International Entrepreneurship Case Study: The Story of Bill Gates

This assignment presents a case study analyzing Bill Gates as an international entrepreneur, focusing on his role as a technology entrepreneur and his impact on economic development. The study explores Gates' early life, his rise to becoming one of the world's richest men through Microsoft, and his philanthropic endeavors. It delves into the themes of technology entrepreneurship, innovation, and the use of technology to enhance customer experience and business growth. A literature review examines international entrepreneurship in the context of economic development, comparing it with domestic entrepreneurship and highlighting the complexities of operating across national borders. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding different economic systems, legal environments, and cultural norms in international business ventures. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar case studies and solved assignments for further academic support.

Case Study on an International
Entrepreneur

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Course work 1- Case Study on an International Entrepreneur........................................................3
PART A: Analysing the International Entrepreneur...................................................................3
PART B: (THEMES)..................................................................................................................6
Course work 2- Literature Review...................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship is a concept of creating new business by taking risk and earning profit.
The process of establishing the new enterprise is known as entrepreneurship. Person who run the
business is known as entrepreneur. They are seen as an innovator and consider as a source of
new ideas, services, goods and business. Entrepreneurship generally creates new opportunity in
market by making improvements or changes and adding value to society. It is important for
economy as entrepreneurs creates an ability to improve the standard of living and also improve
the wealth of economy (Mukherjee, 2016). They generally drive innovation and produce new or
improved products for its customer by identifying their needs and requirements. The importance
of entrepreneurship is to create job opportunities, improve economy and innovate the products
and services in order to improve the standard of living. The project is based on case study of
international entrepreneur which analysis on international entrepreneur and also the detailed
investigation of particular international entrepreneurship topic is discussed.
Course work 1- Case Study on an International Entrepreneur
PART A: Analysing the International Entrepreneur
The Chosen International Entrepreneur for developing the case study is technological
entrepreneur from America.
Case Study: Bill Gates (Microsoft)
William Henry Gates III was born in October 28, 1955 in Seattle Washington, U.S. He is
a well known American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, software developer and
author. Bill gates is a co-founder of Microsoft with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. In
Microsoft, he held with the position of chief executive officer, chief software architect, chairman
and president. In May 2014, he was a largest individual shareholder and also known a
entrepreneurs of microcomputer revolution. Bill gates was also get criticised for his business
tactics in in late 1990's. He also left his board position at Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft in
order to focus on his philanthropic efforts including global health, development and education
and climate change in march 2020. Bill gates was also listed in Forbes list of World's wealthiest
people. In 2017, he was surpassed by Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon by the estimated net worth
of US$90.6 billion. Gate is a fourth richest person in world with the estimated net worth of
US$129 billion.

Early Life
Bill gates is the son of Mary Maxwell Gates and William H. Gates Sr., the father of gates
was a prominent lawyer and his mother had served on the board of directors for United way of
America and First Interstate BancSystem. He has two sisters one older sister Kristi and younger
sister Libby. Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13 while he was in private
Lakeside Prep School. He also took an interest in learning programming the GE system in
BASIC and git excused from its maths class in order to pursue his programming. At the age of
17, he formed a venture with Allen known as Traf-O-Data in order to make traffic counters
based on the Intel 8008 processor. When he graduated from Lakeside School in 1973, gates was
a national merit scholar. He got enrolled in Harvard college by scoring 1590 out of 1600 in
scholastic Aptitude Test.
How Bill gates Became one of the World’s Richest Man
As of 2021, the net worth of Bill gates was $139 billion and also considered as one of the
richest man in world. He earned his income as CEO, Chief software architect and chairperson of
Microsoft. In 2014, Bill gates has stepped down as chairperson but still he owns 1.34% of
company. He turned his fortune from software company Microsoft and shifted is focus on zero-
carbon energy investing and philanthropy. In May 2021, Melinda and Bill gates has announced
their ending of marriage on Twitter after 27 years but they will still co-chair the foundation
(Ward, 2017).
Net worth: $139 Billion
Born: October 28, 1955
Bill gates is one of the youngest self made billionaire at the age of 31 but Mark
Zuckerberg has dethroned him by becoming billionaire at the age of 23. He was not raised in
immense wealth as his family was upper middle class and were not living in mansion. The
family of Bill gates is not considered as ultra-wealthy but they did very well for themselves. Bill
gates father is a successful lawyer and partner at law firm. Family has enough money to send
gates to Lakeside Private School. Bill gates went into computers when he was in 7th standard at
Lakeside Private School. The institute has acquired a computer terminal due to which students
were given free access. In school only he met with his future business partner, Paul Allen. Both
of them took full advantage of computer terminal at Lakeside and also they created computerised
scheduling system. Allen and Gates has used their passion for computer programming in order to

make some money for their efforts by developing computerized traffic analysis system known as
Traf-O-Data in which they have earned $20,000 by selling it to Washington State Highway
Department. They both got an opportunity while reading an issue of popular electronics and he
knew that personal computing was set to take off. Bill gates was studying in Harvard University
whereas Allen was at Washington State University. He decided to write the software that can
powered these personal computers (Alford, 2021). The problem was faced with the new Altair
8800 microcomputer, Bill gates decided to call the maker of Altair 8800 in order to develop the
software for it. Makers of Altair 8800 has accepted the offer and both Allen and Gates proceed to
work. In 1975, they sold the software to MITS for $3,000 and also royalties. Microsoft make Bill
gates rich by retaining the rights to BASIC programming language and selling it to personal
computer hardware makers. By 1980, Bill gates strike a deal with IBM in order to develop the
software for personal computers. Microsoft creates operating system for IBM's PC and retained
the licensing rights to software. In 1981, IBM PC has launched the software due to which the
revenue of Microsoft gets high. Microsoft also went to public in 1986 and at there first day the
shares was at $28. Bill gates become richest man in 1995 and Microsoft is still continuing to
grow. Through Microsoft, he gained billions of dollars and leave his position in 2000. The
investments of Bill gates is managed by Michael Larson at Cascade Investment, LLC from 1994.
He once said that “To win big, you sometimes need to take big risks”. Bill gates is a aggressive
investor and his 60% of wealth is invested in stocks. The top five investments of Bill gates are
Berkshire Hathaway, Waste management Inc., Caterpillar, Canadian National Railway
Corporation and Walmart. He is also engaged in charitable work by giving nearly $50 billion
over the past 25 years. In 2010, The Giving Pledge was found in which world's wealthiest people
are committed to give majority of wealth during their lifetime (Smith, 2020).
Facts about Bill Gates
 He coded his first program as a teenager.
 Bill gates is a college dropout as after two years of study, he devotes himself to
Microsoft.
 Bill gates also owns a collection of Da Vinci's writings as he purchased Codex Leicester
in1994 for $30.8 million.
 In 2005, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his great contributions to science,
business world and technology.

 He is a catholic person which believes in religions even his children's goes to catholic
church where Bill and Melina goes.
PART B: (THEMES)
Technology entrepreneur are the person who share their innovative ideas and market the
process that is technological oriented. They combines their knowledge of business and carry out
the technology with their ideas. The theme of technology entrepreneur is innovation, they mainly
focus on bringing innovation in the products and services in order to compete with their
competitors and gain competitive advantage in market. Here are various technology entrepreneur
in market such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and many others. They
generally focus on launching or improving the existing products and services in order to meet the
needs ad requirements of customer (Bujor and Avasilcai, 2016). The main purpose of
entrepreneur is to satisfy the preference of customer in order to build large customer base.
Technology entrepreneur mainly focus on producing new software by identifying the gap in
market. They conduct research and development in order to understand the consumers problem
and focus on solving the issues by developing innovative products and services. By
implementing the new technology, entrepreneur can communicate in more effective, easier and
faster communication. Technology entrepreneur mainly focus on using resources with less
wastage so that they can produce better and innovative products and services. They also have an
ability to develop new or innovative approaches and improve the sale of company. The
technology entrepreneur generally combines the knowledge of business and technology in order
to produce creative ideas (Allen, 2016). By producing new technology, entrepreneur can increase
the profitability and also provide better customer experience due to which they can create strong
customer base. The new technology is important for entrepreneur in order to improve the growth
of business and also connect with the customer. Entrepreneurs generally use new technology in
order to automate customer support and enhance the customer base. Technological
entrepreneurship is a style of business leadership that helps in identifying the high potential,
gather resources and offer technological intensive commercial opportunities. Through new
technology, entrepreneurs can enhance the customer satisfaction and experience.
Course work 2- Literature Review
International Entrepreneurship & economic development

International Entrepreneurship is a concept which includes risk taking, innovative and
proactive behaviour that crosses the national borders. The International entrepreneurs generally
creates various opportunities for such as exporting of goods and opening a sales office in another
country and licensing (Lee, 2019). International entrepreneurship generally means when an
entrepreneur executes his business model in more than one country in order to maximise profit
and reach to maximum number of people. The modes of International Entrepreneurship are
transform trade and investment modes. It generally includes multi-country cultures, norms,
beliefs, languages, value and social structures (Dijkhuizen and et. al., 2016). International
Entrepreneurship require understanding of different countries legal and political environment. It
is important for International entrepreneur to understand the different structures, economic
systems and stages of economic development. The decision of International Entrepreneurs are
more complex as compare to domestic entrepreneurs due to uncontrollable factors such as
politics, economics, technology and culture.
International versus Domestic Entrepreneurship
The main motive of International Entrepreneur and domestic entrepreneur is to increase
the sales, profit and cost but the main difference between international and domestic entrepreneur
is the variation in relative importance of factors that affects each decision.
Basis Domestic Entrepreneurship International Entrepreneurship
Stage of Economic
Development
The stage of economic
development generally
includes fundamental
infrastructure like electricity,
banking facilities, road,
educational system,
communication, a well
developed legal system and
norms of one country is
applicable.
In International Entrepreneur,
the stages of economic
development includes
fundamental infrastructure like
electricity, banking facilities,
communication, road,
established business ethics, a
well developed legal system
and norms of many countries
are applicable (Joyce and et.
al., 2018).
Economics Domestic entrepreneur mainly International entrepreneur

develop strategies for specified
level of economic
development of single country.
The country is organised
under a single economic
system with same currency.
generally creates strategies for
multi country areas and deal
with the differences in levels
of economics development,
government regulations,
venture capital, currency
valuations and distribution
systems.
Type of Economic System It is important for domestic
entrepreneur to understand
economic conditions within
country.
The economic system
generally defines business
plans, marketing, product
promotion, widely variable
rates of returns and non-
convertibility of the currency.
Language The language of Domestic
entrepreneurs are familiar to
people and there is no need of
translator.
The language of International
Entrepreneur is one of the
biggest problem as people
requires translator in order to
understand their language.
Approach National Approach International Approach
Risk Involved In domestic entrepreneurship,
there is low risk.
International Entrepreneurship
generally contains higher risk.
Operational environment The operational environment
of domestic entrepreneurship
is familiar and simple to the
entrepreneur.
The operational environment
of International entrepreneur
increases the complexities in
terms of foreign currency
fluctuation and different
legislation (Archibald and
Possani, 2017).

International entrepreneurship is important for community, society and economy as it
provides job opportunities and also develop the standard of living of people which contributes to
economic development. But there are various issues related to international entrepreneurs such as
language barriers, managing global teams, currency exchange and inflation rate, foreign politics
and policies, deciding company structure, supply chain risk and environmental concerns. These
challenges influences the performance and productivity of International Entrepreneurs (Ahmad,
Masri and Lee, 2019). When running business in international market, the entrepreneur must
know the language of the country in which they are operating business.
The language barrier is one of the problem which can be faced by international
entrepreneur so it is necessary to learn the language in order to communicate with people in
effective and smooth manner. Other issue which is faced by international entrepreneur is cultural
differences. The country have different cultures and tradition due to which it is important for
entrepreneur to understand the culture of the country in which they are operating so that business
can be run in productive manner (Dhaliwal, 2016). Culture and tradition of the country mainly
includes social values, festivals, holidays, food and many other. While doing international
business, the entrepreneurs need to manage the global teams in order to run the business
activities in smooth way. International entrepreneur generally establish their business in various
countries due to which it becomes difficult for them to manage the employees of different teams,
culture, time zones and language. It is important for international entrepreneur to overcome the
issues of managing global teams by frequently communicating them. Currency exchange and
Inflation rate is also a problem which is faced by international entrepreneur while running
business in different countries (Malecki, 2018). The rate of currency between two countries
doesn't remain constant, it is important to consider the exchange rates while making any financial
decision as it influence the business profitability and performance. International entrepreneur
must also focus on overcoming the problems of foreign politics and policies by closely
reviewing.
International entrepreneur generally creates job opportunity for people which helps in
reducing the unemployment rate and also contribute in the economic development. They seek for
new market opportunities and innovate the products and services in order to meet the need and
preference of customer. International entrepreneur generally creates new business for doing
something innovative that helps organisation, society and economy (Feldman and et. al., 2016).

The main focus of international entrepreneur is to create products and services that adds lot of
economic value. They solve the issues for consumers or business and engage in the activities that
adds value. When entrepreneurs add value they generate job opportunities for people in order to
run the business in effective and efficient manner. Companies that generate value hires more
employees for generating even more value. Job creation drives consumption as if unemployed
people find jobs they have steady stream of income.
The theme of International entrepreneurs generally includes social media which is one of
the high rated platform that reaches to large number of active audience. Upcoming trends in
international entrepreneurship is social media as the platform helps in increasing the sale and
profitability of business (Hayter, Lubynsky and Maroulis, 2017). Through social media, the
world needs to know their existence and also they get quick feedback on their products and
services. It is one of the biggest platform that focuses on building strong relations with customers
and develop connections to make huge business impact. It is important for international
entrepreneurs to identify the right social media platform that gives better results. International
entrepreneur must build social media strategy for improving its business performance and
attracting large number of customers towards the brand. By using social media platform,
International entrepreneur can monitor their leads and potential prospects.
Economic development
Economic development is an activities, policies and programs that helps in improving the
well being and quality of life for society and economy. It is a process by which emerging
economies can become advanced economies. Through economic development, the low living
standard nation can become high living standard. There are different types of economic
development such as traditional economies, mixed economies, command economies and market
economies (Edwards, 2017). Government is focusing to meet the broad economic objectives
such as high employment, price stability and sustainable growth. Economic development plays
an important role in retaining and growing jobs and also making investment within community.
There are three major areas of economic development such as:
 Government undertaking to meet broad economic objectives such as high employment,
sustainable growth and price stability. These efforts includes trade and tax policies,
monetary and fiscal policies and regulation of financial institution.

 Programs that provide services and infrastructure such as parks, crime prevention,
highways, housing and K-12 education.
 Retaining and creating jobs through making efforts in business finance, workforce
development, business retention and expansion, marketing, small business development
and neighbourhood development.
Economic growth helps in increasing the real GDP and also provide various benefits to
economy. There are few benefits which are offered by economic development such as higher
incomes, reduce poverty, improve government finance, increase life expectancy and provide
better education. Economic growth helps in gaining higher average income by enabling
consumers to consume more goods and services and raise their standard of living. When
customer improve their standard of living they generally spend more on high quality of products
and services that directly contributes to the economic development. The other benefit of
economic growth are lowering the unemployment rate as with higher output and positive
economic growth, company can employee more employees and create job opportunities for
people who are unemployed (Zaki and Rashid, 2016). Economic development also lowers the
government borrowings by creating higher tax revenues and not spending money on employment
benefit. It plays an important role in reducing the debt to GDP ratios. Through economic
development, country can improve their public services by offering higher living standards such
as higher rates of literacy, greater understanding of civic and political issues and increased life
expectancy. The higher economic development leads to high tax revenues due to which
government spend more on public services. Economic development also increases the
profitability of firm by spending more on research and development. In order to enhance the
economic development, it is important to open more on research and development for improving
the products and services. One of the important factor for promoting economic development is
sustained economic development. Through sustained economic development, country can reduce
the level of poverty, enable more economic prosperity and increase life expectancy.
Entrepreneur plays an important role in economic development as they create wealth,
provide job opportunities and offers products and services that satisfies the need and requirement
of customer. They initiate and sustain the process of economic development in various ways
such as capital formation, improvement in per capita income, generation of employment,
balanced regional development, improvement in living standards and economic independence.

Entrepreneurs creates opportunities for converting the resources into national income in the form
of goods and services. They also helps in increasing the per capita income and new national
product of country. Entrepreneurs focus on generating the employment by establishing small or
large business that offers jobs to millions. They focus on reducing the unemployment problem of
country. The purpose of entrepreneur is to remove regional disparities in economic development
by setting up business in backward areas in order to avail subsidies and concessions offered by
state and central governments. Entrepreneurs set-up the business in order to remove scarcity of
essential commodities and launching new products and services that fulfil the needs and
requirements of customer (Kozubíková and et. al., 2017). They improve standard of living by
producing goods on mass scale and manufacturing handicrafts items in small sector. It helps in
offering goods at lower cost and increase variety in consumption.
CONCLUSION
It is being concluded from the above information that entrepreneurs plays a vital role in
improving the economic development and wealth of country. Entrepreneurs generally contribute
their bets efforts in improving the GDP rate and providing wide range of job opportunities to
people so that it helps in reducing the unemployment rate. The main purpose of entrepreneur is
to focus on improving economic development by reducing poverty, increasing life expectancy,
providing better education, improving the standard of living and also improving the government
finance. International entrepreneurs also contributes in developing innovative products and
improving the economy of country. The main role of entrepreneurship is to identify the needs
and requirements of customer and build the product that satisfies their need. If consumers are
highly satisfied with the products and services, it helps in improving the economic growth of the
country and they spend more on the quality goods and services.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmad, A. M. B., Masri, R. B. and Lee, C. A., 2019. Future Challenges to the Entrepreneur in
Relation to the Changing Business Environment. Global Business & Management
Research. 11(2).
Allen, I., 2016. International entrepreneurship theory: Past, present and way
forward. Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review. 4(4). pp.93-103.
Archibald, T. and Possani, E., 2017. Modelling the venture capitalist-entrepreneur relationship.
In 21st Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies.
Bujor, A. and Avasilcai, S., 2016. The creative entrepreneur: A framework of
analysis. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 221, pp.21-28.
Dhaliwal, A., 2016. Role of entrepreneurship in economic development. International Journal of
scientific research and management. 4(6).
Dijkhuizen and et. al., 2016. Feeling successful as an entrepreneur: a job demands—resources
approach. International entrepreneurship and management journal. 12(2). pp.555-573.\
Edwards, M .E., 2017. Regional and urban economics and economic development: Theory and
methods. Routledge.
Feldman and et. al., 2016. The logic of economic development: a definition and model for
investment. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy. 34(1). pp.5-21.
Hayter, C. S., Lubynsky, R. and Maroulis, S., 2017. Who is the academic entrepreneur? The role
of graduate students in the development of university spinoffs. The Journal of
Technology Transfer. 42(6). pp.1237-1254.
Joyce and et. al., 2018. The ‘Practice Entrepreneur’–An Australian case study of a systems
thinking inspired health promotion initiative. Health Promotion International. 33(4).
pp.589-599.
Kozubíková and et. al., 2017. Important characteristics of an entrepreneur in relation to risk
taking: Czech Republic case study. Journal of International Studies.
Lee, B., 2019. Human capital and labor: the effect of entrepreneur characteristics on venture
success. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.
Malecki, E. J., 2018. Entrepreneurs, networks, and economic development: A review of recent
research. Reflections and extensions on key papers of the first twenty-five years of
advances.
Mukherjee, K., 2016. The psychology of the successful entrepreneur. International Journal of
Advanced Engineering and Management. 1(1). pp.25-32.
Zaki, I. M. and Rashid, N. H., 2016. Entrepreneurship impact on economic growth in emerging
countries. The Business & Management Review. 7(2). p.31.
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Smith., D, 2020. 10 Surprising Facts About Bill Gates. [ONLINE]: Available Through:
<https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242705>