Is Bill Gates Rich??
It’s safe to say that everyone knows who Bill Gates is, and why wouldn’t they? He’s only the richest person on the planet according to Forbes’ list of the World’s Richest People. He’s topped that list for roughly 10 years now. I guess someone has to be number one on that list, but why Gates? What did he do, and what can we learn from him?Everyone knows that Bill Gates invented Microsoft Windows. Most likely, for the majority of people that are reading this article, you are running Microsoft Windows on your personal computer right now. It has become such a staple of computers now days that if you haven’t ever used Windows, you’ve at least seen someone around you using it. It’s amazing to think that 15 years ago computers cost a couple thousand dollars and weren’t that powerful. We’ve come a long way, and Gates is responsible for a lot of that progression.
The thing that makes Bill Gates so unique is the fact that he is a visionary. He doesn’t really think about the present. He has always been a generation ahead of everyone else. A great article over at www.bit-tech.net entitled “The Road Ahead 10 years on” talks about the book that Gates released in 1995. In it he talks about what he thinks the future will hold. Some of his visions were dead on (he basically predicted TIVO), while some weren’t. Or maybe he was thinking so far ahead that they just haven’t happened yet. Whatever the case may be, it’s clear that he is a genius when it comes to advancing technology.
In my opinion, the most important lesson one can learn from Mr. Gates is that to get rich, you have to be able to think about the future. What works, what doesn’t work? What could work? How can I improve life for others? What is the world going to be like 10 years from today, and how can I contribute? There’s no doubt that Gates had a little luck along the way, but he was smart enough to know that computers were the future. He knew that he could offer something that people would want, and that’s why he is where he is today. It’s pretty safe to say that you’re not going to reach Bill Gates’ status, but if you can imagine what the world will be like in a couple of years and how you can contribute to that, you may end up surprising yourself.
It's even simpler than that: he's a good businessman. He started by buying a piece of software and retooling it and reselling it for more. He sold it to IBM who included it with all their computers giving him a platform for everything else MS would develop.
Successful Personal Finance
Posted by digerati | November 21, 2006 8:33 PM
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