Microsoft Founder

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is probably the smartest entrepreneur ever. He is also a man to be looked up to in every aspect because he’s given the world some great inventions and entrepreneurship goals. Apart from being a successful business, his work in the philanthropy department along with his wife is commendable too. His CEO blog, Gates Notes, is spectacular as it disseminates very vital information pertaining to the field for all budding entrepreneurs and will help you learn a variety of things other than just business.

Here are few quotes by Bill Gates which makes him a superstar:

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.

Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.

This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.

I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.

Bill Gates started out in a highly-educated family. But they were not programmers, not even engineers. Or technical people at all. So how did he start to be a genius hacker?

Also read: How Jeff Bezos Started – Life of Amazon.com’s founder

His father was a lawyer. A very successful one. His mother a teacher. Reading magazines in middle school he first thought about how cool it would be to open a company. You could say that’s how he started – with a childish dream. Many kids have dreams though, so what happened next?

How Bill Gates Started To Hack

Next, Bill Gates saw a computer at 13. The school he went to bought one machine and a teletype. He paid for the time to use it. When money ran out, he hacked into the computer to use it for free. Then he got banned by the school. Then the school realized he had a rare skill so they asked him to use the computer and help them find bugs. He started to be a hacker.

Started to Hustle

Next, Bill scored 1590 out of 1600 on SAT. He went to Harvard. Only to find himself unsure about where to start – as a pre-law major or as something else? Reading Popular Mechanics one day in college he read an ad about a new computer. He called them to say that he wrote a programming language for it. (He hadn’t.) He asked if they might buy it. He hadn’t even started to write the language. But, he started to be a hustler. And, yes, the computer company was very interested in buying.

Being a Workaholic

Next Bill sat down with his friend Paul from high school, and the two wrote that programming language that he talked about on the phone. Bill wrote 50% of the code, using Harvard’s computers. Bill coded all day long, slept at the computer, woke up and picked up programming exactly where he left off. Bill started to be a workaholic.

Being a Copyright Guru

When they were done, Bill flew to New Mexico to show this new language he had written called BASIC. The computer company bought it for $3,000. But Bill kept the copyright. Did he somehow know it would be worth a lot in the future? So he started to be a copyright guru.

Also read: How Vijay Shekhar Sharma started – Life of Paytm’s founder

Started to Visualize the Future

Five years later IBM knocked on Bill’s door to see if he had written an operating system they could buy. Bill hadn’t. But he said, “Yes.” Real quick, he found an operating system from another person in Seattle and bought it. With the copyright. Then he sold it to IBM. For a lot more. This was DOS. And without copyright – they never asked for it. “Who would pay for software?” they reasoned. It’s the hardware that people are after. Bill saw the opportunity to make people pay for software. Bill started to see the future. He was now a visionary.

Bill Gates Started to Be a Perfectionist

Then Steve Jobs showed up. He wanted Bill to write new software that was visual. Programs like Excel and Words. Programs that looked human. Bill got down to work. Jobs thought Bill’s team’s product was tasteless, but Bill kept at it. He got better and better until he got really good. Bill started to be a perfectionist.

Being a Visual Thinker

But Bill was not going to spend his life working on Jobs’ brilliant ideas. Ideas, after all, are worthless until executed. Plus, Jobs’ ideas were stolen anyway. And so it was fair game to do the same. Bill remembered where he saw this idea of visual interfaces – it was Xerox. And now he wanted to create a visual operating system of his own. He called it Windows. He started to be a visual thinker.

Being a Tough Cookie

When Jobs heard about Windows, he went ballistic. He lashed out at Bill calling him down to Cupertino. In front of ten Apple employees Jobs accused Gates for robbing Apple. Bill listened calmly and replied that Jobs stole the idea just as he did himself. Bill started to be a tough cookie.

When Windows launched, Bill visualized a world where every home had a computer, and that computer was running Windows. Bill started to become very rich. And as his vision materialized, by 39 he became the richest man in the world.

Also read: How Sachin Bansal started: Life of Flipkart founder

This article was originally published in Funders and Founders

Tag: Microsoft Founder

12 quotes by the Microsoft founder which makes him the one entrepreneur you should look up to

How Bill Gates Started – The Life of Microsoft’s Founder