Bill Gates turned 63 on October 28. The youngest billionaire has long retired from business at Microsoft and is engaged in charity work. However, his name is forever associated with the company that created Windows. We have collected 20 amazing facts from the life of Bill and his brainchild. Did you know that rabbits work at Microsoft, and Gates himself was arrested three times?
1. Quit school to become a billionaire
Gates dropped out under the influence of Paul Allen, the future co-founder of Microsoft. The friends were friends since high school, but entered different universities: Bill at Harvard, and Paul at Washington. In 1975, Allen decided to set up a software company for the Altair 8800. He encouraged Gates to leave the prestigious college for a promising job. Gates left in his third year, but did not remain without a diploma - he graduated in 2007. “I have been waiting for this day for more than 30 years to say: 'Dad, I always told you that someday I will return and finish my education,'” the billionaire began his graduation speech.
2. The first name of the company
The name of the company was first mentioned in 1975: Bill Gates used it in a letter to Paul Allen. As is often the case, he simply made a name from the words microcomputer and software. The result is Micro-Soft. Six months later, the hyphen was removed from the title to make it look more solid.
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3. Microsoft didn't invent MS-DOS
MS-DOS, one of the first Microsoft business cards, was actually created by Seattle Computer Products. In 1980, 24-year-old Tim Paterson wrote a "dirty and fast OS" he called 86-DOS. Paterson's boss contacted Bill Gates, who agreed to buy back about 4,000 lines of 86-DOS, written in Assembler. Later they formed the basis of MS-DOS.
4. Gates came up with BASIC Altair and earned $ 16 thousand from it
And Microsoft managed to make money on BASIC Altair - the first programming language for a personal computer. Gates and Allen came up with several commercial options that differed in the amount of memory for the program code. The "medium" version cost $ 200. In total, Microsoft made $ 16,000 in the first year. The amount seems to be small, but at that time no one thought of selling software. In its fifth year, the company's revenue exceeded one million dollars.
Altair 8K BASIC on paper tape.
5. The first name of Windows - Interface Manager
Talented people are not always talented in everything. And Gates for the time being was not strong in marketing, so he was going to release an operating system called Interface Manager. Fortunately for him, the company had a marketing department. Its director, Rowland Hanson, convinced the boss to title the future "Windows" more vividly.
6. Sound theme Windows 95 was recorded on Mac
Initially, Microsoft Office was invented for Macs, and only a year later the Office suite for Windows-based computers was released. A musical greeting for Windows 95 was written by the famous musician Brian Eno using a Mac. He spoke about this in 2009 during an interview with the BBC. In the same place, Brian admitted that he never used a PC, because he "does not like these computers."
7. Five logo changes
Throughout its life, Microsoft has worn five logos, and there was always a certain motive for replacement. In 1975-1979, the logo was reminiscent of the disco style popular at the time. The second flaunted from 1980 to 1982. It turned out to be more "tough", but it had some resemblance to the emblem of the Metallica group. He was replaced by a variant with an unusual "O" in the middle. This inscription was an eyesore of users until 1987, after which the fourth version, the most "tenacious", came to replace it, and hung there for 25 years. In 2012, it was changed to another one that was supposed to bring attention to Windows 8.
8. Microsoft is constantly involved in the courts
The company owns tens of thousands of patents and is constantly suing someone. Almost immediately after the launch of Windows 2.0 in 1988, Apple lawyers accused Microsoft of stealing 189 graphics. However, the judges sided with Microsoft, rejecting complaints on most positions four years later. After that, the friendship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs soured.
9. Melinda Gates
Bill met his future wife Melinda in 1987 at a conference in New York. The girl then just got a job at Microsoft, began her career from the very bottom. A few months after a fleeting meeting, Bill set up a date with her, stipulating a date - two weeks later. Well, they finally formalized the relationship only eight years later, in 1994.
In general, Gates loves the female environment. As a schoolboy, he wrote a program to complete classrooms and optimized its code in such a way as to get into a class consisting of almost all girls.
Bill Gates with his wife Melinda.
10. Microsoft is tolerant
In 2005, Microsoft became a sponsor of the Seattle Gay Pride and remains so to this day, actively supporting members of minorities. And inside the company, the GLEAM (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Employees at Microsoft) union was created, which includes more than 700 people.
11. Rabbits instead of goats
Google employs goats, and rabbits live on Microsoft's Redmond campus. In the 90s, someone released several dozen rabbits near the campus, and subsequently this led to a problem - sometimes the eared ones overfulfill the breeding plan. Then hormonal agents are sprayed on them to moderate their love ardor. And sometimes they are sterilized.
12. Malicious software
The Windows operating system is installed on more than 80% of computers in the world. It is no coincidence that many viruses and malware are targeting it. It is believed that the first threat of this kind appeared in 1992 and was called WinVer 1.4. Sometimes hackers try to make money off companies. In 2008, the hacker Chujwamwdupe discovered a loophole in MS Office 2003 and posted a code to crack it. He did it because Microsoft not only did not pay the coder, but also did not contribute it to "credits".
13. Wealth and fame
When Gates turned 31, he became the youngest billionaire in history. Later, the founder of Microsoft received the title of Knight of the Order of the British Empire, but without the prefix "sir". After all, Bill is an American, not a citizen of Great Britain and the Queen.
14. Incidents
Comic Sans, one of the most controversial fonts, was born from Microsoft Bob, a program that was developed as an assistant for Windows 95. The assistant cost $ 100, was too resource-intensive, but spoke to the user like a baby. Hence the "childish" font for a bright character. However, "Bob" failed, and Comic Sans is still an eyesore in the letters of unrestrained people.
15. Bill Gates outlaw
During his youth, Gates was arrested several times. This first happened in 1975, when a guy was driving around Albuquerque without a driver's license. Two years later, history repeated itself - Bill in his Porsche flew through a red light. Finally, in 1989, the CEO of Microsoft got drunk and caught the eye of the police.
16. Employees under the wing
It may be dangerous to trust the car to Gates, but he cares about the company. "Drink" at Microsoft is free, and employees drink a lot - almost 23 million drinks a year. They say mainly milk and orange juice.
17. Competitors
In the late 90s, another operating system appeared - BeOS, created by former Apple employees. The situation became dangerous, because the OS was running on a PC and interested computer manufacturers. In order not to leave a chance to a rival, Microsoft immediately announced that it would not license Windows to those who partnered with BeOS. This is why it was sold to Palm and why Microsoft was sued for unfair competition. Surprisingly, the Gates Corporation lost and paid the small but former company $ 23 million.
18. Microsoft has a huge number of patents
Microsoft ranks as one of the top five patent holders in the United States. And no wonder - the company has over 10,000 of them! Most are associated with software elements. If an employee comes up with a new patent and successfully registers it for his firm, he receives $ 1,500 in bonus.
The authors of the patents receive not only money from Microsoft, but also such a commemorative cube.
19. Multicolored custom
There is an unspoken rule within the company: every employee who has worked for the next year must treat colleagues with a 500-gram M&M package. One can only guess how much money Bill Gates gave to the M&M producers, carrying bags of candy to work.
20. Cherry
Try creating a folder in Windows called Con. Did it work out? Alas. You still can't do PRN, AUX, NUL and the like. No, Bill didn't declare war on the three-letter words. It's just that once the DOS operating system provided direct access to physical devices as files. To prevent the system from confusing writing to files and devices, engineers have blocked several unique names, and now they cannot be created.
Author: Arsen Simonyan