Bill Gates - Extraordinarily Fortunate Background To Riches

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Bill Gates - Extraordinarily Fortunate Background to Riches Oct 13, 2009
Bill was a college dropout who finessed his way into the upper echelons of IBM to sell his operating system. Now he sleeps on a bed made of solid gold. According to the media, Bill Gates is the Rocky Balboa of the business world. They've compared him to other college dropouts; from Kanye West to some guy who runs the IT Department at Bradley College. Gates proved that if you're smart and willing to work hard, you can build an empire! And you don't even have to go to college! Yay!

First of all, the college Gates left was Harvard, not the community college that most of the people who cite his story are thinking of leaving. He entered Harvard by scoring 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT--the man was, and still is, a genetically mutated genius. But one with the type of parents who could afford Harvard.

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funmantra
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Oct 14, 2009
Bill Gates has an estimated IQ of 160 where as you need only 140 to be a Mensa member(98th percentile of the population in IQ)

More over, the IQ scale is not linear, which means the difference in smartness will be much more between two persons with 155 and 160 than those with 140 and 145.
gcarlin37
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Oct 24, 2009
The IQ scale is very intresting. between 155 and 160. Might have to sit another.
pvz018
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Oct 24, 2009
I no many people that failed at school.Then later on in life just ended up with a huge passion for learning. Now a few have gone on to make millions of dollers in a very short period of time.
Just goes to show they dont teach you to make money in school. They teach you to get a safe secure job.
pvz018
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patrick snow Oct 25, 2009
read "Create Your Own Destiny by Patrick Snow".

enjoy
howdy

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Oct 28, 2009
Well Michael Dell was also a college drop out....although he started DELL after dropping out of college. During his early college days he used to built made to order computers for other people, and then he decided why not go big....now he's the richest american under 40....!!
ofk
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Oct 28, 2009
Yeah Bill Gates went to Harvard Law or atleast planned to do Law in Harvard but his passion for computers especially programing led him to start his own company....2 amazing real historical facts i remember from a book i read about him:

1) When he was starting out Microsoft offered majority stock or shares of their company to IBM...which IBM didnt take, as they mistakenly were under the impression that software was not going to be profitable in the long run....hmm IBM must be kicking them selves because of that decision.

2) As a kid Bill Gates once declared to his teacher that he was going to be a multi-millionare, the book writer stated: that Bill Gates at that time underestimated himself !
ofk
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Oct 28, 2009
Gates was lucky in many ways.

If you read 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell, he points out the fortunate set of circumstances that laid the foundations for Gates' fortunes. At a time when it was hard to get experience on computers, Gates found himself with access to a computer at his school and then later was given access to computing facilities at a university (IIRC).

He put in the hours early on and got to a stage where he could write code that there was a demand for. Sure, with hindsight many of the decisions look brilliant - but it could also have gone the other way.

Another angle to view Gates' rise from is given in NN Taleb's books - Fooled by Randomness, and Black Swan. He argues that you'd expect a few outliers from any given group of people - and that people don't bear in mind the people who don't appear in the stats - all those kids who said they'd be rich and who didn't become billionaires!

Taleb is particularly disparaging of Gates - and wearing on his sleeve his admiration of Apple Macs - but he raises interesting questions.

For my part - I'm not sure it matters about the hows etc - I'm glad that Gates is using his wealth wisely and have admiration for his foundation.

Cheers,
Shafique
shafique
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Oct 28, 2009
He might be a genius in bussiness. But in innovation? I don't think so. MS DOS was "copied" from IBM PC DOS. The first Windows version with graphical user interface (GUI) was "copied" from Mac. So does Vista Aero/glass interface from Mac.
xty
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Oct 29, 2009
Seriously, would you have invested? (early microsoft corporation )

Image

Looks can be deceiving. It's reported that over 2000 microsoft employees have become millionares. Or is that Billionares?
canuckbid
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Oct 29, 2009
canuckbid wrote:Seriously, would you have invested? (early microsoft corporation )

Image

Looks can be deceiving. It's reported that over 2000 microsoft employees have become millionares. Or is that Billionares?


Hahahaha oh dear!

Well you know I have full respect for people that put their mind and energy into something they believe in. Look at someone like Richard Branson, who started trading secondhand records at school, he virtually bankrupted himself on several occasions, but still kept going.

With people like Bill Gates the world certainly wouldn't be what it is today technology wise without them.
Chocoholic
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