Bill gates' childhood

As the principal founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is one of the most influential and richest people on the planet. His father William Gates Sr was a senior lawyer, and his mother, Mary, served as an executive for a major bank.

What is bill gates known for

The family were wealthy but, remembering the challenges of the Great Depression, they encouraged their children to work hard and take nothing for granted. Aged 13, Gates attended the private Lakeside school. It was here that Gates had his first introduction to computers. Gates enjoyed the process of working with computers and arranged with a company Computer Center Corporation CCC to spend time on their computers — learning source code, such as Fortran, Machine Code and Lisp.

In , Gates enrolled at Harvard, where he studied mathematics and computer science. However, Gates was more interested in pursuing his own coding, and when he saw an opportunity to found his own company, he dropped out of Harvard without finishing his course. In the early days, Bill Gates would review every line of code. Microsoft worked hard to sell its operating system to these other companies.

Thus Microsoft was able to gain the dominant position of software manufacture just as the personal computer market started to boom. Since its early dominance, other companies have struggled to displace Microsoft as the dominant provider of computer operating software. Programs like Microsoft Word and Excel have become the industry standard.

In Microsoft released its first version of Windows. This was a breakthrough in operating software as it replaced text interfaces with graphical interfaces. It soon became a best seller and was able to capture the majority of the operating system market share.