Bill Gates - The Story: N.A.

By Daniel Ichbiah

Bill Gates – The Story

This book, the first biography on Bill Gates, has been adapted and published in many countries around the world: The USA, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Israel, Hungary ... It was completely updated in 2020.

Long hailed as a technological prodigy, Bill Gates conquered the world with his software programs. When he had become the wealthiest man on the planet, the U.S. government expressed serious concerns about Microsoft's "abuse of dominance".

During the 2000's, Bill Gates became a philanthropist. He is convinced that he has saved millions of lives, particularly in Africa. However, he is the subject of a thousand controversies.

This book, which was updated in 2020, strives to give all the information needed to understand what drives this extraordinary personality.

Bill Gates and the Saga of Microsoft tells the story of the youth of a gifted man named Bill Gates who became a champion of computers in high school, created Microsoft as soon as the first microcomputer appeared, and showed an incredible ability to seize opportunities and to exploit them relentlessly. And how, starting from scratch, he became the richest man in the USA and then in the world.

We follow Gates through a thousand twists and turns:

•         How does a 21-year-old manage to persuade the titan of IBM to do business with him?

•         The desert crossing of Windows over 7 years.

•         How Gates managed to impose himself on the vast majority of the planet, with a mixture of genius and questionable monopolistic maneuvers.

•         Why the U.S. government accused him of abuse of dominance.

•         His gradual conversion to humanitarian work, with choices that may have come as a surprise.

This book was originally written by Daniel Ichbiah when he was a journalist specializing in new technologies, which led him to meet Bill Gates regularly.

The book is based on long interviews with Bill Gates and those close to him. This edition chronicles Gates' developments during the 2000's and his controversial status as a large-scale philanthropist. It concludes with a wide-ranging reflection on his motivations and the misunderstanding he may have generated in his wake.

Who is Bill Gates? Is he a saint? Not at all.  But is he the monster that some conspiracy theorists like to portray in their paranoid delusions?  The answer lies in these pages.

This book tells the incredible story of a character such as the world has rarely produced. Some episodes of his story are exemplary. Others are less creditable. How could it be otherwise?

Since I am probably one of the high tech journalists who has met Gates the most times, I wanted to put things in perspective. His story is approached without any concession and from all possible angles.

This edition chronicles Gates' developments during the 2000's and his controversial status as a large-scale philanthropist. It concludes with a wide-ranging reflection on his deeper motivations and the misunderstanding he may have generated in his wake. An essential testimony for understanding the inner workings of one of the most fascinating and powerful men in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jun 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667405391

Daniel Ichbiah

Ecrivain, auteur-compositeur et musicien, Daniel Ichbiah est l'auteur de plusieurs livres à succès.* Les 4 vies de Steve Jobs (plus de 20 000 exemplaires* La saga des jeux vidéo (5 éditions : 14 000 ex.)* Bill Gates et la saga de Microsoft (1995 - 200 000 ex.),* Solfège (2003 - environ 100 000 ex.). Très régulièrement dans le Top 100 de Amazon.* Dictionnaire des instruments de musique (2004 - environ 25 000 ex.),* Enigma (2005 - 10 000 ex.)* Des biographies de Madonna, les Beatles, Téléphone (Jean-Louis Aubert), les Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Georges Brassens...)En version ebook, mes best-sellers sont :. Rock Vibrations, la saga des hits du rock. Téléphone, au coeur de la vie. 50 ans de chansons française. Bill Gates et la saga de Microsoft. Elvis Presley, histoires & légendes. La musique des années hippiesJ'offre aussi gratuitement à tous un livre que j'ai écrit afin de répandre la bonne humeur : le Livre de la Bonne Humeur.

Book preview

Chapter 00 – An unusual personality

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How should we describe a personality as unusual as that of Bill Gates? Let's not try to understand it. Exceptional beings often have the gift of escaping all attempts at classification. It is extremely rare to find within a single individual all the assets that Mother Nature, on some day of inspiration, conferred up this scion of Seattle.

What can we say about an individual who became a billionaire at the age of 31 and whose fortune long ago made him the richest man in the world? What should we think about the president of a company whose growth has most often been at the level of 50% and whose market capitalization exceeds that of General Motors, Ford, 3M, Boeing or Eastman Kodak?

It must be recognized that this individual is far removed from the usual stereotypes. The man has long appeared to be a naïve idealist who has not yet navigated the divide between the world of childhood and that of adults. Some people might be tempted to be dismissive of this eternal teenager, who looks like a retarded schoolboy and an intellectual nerd against the backdrop of Seattle's leafy campus, which is reminiscent of a culture closer to rock music and environmentalism than of Wall Street. And yet, those who have allowed themselves to look down on this young man have sometimes regretted it.

There can be no doubt that Bill does have a gift. A collection of rare qualities. The mixture is astonishing, because he combines high human virtues with an ability to manage his affairs that is a combination of prescience, cunning and a stupendous mastery of the elements of the financial equation.

What has often struck me about this Gyro Gearloose of the software world, if I may make a reference to the frenzied crackpot inventor in the world of Donald Duck, is the breadth of his thinking and his extraordinary intelligence. Give him a problem of any kind and the intellectual machinery immediately goes into high gear as if excited by the challenge. It is not uncommon for him to come out with an original and astute point of view on the topic. The surprise comes from the fact that he will have included elements in his analysis that an ordinary mind would fail to take into account. The amount of information he routinely accumulates is staggering. But his ability to grind, to crush, to knead, and to put this same data into perspective in order to come to conclusions that are surprisingly clear-sighted is even greater. He even derives intense satisfaction from discerning a pattern in what would appear to be chaotic or disorganized. Even when he was in elementary school, this gifted mathematician disarmed his teachers with the liveliness of his reasoning. He has retained a pronounced taste for intellectual sparring and will only truly respect you if you rise to the occasion. Add to this point the fact that he likes to surround himself with people like himself and you will better understand how Microsoft operates.

One anecdote will help you better understand how Bill operates. At a reception Microsoft participated in, one presenter went on stage and performed an impressive routine of mental mathematics: multiplication, square roots, etc. The next evening, Bill was having a friendly chat with some of the guests at a cocktail party. At one point, he said, I've figured out that guy's trick! Gates asked a guest to give him two numbers to multiply together, and he then gave the answer. The number 1 man in software had spent part of the previous night trying to understand the mechanism involved in such calculations!

Bill Gates is also endowed with bold vision, capable of perceiving what the world of tomorrow will be like several years in advance. As early as 1975, he perceived that the tiny chips that animate microcomputers would trigger an unprecedented revolution. He then threw himself wholeheartedly into his adventure, the Microsoft company. Add to that an inexorable power of conviction. When IBM came knocking on the door of the tiny Seattle-based company in 1980 to find out more about the newborn microcomputer, visitors were at first taken aback by the youthful appearance of their host. But as Bill Lowe of IBM later described it: As soon as Bill started talking, all thoughts about his age disappeared. We drank in what he was saying.

It is not a good point to encounter such a fighter on the road. Most of Microsoft's original enemies have bitten the dust. Gates displays his intransigence in business without a scruple. He even went so far as to defy the U.S. government when the latter decided to pick a fight with him. Gates adds to this merciless attitude the cunning of a chess player who will push the strategy of deception forward to the point of focusing the energy of his opponents on battles of secondary importance. If he were a general, he would officially carry his war to Peru and make his enemies move their troops to the heights of the Andes. And, while this theater was in turmoil, he would quietly invade Venezuela.

One might think that a man so ruthless in business would be a cold and calculating monster. And yet, Bill is genuinely different in his private life. Gates, who is both 'cool' and charming, is devoid of any pretense or affectation – it takes enormous effort to remember that he is the richest man in the world when you are in his presence. The man who brought down IBM may even get teary-eyed when it comes to being a father.

Bill can even change his skin several times in one day like a chameleon. He may seem detached, friendly and jovial during a morning meeting. One hour later, the same man reveals himself to be bitter and venomous as he concocts a strategy to encircle a competing company. During the lunch that follows, the relentless strategist can turn into a jovial firebrand, a joker and a spontaneous wit. Later, at the end of the evening, he may display an almost timid sentimentality when he temporarily recalls a nostalgic memory.

I have interviewed Bill Gates about twenty times and have many times had the opportunity to approach him at trade shows, conferences, and other events. Over the course of years, I have been pleasantly surprised to see that he has retained his disarming simplicity, an absence of prejudice and worldliness. The man is relaxed, devoid of manners, and genuinely friendly. Myriam Lubow, one of his first employees, sums up this quality in a nice sentence: The most difficult thing is not to rise in the world, but to remain yourself when you do so. While he can speak with financial analysts in the most serious tone, Bill cheers up at the first opportunity. On one trip to Las Vegas, I remember being called out to by a strange and fairly tipsy partygoer wearing a black hat, who grabbed me by the shoulder and asked, Hey! When's the book coming out? I turned around to discover that the happy guy was none other than Bill. The man dreaded by IBM was having the time of his life as a teenager during one of those hectic evening events that workaholic techies hold for one another.

His rise to the position of richest man in the United States in 1992 has contributed to the creation of a myth around the man. As far back as then, one Fortune reporter noted that Gates would be able to buy the annual output of his 99 closest competitors and burn it all up – and he would still have a fortune larger than that of Ruppert Murdoch or Ted Turner.

However, if anyone wants to embarrass Bill, he has only to ask him about his wealth. He avoids the question in a thousand ways, often with irony, but not without a certain annoyance: Money doesn't bring me anything except intrusive questions. He reminds us that his fortune is only virtual: it is based on the number of shares he holds in his company. And he insists that he doesn't care about it in the least. The facts confirm this attitude. The top American billionaire continues to work like a fanatic, more concerned with creating the software of the future than with managing his stock portfolio. Better still, he is thrifty, often travels in economy class, and likes to eat take-out pizza. Does he allow himself a few moments of genuine relaxation? Fortunately, he does. Especially by playing golf. But vacations have always been a luxury for those who felt themselves invested with a mission: to prepare for the age of communication.

Bill's little luxuries are modest, considering the size of his fortune. They are mainly manifested by a fondness for sports cars – including a red Ferrari 348 or a Porsche, which he would gladly drive at supersonic speeds if he weren't afraid of having his license revoked. The new Gatsby has also built a techno-futuristic house that cost the tidy sum of $53 million.

Gates decreed early on that he would retire from business when he reached the age of fifty and that he planned to distribute 90% of his fortune to charity. He then specified with a mischievous grin that he would wait until he had reached that respectable age to open the floodgates, so that there was accordingly no point in writing to him now! In the meantime, the software billionaire made many donations to charities and universities well before the 2000's.

One other striking facet of his personality: Bill is a convinced and militant optimist. To hear him tell it, he believes that the world of the future will be enhanced by technology. For him, the digital revolution is a credo, a vision that encompasses all of society. During the 1990's, if you wanted to raise that blond angel to celestial heights, all you had to do was to talk about it and his eyes would immediately light up and his body would start to rock back and forth ... To hear him tell it, everything was going to become easier: learning, shopping, getting a medical examination ...

Gates did not hesitate to buy out companies that had the know-how that Microsoft lacked, if necessary. Did millions of theatergoers rave about the dinosaurs from computer-generated images in Jurassic Park? Message received. Gates absorbed the software company Softimage, whose software was used to produce the said reptiles. Was a growing number of motorists interested in software capable of determining the best routes to follow? No problem: he bought NextBase, a specialist in the field. If there were parts missing from his range of internet holdings, he was happy to go shopping. Such an appetite ended up alarming the American authorities: was the jack-of-all-trades in software in the process of developing a monopoly like no other, one that would lead it to take effective control of this information-based civilization?

The uninterrupted growth of the emperor of software up to the end of the 1990's aroused growing concern. The mention of Microsoft triggered expressions such as Big Brother, monopoly, abuse of dominant position ... Microsoft and its president, whether rightly or wrongly, became the favorite target of commentators in the world of computers and the internet. It was common to hear that Gates was on his way to becoming the most powerful man in the world, with the ability to eventually impose his laws on the rulers and thus on the governed. Websites calling for a boycott of Microsoft and declaring their abhorrence of the company multiplied during 1997.

Even if they are not devoid of foundation, the arguments of many detractors have been flawed by an incomplete understanding of this phenomenon and his history. It masked a reality: Gates and his company have long been remarkable textbook cases. The power of Microsoft is certainly intimidating. But its success has been due, above all, to a staggering ability to react to events, to assimilate them, and to get the most out of them. Jean Louis Gassée, the former director of Apple France, aptly put it this way: The irony is that much of Microsoft's success is the result of the excellence of its teams, starting with its leader. And he added that it is particularly difficult to distinguish between what is meritorious and what is abusive.

I would like to be seen as a leader who says, 'Let's go'! Let's do it!' Someone who gives an example of energy and enthusiasm, said the founder of this multinational software company. In order to implement his vision, the man has surrounded himself with superb creatives and given them an environment conducive for making them flourish. Anyone who knows anything about the community of programmers knows that many of them are atypical and insubordinate individuals. This community of creatures feels entirely at home at the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Huge fir trees surround the buildings, which are separated by large lawns with fountains and recreation areas in the center. At noon, the atmosphere of the Berkeley campus develops: some people are juggling, others in shorts are practicing throwing boomerangs, there's an Asian woman playing a harp on the lawn amidst the ducks, a trio of ladies in raincoats is practicing a cello piece ... Its atmosphere evokes that of a village of mischievous students on the margins of the establishment. A visit to the premises reinforces this impression. Everyone dresses as they wish and decorates their offices as they see fit: inflatable dolls, aquariums and dart games share space with electric guitars ... One day, I asked Bill if the campus was the fulfillment of a childhood dream and the jovial man immediately shut up like an oyster, taking on the shell of a businessman.

Yet one of Gates' talents may have been to create a dream setting for these bohemians and to channel their talents into making products that can be sold to executives at large corporations. It is hard to understand how much software is like a work of art, with all its ups and downs. During the interviews I conducted at Microsoft, I was surprised to learn that Excel – one of Microsoft's flagship products – very nearly never saw the light of day. The programmer responsible for it, a temperamental, hippie-looking character, had gotten angry with Bill, grabbed his backpack and taken off down the road ... The financial executives who rely on Excel to forecast their conglomerate's budget from the top of a Manhattan skyscraper would have been reluctant to pick up this Kerouac imitator if they had seen him hitchhiking on a California road.

Microsoft has long demonstrated an astonishing level of stability of its workforce in comparison with other companies in Silicon Valley. If the challenge is up to their abilities, then these individuals have no hesitation in sacrificing nights and weekends in order to develop a product that could win the battle.

When Gates realized in 1995 that he was on the wrong track and that the internet had to be taken over without further delay, it only took Microsoft a few months to make a 180° turn. At the beginning of 1996, developers didn't hesitate to work over evenings and weekends, as if in Homeric times, and the legendary sleeping bags returned to their rooms. If Bill Gates managed to get such dedication from his programmers, it was partly because of his intellectual aura, his humility in the face of the mistakes he admittedly made, and his total lack of self-importance in relation to his employees.

Einstein once said that the noblest trait of the human being is the ability to rise above mere existence by sacrificing oneself for a goal. This definition could apply to Citizen Gates, whose existence has long been devoted to managing Microsoft's business. Capitalism has this ability to keep the biggest companies on the razor's edge in perpetuity commented Bill, who maintains a permanent vigilance.

Working under the supervision of such a gifted person every day is not pleasant, because the man can prove himself to be excessively demanding. One of his assistants, Charles Simonyi, put it this way: Most people are good in one particular field. Gates is special in that he is good in at least a dozen areas. The problem for those close to him is that he expects them to be intellectually sharp and dedicated. Those who choose to board the Microsoft boat can expect eighty-hour weeks and a hectic pace, especially since Captain Bill can be extremely rough on his colleagues. Some employees recount how, during one meeting, he allowed himself to reduce their ideas to a terse that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. When questioned about such mania, Bill puts it into perspective by explaining that he uses the expression several times a day. The fact remains that Microsoft employees are handsomely rewarded for their zeal: by the mid-1990's, more than three thousand of them had become millionaires.

Legend had it that the captain would calm down on the day he married. But that didn’t happen – nor even the details, such as leaving the office at 11:00 p.m. rather than 1:00 a.m. – since the days are too short for this perpetually simmering figure. Not a problem for Melinda, a very Texas sort of woman who is very comfortable with herself and who is accustomed to such frenetic activity. At least the marriage will have calmed his seductive ardor. From now on, I will no longer have to wonder who I'm going to spend my free time with, the pragmatic male who, for the rest, erects an impassable wall around his private life, said ironically. He nevertheless thought it wise to ask the opinion of an old girlfriend, Ann Winblad, a brilliant intellectual, before marrying the woman who was to become his wife!

From 1989 onwards, the software giant was under the scrutiny of the Department of Justice which, in the light of its investigations, considered that Microsoft's rise to prominence could not have taken place fairly. In 1995, the Clinton administration, perhaps frightened by the capacity of the potentate of Seattle for malice, preferred to reach a compromise (some claim that political friendships also played a part). It was not until October 1997 that Janet Reno, the Attorney General, launched a frontal attack.

There is indeed a hidden side of the moon. Since Gates had open admiration for the great personalities of history – Leonardo da Vinci, Roosevelt and Edison, but also Napoleon – the press did not hesitate to attribute hegemonic intentions to him. Given the financial means available to it for its prestigious operations, Redmond's armada sometimes put on a colossal show, and one not always in the best of taste. Microsoft's financial power was such that it could afford to invest $250 million in launching Windows 95 – an amount comparable to what Men in Black, the cinematic success story of 1997, brought in. In addition, among a workforce of more than twenty-two thousand individuals, there were inevitably a few arrogant recruits who had arrived after most of the battle and who were all too happy to don the armor of the victorious soldier at little cost to themselves.

Tyrannosaurus Gates has often acted to ruthlessly eliminate his competitors. The law of the jungle inherent to the world of business? Maybe so, except that the dice were loaded, since the competitors were forced to rely on Microsoft for the information needed to write their own software. This situation dates back to 1981, when IBM decided to equip its PC's with Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.

Because it defines the basic software for PC's (MS-DOS and Windows), Microsoft has been able to change the rules of the game and to make it more difficult for its competitors. They sometimes had to work much harder than necessary just to stay in the competition.

At the beginning of the 1990's, WordPerfect and Lotus were still world leaders in their respective sectors. At that time, the presidents of these two companies were constantly shouting out their fears of Microsoft's advances, explaining that the fight had become unequal and that their survival was being threatened. And they were right ... If we talk about these former competitors, Gates may well point out that Microsoft took huge risks, choosing the road of innovation, while those companies had preferred a more conservative path. He's not completely wrong.

The situation became different at the dawn of the year 2000, given the dreaded size of the no. 1 player in the world of software. Its operating system, Windows, was present on more than 90% of the world's computers. Gates could not ignore the fact that Microsoft could now crush small software companies. His prescription? Offering Windows, a software program whose sale is crucial for this competitor, free of charge.

Let us imagine a large company that saw a small candy shop opening up next door to it and selling chocolates of superior quality. In order to get rid of this nuisance, it might decide to distribute its product free of charge to all its customers for a certain period of time. Long enough to drive the small shopkeeper out of business ... Might this be an abuse of a dominant position?

At the beginning of the 1990's, the company Stack had made a name for itself by selling an information compacting software called Stacker. The popularity of this product was sufficient for Stack to go public in May 1992.

Seduced by Stacker, Microsoft contacted Stack in order to acquire the license of this software. Negotiations dragged on without the two parties reaching an agreement. Microsoft finally gave up the goal of acquiring Stacker and announced that the next version of its system would include a compacting program developed in-house.

Shortly after the announcement, Stack's share price began to plummet, to the point that its shareholders filed a class action lawsuit. Within a year, Stack's revenues had been cut in half.

The small California company took the case to court, accusing Microsoft of having taken advantage of the negotiations to study the code of Stack's software and of having been inspired by it. The judgment handed down on February 23, 1994 decreed that Microsoft had to pay $120 million in damages. Rather than appeal, the giant negotiated an out-of-court settlement in which Microsoft acquired the license to the technologies developed by Stack – for the sum of $83 million.

Such an encirclement scenario was performed against Netscape Corp. The California start-up had made a place for itself in the sun by releasing software in 1994 that allowed users to surf the web in a user-friendly way. Netscape Navigator had quickly become the favorite software of internet users.

Microsoft counter-attacked by buying a rival software program, Spyglass, and renamed it Internet Explorer. The developer then decided to integrate Internet Explorer directly into Windows. Such a decision meant the pure and simple death of Netscape over a longer or shorter time. It was on this occasion that we saw the tone rise at the level of the Department of Justice. Janet Reno, supported by numerous US state prosecutors, decided that the Seattle-based publisher would not get away with it this time. The presumptuous attitude of certain executives, particularly Steve Ballmer, the company's number 2, and William Neukom, head of legal services, no doubt contributed to the government's irritation. Some arrogant statements suggested that they felt that Microsoft had become untouchable through the power it had achieved.

The members of the Anti-Trust Division saw an accumulation of testimonies indicating an abuse of dominant position. The time had come for government regulation to ensure that the balance of power was restored.

Faced with such attacks, which he believes were orchestrated by his opponents, Gates has long displayed an annoyed attitude, believing that this is just the price of a success that was in itself a fabulous response to this immense racket!

But the scope of the protest went far beyond software and technology. The accusations made in November 1997 by Ralph Nader, a lawyer and well-known consumer advocate, had a certain impact, since they were made by a personality who had no personal interest in the matter.

Faced with the magnitude of such a controversy, Gates finally came to the conclusion that the time had come to adopt greater humility at the global level.

Although Microsoft achieved its success in a relatively legitimate way (We never forced anyone to buy our products, Gates likes to say), it was only fair that smaller companies such as Netscape seek support from outside entities such as the Department of Justice or Ralph Nader's movement to ensure their survival.

Everyone has the same right as Microsoft to use every conceivable weapon to ensure its survival. Microsoft's competitors have had a hard time trying to survive by any means necessary, even if it means joining forces and getting governments to intervene.

No one had anything to gain from a single player ruling the bulk of the software business. Users have a vested interest in the regular appearance of small companies capable of accelerating history through their capacity for innovation.

Essentially, if Bill has a flaw, it's an obsession with constantly being the best at everything. He seems to hate being put in a position of inferiority, if only for a few seconds. At an informal dinner in Paris, I jokingly said to him, What! You don't speak French? But at the age of three, I could already speak French. Gates replied curtly, "Yes, but at twenty years old, you hadn't created your own company! There was no trace of humor in his answer. He just didn't like being challenged. No one is perfect and the adage applies to the software genius. He is so convinced that he has the right vision that he inevitably wants to impose his own solutions.

Given Gates' power, it is legitimate to ask questions. Does he feel a real detachment from success? Is his global vision humanistic? Is Big Brother part of the grand plan? This is what we will attempt to determine throughout these pages.

Let us not lose sight of him: he is already far, very far away ...

Chapter 01 – Gifted

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– Do you think you are a genius?

– Yes, if there is such a thing, then I certainly am one. People like me become aware of their genius at the age of eight or ten. I always wondered why people didn't realize who I was. At school, couldn't they see that I was smarter than everyone else? That the teachers were stupid? That they were trying to give me a lot of information that I would never need. I was different. I was always different. Why didn't anyone ever notice that?

In so saying, John Lennon[1]was trying to explain to a Rolling Stone reporter how boring the childhood of the gifted is. Society is designed to facilitate the existence of those who conform to a predictable mold, called normality. Some deviate from the official grid out of rebellion, an inability to fit into the established framework, or out of playfulness. Those who are more gifted than normal live a different scenario: they are condemned to live with less refined adults who have the power to dictate their actions. He goes through the period of youth with a feeling of permanent displacement and a desire to grow up as quickly as possible so that he can finally act as he pleases and show what he is capable of. In the meantime, he suffers from the slowness of those around him ...

William Henry Gates III – that is to say, Bill Gates – belongs to this particular species. As a teenager, he looks like a strange, meditative, and highly self-determined boy. He excels in school and is extremely clever when a problem is put before his intellect. Bill is most often at the top of the general classifications. His science teacher, William S. Dougall, is amused by the cherub's impatience: when a teacher doesn't move fast enough for his liking, he adopts a resigned pout and seems perpetually on the verge of exclaiming, Why, it's obvious! Anne Stephens, his English teacher, is surprised by his remarkable memory: if he participates in a play, Gates is able to memorize a three-page monologue after one reading. Thirsty for knowledge, he reads the entire World Book Encyclopedia and devours biographies of famous men and inventors. He enjoys science fiction novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Isaac Asimov, Tarzan comics and stories about Martians. Bill's intellectual density doesn't always make it easy for him to relate to the other students, who are sometimes intimidated by his incomprehensible verbiage. Fortunately, he compensates for this inclination by enjoying sports such as tennis and water skiing.

The Gates family has three offspring. Kristiane was born in January 1954, Bill on October 28, 1955. Libby was born almost ten years later, in June 1964. According to a common tradition in the United States, Bill has the same name as his father and grandfather: William Henry. However, just as his father was called Junior, Bill was christened William Henry Gates III – the third of his name. The prodigy's early years were spent peacefully in an affluent environment. William Henry Junior and his wife Mary belonged to the upper middle class of Seattle. The capital of the state of Washington is a modern city with many companies in the aeronautical industry, including Boeing. The top floor of the Space Needle restaurant makes a slow continuous revolution, revealing Lake Washington, which crosses the city framed by the Olympic and Cascade Mountains. Located on the Pacific Ocean and bordering with Canada, Washington State offers a combination of natural elements: parks, forests, mountains and wide-open ocean.

Bill's father is a lawyer with a reputation for probity. Mary, a schoolteacher, gave up her career after the birth of the boy to devote herself to raising the children. Her boundless energy drives her to participate in community life. Bill accompanies her on her travels and patiently attends the lectures she gives on the history and culture of the area. Mary was involved in various charities such as United Way International, where she served on the board of directors. The Gateses, Protestants who belong to a branch called the Congregationalists, take their children