Today is Bill Gates' last day as a full-time employee of Microsoft. He will remain as Chairman of the Board. In 2006 Gates announced his plans to withdraw from day-to-day duties at Microsoft so he can focus on his charitable foundation.
In 1975, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, friends who had co-written a programming language for the Altair hobby-kit personal computer, licensed it to the makers of the Altair. This programming language was the first Microsoft product.
In 1980, Microsoft was chosen by IBM to create the operating system for its first PC. Microsoft bought the software for $50,000 from another company and called it MS-DOS. In the same year, Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft. (info from The Associated Press)
In 1986, Microsoft's stock went public.
From 1995 through 2007 Gates was ranked as the world's richest man. In 2008 Forbes magazine said Gates had slipped to third place. The magazine estimated Warren Buffett's worth at $62 billion, Carlos Slim came in second with an estimated $60 billion, and Gates' fortune was not too far behind at $58 billion.
Bill Gates gave a speech to students at a high school about things they will not learn in school.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
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