Bill Gates Goes Back to School

Friday, November 23rd, 2007
by George Appiah

No, Bill Gates is NOT going back to school to study, and I hope you were not burned by that title like I was.

This evening after sitting and staring at my computer for heaven knows how long– and not knowing what to do, I gave up and opened Google Reader to find something interesting to read.

That’s when I came across this great article published by Time way back in June 2007, and I wanted to share it.

The article traces Bill Gates’ life from his early high school days to age 22 when he dropped out of Harvard University to go after his passion, and continues through to his phenomenally successful business life, his transitioning out of Microsoft, and his present full-time philanthropy work in improving global education and health.

Gates’ life is a classic American riches-to-even-more-riches story. Growing up the son of a successful Seattle-area attorney, he was a curious fusion of nerd and bad boy. He was a straight-arrow student, but it was never enough to be the best. He had to push everything a little too far — he wanted to win the game and break the rules at the same time to show he was even smarter than the guy who wrote the rules. In high school, he and Allen, with whom Gates would later co-found Microsoft, were obsessed with programming a mainframe owned by a local company. But mastering it wasn’t enough. “We did this thing where we proved you could steal the password file,” Gates says. “Paul and I were banned from using the computer for a year.”

This is a great weekend reading for anyone who likes to explore the making of geniuses.

In the picture below is Bill Gates in 1984 (left) when he dropped out of Harvard, and Bill Gates during commencement ceremonies at Harvard University June 7, 2007.