It has been revealed that the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has quit his position as chairman, so we’re bringing you ten facts that you may not have known about the man himself.
Bill Gates, the 58-year-old billionaire from Seattle, Washington, has stepped down from his role as Microsoft chairman to take up a new position as a technology advisor for Microsoft. So we’ve decided to take this opportunity to bring you ten interesting facts about Bill…
1) Bill is wealthy. Really, REALLY wealthy.
He’s so wealthy, in fact, that if he were a country he’d be the 65th richest country in the world. According to Forbes, Bill was worth $72 billion as of September 2013, so he certainly won’t need to do the EuroMillions anytime soon.
2) But he’s also given A LOT of money away to charity
In fact, Bill has given a whopping $28 billion of his life earnings to charity so far.
3) Bill has an epic mug shot…
Bill was arrested back in 1977 in New Mexico when he was just 22, for running a red stop light and for driving without a driver’s licence. The left hand side of his resulting mug shot has “70’s tech nerd” written all over it, while the right hand side screams, “Like A Boss”…
4) He won’t be leaving his kids an epic fortune
During a recent Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), Bill said: “I definitely think leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favour to them.” Sounds pretty stingy, right? Well, while Bill said that he won’t be leaving his kids billions, they still stand to inherit somewhere in the region of $10million each, just to give them a head start in life.
5) Bill’s house knows more about you than you know about yourself
How? Well, before you knock around to Bill’s for a chat and a cuppa you have to inform him of certain preferences. That’s because guests receive a small pin that interacts with sensors built into the house that change the lighting, art, music and temperature of a room depending on your preference.
6) Bill owns one of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous works
Back in 1994, Bill bought ‘The Codex Leicester’ written by Leonardo for a whopping $30,802,500 from Christie’s auction house.
7) Bill is leading the fight on eradicating malaria
Why malaria and not cancer? Well, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Bill said: “The world is putting massive amounts into cancer, so my wealth would have had a meaningless impact on that.” Fair play to him.
8) Bill never got his college degree
That’s right. Just like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Thomas Edison, Bill never finished his college education. And he didn’t just drop out of any awl college, he dropped out of Harvard, of all places, back in 1974.
9) Bill was a smooth operator back in his high school days
While studying at Lakeside School in Seattle back in the 70’s, Bill was asked to write a program that would be able to schedule students in classes. So what did he do? He modified the code so that he himself was placed in classes with “a disproportionate number of interesting girls.” What a legend…
10) Bill wanted to become a millionaire by 30…
But he became a billionaire at the age of 31. So lads, there’s still hope for us all.
That’s it from us. But if you want to keep up to date with everything Bill Gates related, make sure to follow him on Twitter over here.
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