Credited as one of the greatest pioneers of the modern era, Bill Gates is an incredibly successful business tycoon, software developer, investor, and philanthropist most well known for founding Microsoft. As such, he is also one of the richest human beings on planet earth and has been for quite some time now. How rich is he now, though? In this piece, we'll be taking a look at Bill Gates' net worth in 2022.
Bill Gates' net worth in 2022 (Estimate): $129.9 Billion
Bill Gates' net worth in 2022 is $129.9 billion. This is according to numerous reputable sources including Celebrity Net Worth.
William Henry Gates was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He first exhibited his passion for coding while attending Lakeside School, wherein he wrote his first software program. Using the BASIC programming system on the school's GE computer, he created his first program allowing users to play tic-tac-toe.
Gates, alongside Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans would go on to establish the Lakeside Programmers Club to make money. They would have an arrangement with the school where they would find bugs in the Computer Center Corporation's software in exchange for computer time.
Gates and Evans would go on to be commissioned to automate the school's class-scheduling system in exchange for computer time and royalties. Unfortunately, Kent Evans would pass away before their senior year. To finish the system, Gates enlisted Paul Allen to help finish the system. The two went on to form a venture called Traf-O-Data, a transportation engineering venture utilizing traffic data to create reports for traffic engineers.
After scoring 1590 out of 1600 in his SATs, Gates went on to go to Harvard to pursue a pre-law program. He dropped out eventually, but not before performing a few feats along the way. Notably, he developed a solution to the pancake-swapping problem which held the record for the fastest solution of its kind for over 30 years. The solution was formalized and is available online.
As was mentioned, Gates dropped out in his second year in order to pursue his own computer software company alongside Allen. He did have an option to go back to Harvard if ever the company failed, but he obviously never had to exercise it. They started working with the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) by developing a BASIC interpreter for the Altair 8800. Allen first coined the partnership “Micro-soft”, a combination of the terms “microcomputer” and “software”. This was changed shortly to Microsoft and was used as their official trade name registered with the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.
Microsoft became independent of MITS in 1976, 1 year after joining forces. They continued to develop programming language software for different systems.
At the time, Microsoft was still a relatively small entity. However, the company would receive a huge boost following their partnership with computer equipment giant IBM; the latter inquired about Microsoft potentially creating software for their new IBM Personal Computer. Eventually, Microsoft struck a deal with Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products to create PC DOS (IBM's then-operating system), earning Microsoft $50k. A version compatible with other PCs (MS-DOS), was developed and distributed thereafter.
A company restructure soon followed, making Gates the president and chairman of the board, with Paul Allen being the vice president and vice-chairman. Obviously, this would all help set the stage to attribute to Bill Gates' net worth in 2022.
They then launched Microsoft Windows to compete directly with Steve Jobs' Apple Macintosh and its Graphical User Interface. This was in conjunction with the development of Microsoft Word and Excel.
Despite a slow start, Windows developed over time and gained massive popularity and profit, eventually making Bill Gates his first billion dollars in 1986. Gates would step down as CEO to focus on other ventures as well as his philanthropy.
Over the years, he has slowly phased out of Microsoft as well, from being CEO to Chief Software Architect to Technology Advisor.
As a business magnate, Gates' portfolio is very wide. Aside from holding shares in Microsoft, he also has stakes in Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Corbis Corp, Ecolab, Berkshire Hathaway, and other companies. These investments are grouped within his holdings company, Cascade Investment. When it comes to philanthropy, he has the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, described to be a nonprofit “fighting against poverty, disease, and inequity around the world”.
Bill Gates would become the world's richest man for the first time in 1995 with a net worth of $12.9 billion. Gates held this title for 12 straight years after, culminating in 2007 with a net worth of $56 billion; his streak was broken by Warren Buffet in 2008. However, he'd still go on to be the wealthiest man in the world in the years 2009, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. His highest net worth would be $92.5 billion, attained in 1999. He has consistently maintained at least a top-5 placement for this title over the years.
The Microsoft founder has certainly left an indelible mark on history, extending beyond his rather considerable net worth. Were you stunned at all by Bill Gates' net worth in 2022?
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