TechnesstivityMeet Bill Gates, The Second Richest Man In The World.
He may not longer be the richest man in the world (Carlos Slim is number one richest man in the world) but Bill Gates is still one of the most influential people in the world. In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, which I strongly recommend you read, Bill Gates revealed some personal details that have not been shared with most people. In case you are to lazy to read the whole article, here are 10 details one might find interesting:
Gates and Allen
1. The second richest man in the world did not finish college, he dropped out of Harvard in 1975, after being convinced by Paul Allen to start some company called Microsoft. Microsoft is now worth 224.01 billion dollars.
2. His kids tease him with the song ‘Billioniare’ by Bruno Mars. Bill Gates has been on the cover of Forbes so many times, he is close friends with Oprah and for the Queen, Bill got knighted by her back in 2005.
B. Gates being knighted
3. He has three children, Jennifer, 15, Rory, 12 and Phoebe, 9. According to reports they are set to only inherit 10 million dollars each from their dad. That is about 0.0006% of his worth, he plans on giving the rest to charity.
4. What car does he drive? Surprisingly, he does not drive any flashy car instead he drives a “normal” Mercedes. “I drive myself around town in a normal Mercedes. I’ve had a Lexus. The family has a Porsche, which is a nice car that we sometimes take out. We have a minivan and that’s what we use when it’s the five of us” Gates said.
5. Although he retired from Microsoft in 2008 to concentrate on his foundation and spend time with his family, he is still part-time involved with the company. Speaking about his foundation, he has donated more than 24 billion dollars to his foundation.
6. He is public shy and socially awkward. Although he built a multi-billion dollar company, he rarely conducts interviews and he is unaware of the social niceties of life
7. Gates has not always lived the perfect life, in 1975 he got arrested for driving without a license.
8. 1994 was a significant year in the life of Bill, his mother died of breast cancer which inspired him to start his foundation in that year. It was also the same year he married his wife, Melina, whom he met at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan. His dad is still alive though and works as the co-chair of his foundation.
His mother, Mary
His wife, Melinda
His father, William
9. Gates is a devoted reader. He has a library full of old books and prefers to read the hard copy rather than the electronic one. In 1994 he bought the Codex Leicester, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, for 30.8 million dollars. He also has some documents by Isaac Newton and Abraham Lincoln.
10. He has his own Twitter account and Facebook page, although he had a problem with Facebook, because the friend requests got out of hand. He is friends with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, who has also pledged to give most of his fortune away.
He rounded off the interview by saying ‘hey, if being a geek means you’re willing to take a 400-page book on vaccines and where they work and where they don’t, and you go off and study that and you use that to challenge people to learn more, then absolutely. I’m a geek. I plead guilty. Gladly.’
You can read the whole interview here.
Source: DailyMail
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