Bill Gates Research Paper

I chose this individual because I believe he is one of the most influential people in the computer engineering world. He is a good example of how hard work and dedication to a profession can have a great turn out in the end which is something that also attracted me to further research his background story and life achievements. Bill Gates has had a great influence overall in both the hardware and the programming aspects of the computer world. Gates is also the owner and an engineer in his own company, which is one of the top computer software companies in the world, Microsoft.

Gates had been interested in computers since the age of 13. He went from going to Lakeside school to Harvard University. While at Harvard he was pursuing a law degree. However, this goal of a law degree was not his own but instead it was his parent’s goal for him. After two years of law school he dropped out to join his high school friend, later

business partner, Paul Allen to work at MITS. They were hired after showing the company a software that they made that could run on the companies “Altair” computer which netted both of them royalties from the company MITS which helped with the rise of their new company, Microsoft. The royalty deal did not provide them much income due to the fact that very few copies of the software were actually purchased. The rest of the software being used were copies of purchased versions which people could easily get for free. This stumped the growth of Microsoft which led to Gates thinking of different marketing techniques and other ways to further grow the company.
What Gates did for his company was basically build it from the ground up. He took on the business aspects as well as the computing/engineering aspects of the company and made it all work out as one cohesive unit. He currently has stepped down from being chairman of Microsoft but has the new position of being the technology advisor to the new CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella. He says "I'm thrilled that Satya has asked me to step up, substantially increasing the time that I spend at the company,” He now chooses to spend more time on the software and product side of the business and is letting someone else handle the business side. This I believe to be a great decision because he now has a better grasp over the final end product that he and his engineers/programmers have created.
After researching this person I have found that sometimes to be an engineer you have to just take a leap of faith in yourself.

In Gates’ case, he was going to law school not because he wanted to be a lawyer nut because his parents wanted him to become that. He then chose his own route to success which led him to where he is now, one of the wealthiest men in the world. His name is also known world-wide but, I believe his most incredible achievement was doing all of this with no college degree which by today’s standards would be near impossible. This has affected my own choice in career because I see the great amount of potential someone can have in the computer engineering world by being good at the profession. The research on him has also shown me the great impact one can have on millions of people through software’s and computers. Thanks to the wealth he has established, he has given back to his community through his donations in charities as well as investing in students with potential through his scholarship, the Gates Millennium

Scholarship.
Overall, Gates is not only an influential figure in our world but has proven to do so through hard work. He stuck to what he knew which was computers and software instead of following a career that his parents had set out for him. I think many of us just follow certain career paths to please those around us but we don’t listen to what we want ourselves which is something Gates did and was successful. Being as he was a business man as well as an engineer and he was self-taught makes this an incredible thing to do. This is why I think Bill Gates is one of the most influential men in computer engineering/programming in the 20th century. His legacy will keep sparking the minds of future generations to come which one day will prove to be just as great as he is.