William (Bill) H. Gates is chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. Gates’ foresight and his vision for personal computing have been central to the success of Microsoft and the software industry.
Born on October 28, 1955, William Henry Gates grew up - in Seattle, Washington, in a socially prominent family with his two sisters. Their father was a lawyer with a well-connected firm in the city. Their mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher, active in charity work. Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at the age of 13. “He was a computer nerd before the term was invented,” as one of his teachers described Gates at the time.
In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University. In his junior years, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Guided by a belief that the computer would be a valuable tool on every office desktop and in every home, they began developing software for persona1 computers. Gates and Allen were not typical entrepreneurs. They had no business plan, no venture capital, no bankers or Small Business Administration loans. But they had the most important tools needed for software development: brains and computers, and they had everything necessary for entry into the porous computer industry of the time: they had product, programming expertise, and most importantly, a vision of greater possibilities.
The introduction of Windows 95 mirrored the rapid changes in the marketplace and marked a new crucial point for Bill Gates. His role in the personal computer revolution had given him a net worth estimated in the summer of 1996 at $18 billion, and had turned him into an icon of information technology.
Gates was married on January 1, 1994, to Melinda French Gates. They have three children. Gates is an avid reader, and enjoys playing golf and bridge.
Though an innovative and forward-thinking entrepreneur, Bill Gates didn’t invent crucial technology. Rather, he shrewdly adapted and improved products first made by others. He recognized the coming of the personal computer (PC) long before others did, and deduced that operating systems and applications (software) would be at least as important to the PC business as the nuts-and-bolts equipment (hardware).
Philanthropy is also important to Gates. He and his wife, Melinda, have endowed a foundation with more than $24 billion to support initiatives in the areas of global health and learning, including the Gates Library Initiative to bring computers, Internet Access and training to public libraries in low-income communities in the United States and Canada.
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Porta Isaakson
Porta Isaakson is a classic example of a successful entrepreneur. As founder, president and chief executive officer of Future Computing Inc. Isaacson has made a name for herself as an authority on market trends in the personal computer industry.
Isaakson did not start at the top of business world. She grew up on a small struggling dairy farm in Oklahoma. She got the training she needed, eventually earning two masters’ degrees and a doctorate in computer science.
In 1980 she founded a market research and consulting firm Future Computing.
In 1981 Isaakson learned of IBM’s plans to market a new personal computer. In a published report she predicted that the IBM PC would have a dramatic effect on the computer market. When Isaakson’s prediction proved correct her company began to be taken seriously.
In 1984 she sold Future Computing for $8 million plus a percentage of future profits. She felt the sale was necessary because Future Computing needed access to corporate management experience. As part of the corporate merger Porta Isaakson continues to run Future Computing.
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Robert Edward Turner
Robert Edward Turner was born in 1938 in Cincinnati. He is world famous American television network chief executive.
In 1976, he founded a television station, WTBS, and built it into the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS). As he was a man with imagination, he decided to launch first 24-hour news channel. So, in 1980, The Cable News Network (CNN), was establishe. People from all over the world including monarchs, presidents, prime ministers and many other very important persons were fascinated by this innovation.
Ted Turner is a forward thinking person always coming up with innovative ideas. In 1988, Ted Turner started up TNT, a movie channel giving the opportunity to the multitude to enjoy his vast library of film classics.
Ted Turner announced he would endow $1 billion to United Nations programs devoted to international understanding and peace and the environment. His creative activity is recasting American life and culture.
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