Introduction

William Henry Gates III was born to William H. Gates Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates, in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. His father was a prominent lawyer, while his mother was on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem. He had one older sister, Kristianne, and one younger sister, Libby. For over a decade, he has been hailed as the “World’s Richest person” on Forbes’ list of the World’s Richest People. For a short time in 1990s his net worth was $101 billion, resulting in him being called a “centibillionaire” (Wallace, 1993, page 2) by many. He is also on TIME Magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the century. Gates has become one of the most famous and influential people in our society today, with his major role in the invention of the Windows Operating System(s), and MS-DOS. After stepping down from his position as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Microsoft, Gates began his charity organization, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is now the world’s largest transparent charity organization. Since the age of 20, Gates has been an important entrepreneur, changing our world today, through both technology and philanthropy. There can be no doubt that Bill Gates has been a huge positive influence on our society, and our world.