Bill Gates: The Journey of an Entrepreneur

This article delves into the life and journey of Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and a successful entrepreneur. It covers his background, educational experiences, theories of entrepreneurship, and the story behind the success of Microsoft. The article also highlights Gates' technological innovations and his philanthropic efforts through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP - A+B
PART A
Background of Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle,Washington. His
father William H. Gates Sr. was a prominent lawyer and mother Mary Maxwell Gates
was in board of directors of First Interstate BancSystem. Bill Gates has two sisters’
older one Kristianne and younger sister Libby. When he was 7 years of age his home in
Sand Point Area of Seattle was damaged by a tornado. When he turned 13 he was
enrolled into the private Lakeside Prep School. This was when he wrote his first
software program. Gales was also excused from his maths class to pursue his interests
in computers (Dayanandan and Kuntluru, 2020). This is when he made a programme in
which one can play tic-tac-toe against computer. After many such incidents Gates' work
was well known in his class. He then also created a program which used to schedule
students in classes. After graduating from School in 1973 Gates was a National Merit
Scholar. He then enrolled in Harvard College where he did not had any study plan and
spent most of his time using computers. Meanwhile his friend Paul started a venture of
his own known as Traf-O-Data. Gates joined Paul in Honeywell in the year 1974. After
the release of new MITS Altair 8800 based on Intel's 8080 CPU Gates and Paul thought
of starting their own software company.
Educational background – This person was a voracious reader since childhood.
He used to spend hours in reading encyclopaedia. He was very different from other
children and his parents thought that he was a loner. Thus, they decided to send him to
Lakeside School where he was offered computer classes (Donnelly, 2019). While he
was learning computers, he made a tic tac toe program in Basic computer language.
His intellectual knowledge was very good as his scored reflects. He scored 1590 out of
1600.
Theories of family and kids entrepreneurship in this part
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Inter role behavioural congruence is known as theory in which workplace leaders
are an essential factor. This theory depends upon cross situational consistency in
personality trait expression. Bill Gates has developed leadership qualities in his
childhood. His family was disciplined and leading skills are developed within him since
his childhood. Another theory of kid entrepreneurship is parenting styles. This theory
states that behaviour of an individual depends upon the way they are treated by
parents. Bill gates is a disciplined child and his parents helped him to attain success in
life (Schreuder, Schalk, and Batistič, 2019).
Bill Gates in other people's words
A number of successful executives, comedians etc. said positive as well as
negative things about Bill Gates. Bob MetCalfe(founder of 3Com)said that Bill Gates
can be dangerous sometimes. He says that while working in groups Bill Gates always
leads. Bill Gates is also ideal for many businessmen. Bob also said that Bill gates have
done many extraordinary work which is appreciated by all (Nie, B. and Sun, S., 2019).
There are four rules that Bill Gates follow for getting most out of his reading.
Reading is one of the passion that Bill Gates has (Goldthwaite, 2019). The habit of
reading has helped in building one of the most influential companies of the world. Bill
Gates said that he used to read 50 books within a year. The different rules developed
by him are – making notes in the margins, finishing what you have started, reading what
is comfortable and blocking out an hour. It is important to make notes in margin while
reading anything as it will help in grabbing important information from the topic. It is
necessary to stop the work which is started. This rule is not very easy but it must be
followed for success. Those things which are comfortable to you whether it is digital or
print, that particular medium must be used for reading and at least one hour must be left
for serious reading.
Theory of entrepreneurship knowledge
According to the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship, the
context in which decision-making is derived can influence one’s determination
to become an entrepreneur. In reference to Bill gates, it is concluded that he
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has used his knowledge in proper manner and this is reason for success of
his life (Kazanjian, Drazin, and Glynn, 2017).
Bill Gates Microsoft story
Bill Gates is one of the famous entrepreneurs of the world and his success is
reflected by his business venture - “Microsoft”. Gates read an article about Popular
Electronics that explained Altair 8800. When Gates got to know that MITS is making
new microcomputer then he contacted them and informed them that he and his group
mates are working on BASIC interpreter for the platform (Martins, and et. Al, 2019).
After getting permission from president of MITS, they developed Altair emulator within
very less time. Paul Allen and Gates got opportunity to work with MITS for distributing
interpreter as Altair emulator. Paul and gates named their partnership, Micro – Soft. On
November 1976, their company Microsoft was registered. This organisation is a great
success as this is one of the best examples of technology. Bill Gates said that – a
person cannot make $60,000 a Year Right out of High School. He said that it is an
honest thought that nobody is going to hire a person as CEO of a multinational
company just because you have degree in Business administration. The position of
CEO can be earned by starting new business venture and working hard for taking it to
top position. Motivation and intellectual knowledge in right direction helps in attaining
high success in life. Affordable Loss Principle - set affordable loss. Invest only as much
as you can afford to lose, and let your partners invest only as much as they can afford
to lose – rather than describing expected returns. Bill Gates believed in investing his
money and time in thing that will provide profit in return (Ketolainen, Nummela, and
Kalinic, 2016)
According to Bill gates, having focus is not enough, it is important to dream big
and pursue that he uses single minded determination. It is essential for entrepreneurs to
develop confidence and lead their teams (Meerwijk, 2019). Bill Gates said that passion
is key for success and anything can be achieved by using this passion effectively and
focusing on work. After dropping out of college, Bill Gates decided to achieve his
dreams and putting efforts in developing software and hardware. Bill Gates has always
believed in giving back to society. The Bill and Melinda Foundation has given new
dimension to philanthropy by checking new global issues like AIDS, malaria, cancer,
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etc. According to him, it is very important for every successful person to provide benefits
to society as this provides peace and in helping others, own development is attained.
PART B
Bill Gates is one of the greatest modern day leader, who led Microsoft to become
the market leader in computer software industry (Nie, and Sun, 2019). Bill Gates have
made large living room sized computers into small computers which can now fit on a
coffee table. He also became one of the richest people in the world although he donated
most of his earnings. His best initiation is Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has
been helping people around the world to fight multiple causes. He continues to live his
life trying to make the world a better place to live. It is strongly believed that Microsoft
would not be the only heirloom he will leave.
Technological Entrepreneurship
Bill Gates developed one of the best technology organisation of the world naming
Microsoft. He is a well known entrepreneur known for developing programs,
technological advances in computer for finding out new solutions for running successful
business. Gates is co founder of Microsoft and he is known as one of the wealthiest and
self made entrepreneurs of the world. Microsoft is an organisation which focuses on
bringing office devices and Windows together in order to develop services and products
for customers. This organisation has clear vision for emphasising on education through
communication services, search information by providing customers and users with the
software platform and technology needed for personal as well as business use (Wen
and et. al, 2019). It is seen that technological knowledge of Bill Gates is very high and
he has utilised it in efficient way and built one of the best software company of world.
Microsoft has introduced one of the best AI technology i.e. project Brainware. This
represents entrance of Microsoft in the AI first hardware space. This architecture is
designed for accelerating real time AI calculations.
Social (International) entrepreneurship
Bill is a visionary person and he has worked hard for attaining success in
business. He believed his intelligence and efforts which have helped in developing one
of the most successful companies of the world i.e. Microsoft. Bill Gates is trying to give
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back whatever he have earned from the society in the best manner possible. Bill Gates
have declared that he will donate more than half of his fortune and his trust has already
donated $41.3 billion for a number of international and domestic causes.
Three major causes on which Bill gates is working are mentioned below –
Education: Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Foundation will invest $1.7 billion in
public education. Bill Gates believe that major setback in education sector is inequality
and he is determined to eliminate it with the help of his foundation. Climate Change: Bill
Gates is using $1billion to invest in rising but underfunded technologies that would help
humans to adapt the changing climate and invent new tools to keep this problem from
getting poor. He believe that contributing to these sectors might really bring a greater
change. Global Health: The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has contributed the most
towards the health sector. It includes contribution to eradicate Aids, Tuberculosis and
Malaria.
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Reference
Books & Journals
Dayanandan, A. and Kuntluru, S., 2020. Digitalisation of Mandatory Social Expenditure
Targets in India: Cost or Value Addition?. In Leadership, Management, and
Adoption Techniques for Digital Service Innovation (pp. 125-140). IGI Global.
Donnelly, S., 2019. The lie of global prosperity: How neoliberals distort data to mask
poverty and exploitation. NYU Press.
Goldthwaite, C., 2019. Using the Leadership Competency Framework in the Study of
Leadership in Digital Contexts'. Competencies for Effective Leadership: A
Framework for Assessment, Education, and Research, p.49.
Martins, R., and et. Al, 2019. A sentiment analysis approach to increase authorship
identification. Expert Systems, p.e12469.
Meerwijk, M.B., 2019. Tiger Mosquitoes from Ross to Gates. In Framing Animals as
Epidemic Villains (pp. 119-146). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Nie, B. and Sun, S., 2019, August. Context-Dependent Representation of Knowledge
Graphs. In China Conference on Knowledge Graph and Semantic
Computing (pp. 13-24). Springer, Singapore.
Wen, H., and et. Al, 2019, June. Lightweight IoT Malware Visualization Analysis via
Two-Bits Networks. In International Conference on Wireless Algorithms,
Systems, and Applications (pp. 613-621). Springer, Cham.
Ketolainen, M., Nummela, N. and Kalinic, I., 2016. Affordable Loss in Entrepreneurial
Internationalisation: A Focus on Finnish Biotechnology Firms. In Impact of
international business (pp. 79-94). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Kazanjian, R.K., Drazin, R. and Glynn, M.A., 2017. Implementing strategies for
corporate entrepreneurship: a knowledge‐based perspective. Strategic
entrepreneurship: Creating a new mindset, pp.173-199.
Schreuder, F., Schalk, R. and Batistič, S., 2019. Goal congruence in teams and
performance: The role of (shared) psychological contract fulfilment. Journal of
Management & Organization, pp.1-17.
Online
Lessons From Bill Gates About Entrepreneurship.2019.[Online].Available
through:<https://motivationgrid.com/7-lessons-from-bill-gates/>
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