 in a city
called Seattle in United States. He is one of the most popular business magnate, a hardcore
programmer, an entrepreneur who is best known for co-founding Microsoft Corporation, which
is the largest computer software company also offering a range of different products and
services. From the age of 13, Bill Gates started writing programming codes and formed a group
of programmers in school who helped in developing a payroll system for school. During his days
in Harvard University in 1975, he and his friend Paul G. Allen together started working on
developing software for the microcomputers. This project bought immense success to both and
during his junior year, Gates dropped Harvard to form Microsoft with his fellow friend Paul.
Gates has featured in Forbes list of world’s richest person several times since 1987. During his
later years, after leaving the day-to-day business operations at Microsoft, Gates has been
involved in several philanthropic activities and founded world’s largest private charity with his
wife called Bill and Melinda Gates foundation (Harman, 2016).
Figure 1
(Source: World Economic Forum, 2019).
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Entrepreneurial Attributes
It is a fact that no one is born with entrepreneurial attributes and skills, but the work done by
Gates indicates an action pattern that clearly indicates how he conquered the business and came
out as a legend among the contemporary business leaders. Gates display a transformational
leadership style and people with such attribute are always a team player and work with an aim of
bringing change. Gates has several attributes which makes him a stand out with other
entrepreneurs like his belief on his ideas. For example, during the early 1980s, gates travelled
across the countries to deliver seminars and inform the audiences how graphic user interface is
going to be become the next operating system. Initially no one believed Gates but he had faith in
his thoughts and he started working hard on it and in 1985, Microsoft launched Windows 1.0
(Meah, 2019).
Another attribute is his hobby of reading. Gates is a voracious reader and from childhood he was
fond of books. From his total philanthropic money, almost 200 million dollars is donated to
Gates Library program. Bill gates is also considered to be result-oriented person as he is
constantly seeking excellence in what he pursues. For example, even though there were several
professionals working under Gates, he used to review and rewrite the code that his employees
wrote which led to developing quality product with desired result. Also, among other attributes,
he is considered to be a smart worker, a person who abides by the rules, knows how to prioritize
things (Howladar & Taher, 2016).
Spotting Opportunities
One of the most visible qualities that Gates has is his ability of spotting opportunities. He has
been actively involved in participating and encouraging several initiatives related to scientific
exploration. He had vision of the opportunities that will be emerging in the coming years in the
field of technology which made him drop out of university during his early years and start his
own company. In a recent interview, Gates commented when asked about his ability to spot the
right opportunities that, the more you are willing to learn about science, the more you will be
able to figure out where the opportunity is (World economic forum, 2019).
When technology started making its way into people’s life, business etc. Gates was aware of the
opportunities he can create with his company and from that moment Microsoft continuously lead
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the way of technological innovations, integrating the business process with technology,
revolutionizing the way people work, play and communicate. Apart from the world of
technology, Bill Gates saw an opportunity with the other aspects of people related to healthcare,
water and education and has been continuously working on for betterment. His foundation, The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been continuously working towards such aspects and has
made a significant contribution (The perspective, 2019).
Evaluating the Environment
Bill Gates has been a consistent player in dominating the business environment and displaying
his true entrepreneurial skills. Gates describes himself as a person who is an impatient optimist
and he believes in the power that innovation can give you. He is excellent evaluation skills which
gives him an advantage of his competitors. Various industry experts believe that Gates possess
two different personality which makes him successful. One is a hardcore computer geek having
an excellent hand with coding and the other personality is a business driven man who, unlike his
fellow contemporaries of Silicon Valley, has an excellent instinct of marketplace and its
environment (Kaufman, Kozbelt, Silvia, Kaufman, Ramesh & Feist, 2016).
During 1980s, Gates envisioned the importance of computers that will be seen in coming years in
market where computers will be found on every desk in every home. While the competitors of
Gates for focusing on selling software, the main focus of Gates was on setting standard with his
products. This evaluation of business environment made him start his own corporation which is a
major tech giant nowadays. This skill enabled Gates to envision something that his competitors
could not.
Venture Financing
Starting a company is not possible with proper planning and the most important aspect which is
financing. Gates was able to crack the deal with IBM by selling his product which is MS DOS
and slowly Gates started becoming famous and got some major deals. Recently, Bill Gates
launched a 100 million euro investment fund called Breakthrough Energy Ventures Europe
which focuses on innovation of clean energy in Europe. Half of the finance is coming from a
program called European Commission’s Horizon 2020 and other half is funded by Breakthrough
Energy ventures. Bill Gates has also managed to attract the attention of other popular investors
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which include Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and Jack Ma, Alibaba Group’s Chairman. With
this venture financing, Gates is motivating those startups which can come up with new and
innovative way to reduce the green-house gas emissions (Omoregie, 2017).
Success Factors
There are several factors that made Gates a successful leader and a capable businessman. One of
the main contributors was his spirit of not holding back. Gates believed that people often fail to
succeed because they are hesitant and hold back themselves. Taking example from his college
years, Gates never hesitated in dropping out of college and start his own company. Even he made
his friend, Paul Allen believe in his potential and together started Microsoft. Such bold display of
character made Microsoft a tech giant what it is today (Duchek, 2018).
Gates had the ability to see future which was evident when he cracked the deal with IBM. The
sale of his operating system MS-DOS to IBM made his company a major player in the industry.
He knew the value of his product and its importance in future. It was also believed that Gates
was the person who liked to take charge and be responsible for the company and his employees.
When Gates was overseeing his business aspects, he also was keenly involved in coding
practices used in company’s product. Being the owner of the company, he used to re-write code
for his products which were already coded by his employees (Gerpott & Kieser, 2017).
Lessons Learned
Bill Gates as a person can serve as a different personality for everyone and teach something
unique. There are several things to learn from him as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a billionaire
and as a visionary, but the most important aspect to learn is about his passion. Gates was
passionate for what he did which was evident from the work he did. Gates loved computers but
he was not the one who build the first operating system. Instead, he played it smart and bought
the license rights from a company called SCP and started to build from that to make Microsoft
what it is at present (Preller, Dibbern & Patzelt, 2016).
Gates life has other lessons that can be learned like his ability to think ahead of times. Due to his
futuristic vision, his company was always ahead of its competitors. He also was a persistent
personality and learnt from his mistakes as he knew that nothing can be achieved in an overnight.
This is evident from the fact that the initial version of Windows OS were not that successful but
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his persistency made him work harder which later on made Windows one of the most successful
OS in the world. Moreover, his ability to move fast and the zeal of constantly innovating
products are the key lessons that can be learned (Wealthy Gorilla, 2019).
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References
Duchek, S. (2018). Entrepreneurial resilience: a biographical analysis of successful
entrepreneurs. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 14(2), 429-455.
Gerpott, F. H., & Kieser, A. (2017). It’s not charisma that makes extraordinarily successful
entrepreneurs, but extraordinary success that makes entrepreneurs
charismatic. Managementforschung, 27(1), 147-166.
Harman, S. (2016). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and legitimacy in global health
governance. Global Governance, 22, 349.
Howladar, M. H. R., & Taher, M. A. (2016). Do CEOs’ Letters to Employees Reflect Leadership
Style?–A Thematic Analysis. Social Science Asia, 2(2), 7-22.
Kaufman, S. B., Kozbelt, A., Silvia, P., Kaufman, J. C., Ramesh, S., & Feist, G. J. (2016). Who
finds Bill Gates sexy? Creative mate preferences as a function of cognitive ability,
personality, and creative achievement. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 50(4), 294-307.
Meah,A. (2019). Bill Gates Success Story. Retrieved from:
https://www.awakenthegreatnesswithin.com/bill-gates-success-story/
Omoregie, O. K. (2017). Entrepreneurial opportunities and financing sources in a developing
economy: A focus on Nigeria. Arabian Journal of Business and Management
Review, 7(4), 314.
Preller, R., Dibbern, R., & Patzelt, H. (2016). Can Entrepreneurs ever make it right? Societal
evaluations of successful entrepreneurs. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 36(3),
2.
The perspective. (2019). THE PERSPECTIVE ON BILL GATES. Retrieved from:
https://www.theperspective.com/debates/businessandtechnology/perspective-bill-gates/
Wealthy Gorilla. (2019). The Success Lessons from Bill Gates. Retrieved from:
https://wealthygorilla.com/bill-gates-success-lessons/
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World economic forum. (2019). Bill Gates has one piece of advice for future entrepreneurs.
Retrieved from: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/bill-gates-advice-to-future-
entrepreneurs-go-into-science/
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