Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Who doesn't know Bill Gates? He is the founder of the technology company Microsoft. Along the way, Microsoft released the most widely used operating system in the world, namely Windows.
Thanks to this, Gates is included in the ranks of the world's richest people Forbes with total assets of US$ 125.2 billion or Rp. 1,951 trillion. However, not many people know that the roots of Bill Gates' success did not begin at Microsoft, but since middle school.
Bill Gates entered junior high school around the late 1960s. He attended Lakeside School, an elite school in Seattle where the students were all boys. While there, Bill Gates was guided by teachers to discover his talents and interests.
Until finally, the man who was born on October 28 1955 found a bright spot regarding his talent, namely computer technology. As something expensive and rare, children of Bill Gates' age are practically very curious about the computers at their school.
“The school raised money to buy a teletype connected via telephone line to a GE time-sharing computer,” recalled Bill Gates, quoted from CNBC Make It (23/2/2024).
This is where Gates began to fall in love with computers. Patricia Demuth in Who is Bill Gates? (2015) said that Gates always went to the computer, which at that time was jumbo sized, to tinker with it after class.
He's not alone. There are many other friends who are interested in computers. One of them is Paul Allen. Together they read computer manuals, understand programming languages, and make simple programming.
In essence, the existence of the computer changed his life. He was willing to spend hours learning this new technology. The only thing that stood in Gates' way at that time was school policy.
It turned out that the computers at the school were rented. Initially it was free, but because many students used it, the school also charged rental fees. Even so, that didn't stop Bill Gates from taking steps.
Still citing exposure Who is Bill Gates? (2015), Gates then looked for his own money because his parents didn't give it. The junior high school boy does freelance work, helping other people and the school with computer problems.
Long story short, his journey through middle school and also continuing in high school made Bill Gates a capable person in the world of computers. On this basis, after graduating from school, Gates was determined to pursue computers in addition to studying at Harvard, although he never finished.
The passion for computers that had been rooted since middle school made Gates finally found his own company on April 4, 1975. The company was called Microsoft, which was also founded by Paul Allen, a friend of Bill Gates when he studied computers at Lakeside School.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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