Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and former richest man in the world, turns 65 – here are 5 things to know about the tech entrepreneur and philanthropist
Before founding the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and becoming one of the most generous philanthropists in the US, Bill Gates was an office taskmaster, according to Paul Allen
Now retired, Gates has decided to devote his time to “philanthropic priorities, including global health and development, education, and … tackling climate change”, he said in a post on LinkedIn.
To celebrate the business magnate’s 65th birthday on October 28, we take a look at a few facts that most people might not know about him.
He is a supremely gifted coder
Gates wrote his first programme as a teenager on a teletype computer. It was a game that allowed users to play noughts and crosses against the computer.
His school recognised his talent for coding and contracted him to create a programme that would schedule students’ classes. Gates responded by cheekily altering the code so that he would be placed in classes with lots of female students.
He memorised his employees’ number plates at Microsoft
While working at Microsoft, Gates wanted to keep close track of his employees. “I knew everyone’s license plate, so I could look out in the parking lot and see when did people come in, when were they leaving,” Gates told the BBC.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen wrote in an article in Vanity Fair, “Bill drove others as hard as he drove himself … He was growing into the taskmaster who would prowl the car park on weekends to see who’d made it in.”