Bill Gates has been a billionaire since 1987, and worth more than $100 billion since 1999. How he got there is partly a matter of his technical and business acumen. It’s also a partly a matter of how he kept that acumen sharp, and that’s what we look at in this article.
Bill Gates has been worth at least $100 billion since 1999. For most of that time, he has been one of the top-ten richest men in the world. How did he get there – and stay in such a position? The short answer: Microsoft. But the long answer includes he behind the scenes and the details that make his story worth reading to anyone who wants to build their own empire. So, let’s take a look at the how he built his.
Carrying childhood curiosity forward
Gates took a childhood interest in programming computers and, with childhood friend Paul Allen, started a company called Microsoft in 1975 that focused on software for a microcomputer called the Altair 8800. Microsoft pivoted to software for the IBM Personal Computer in the early 1980s and its successors. Basic and later, Windows, became the default operating system for IBM-compatible machines, along with productivity software such as Office. The software was so popular that by 1987, Bill Gates was a billionaire.
In time, Gates diversified into other technologies such as zero-carbon energy. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was created to handle the philanthropy that he determined was to be the output of his wealth. He was also on the board at Berkshire Hathaway from 2004 through 2020.
The habits and traits that Bill Gates cultivated to put himself in the position he is in today make for sober reading. There is no exotic formula, no reliance on arcane arts. Let’s take a look:
Habits and traits
- Intellectual curiosity and a thirst for knowledge – much is made of his being a Harvard drop-out, but also hat he had gotten in, and had maintained his passion for learning after leaving.
- Reading – Coupled with his thirst for knowledge, Bill Gates is known for being a voracious reader. His reading lists are very popular.
- Trusting his gut- the first two help fine-tune his sense of what is happening, thus helping him trust his intuition. And, as Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon stated, intuition was “nothing more and nothing less than recognition”.
- Frugality – a trait he shares with Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway
- Giving credit where credit is due.
