The departing Bill Gates will leave a gaping hole in the halls of technology titans still at work. Leaving Microsoft in the hands college friend Steve Ballmer and Lotus leader Ray Ozzie, the loss of Bill Gates has left technology pundits pondering a very relevant question for the future of technology: Who will take his place? Not at Microsoft. We’re talking as the face of the computer revolution. We have not seen someone as iconic in technology as Gates since he arrived on the scene in the 70s. Heck, we may not have seen someone as downright legendary as Gates in nearly a century.
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This Friday marks the final day of Bill Gates’s 30-plus year career as the founder of the modern technology age’s most massive, dominate, and iconic companies, Microsoft.
I’m tempted to try and post a biography, but better ones can be found elsewhere, and I wouldn’t know where to begin telling the story of such a famous man. He is not just any mere millionaire. Bill Gates is among the most visionary, intelligent, and greatest men who ever lived. It is a small list of people who make a mark in history so significant as to be placed in school textbooks for ages. My guess is that Gates will be on that list.
Wired is commemorating his retirement with a timeline of his life’s most notable moments.
I have handpicked some of the highlights:
- October 28, 1955- William Henry Gates III is born in Seattle. His grandmother Adelle nicknames him “Trey,” the cardplayer’s term for a three. He later becomes an avid poker player. [As most mathematicians are]
- 1967- Gates, a difficult sixth grader, asks his mother, “Have you ever tried thinking?” [From a young age, he was a profound thinker beyond his years.]
- Fall 1967- Gates’ parents enroll him in Lakeside School, an exclusive boys school in Seattle. He is the smallest kid in the class, yet has size 13 feet. [I'm not sure what they were trying to say with the foot size fact, but nerds are well-endowed in all the right places.]
- September 1973- Gates enrolls at Harvard University. Academically, his record is spotty — having a near-photographic memory helps him cram, but he often misses class, neglecting showers and living on pizza and soda while programming and playing poker. He befriends Steve Ballmer, who lives down the hall in the same dormitory. [Story of my high school years]
- April 11, 1993- On a chartered flight from Florida to Seattle, Gates proposes to Melinda. He has the plane make a stop in Omaha so the couple can go ring shopping with Warren Buffett.
- July 17, 1995- Gates becomes the richest man in the world at 39, with a fortune of $12.9 billion. Microsoft’s revenue for 1995 is $5.9 billion; the company has 17,801 employees. [He would hold the top spot for 13 years until 2008 when he was passed by both his old friend Warren Buffett and America Movil's Carlos Slim.]
- January 13, 2000- Gates steps down as Microsoft’s CEO to become chief software architect, handing over the reins to Steve Ballmer. [Ballmer will be standing in for Gates as the company's primary figurehead.]
- 2002- According to a poll of teenagers in Hong Kong and China, Gates is more idolized than Chinese Communist icon Mao Tse-tung. [The World is Flat author Thomas Friedman wrote best (this line being paraphrased from memory), "In India, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears. That is the problem with our culture."]
After all these years, the timeline can finally be closed with:
June 27, 2008- Bill Gates’s last day as a Microsoft employee.