Comparison Of Sam Walton And Bill Gates

There are famous thinkers that have little in common with what makes them strive to achievement personal and professional goals. Some famous thinkers have creative ideas in which create a secure foundation for the creative process. Several of these ideas circle around finding a solution to a problem, or changing the way people think about upcoming issues. There are two particular famous thinkers: Sam Walton and Bill Gates., both of these men were able to use the creative process to alter the way people observed the issues of the day. They each made precise contributions to society during difficult times.

Bill Gates (William Henry Gates III)

William Henry Gates III was birthed in Seattle, Washington on October 28, 1955. His parents were William Henry Gates, Jr. and Mary Maxwell. Bill’s father was a prominent lawyer in Seattle, Washington, and his mother was a school teacher, University of Washington regent and the United Way International chairperson. Bill Gates’ upbringing was that of privilege and opportunity, wanting for nothing while growing up. Bill was innately curious and quite intelligent drawing him to computer technology early in life. While in the seventh grade, at age 13, he wrote his first computer program. This was when he met his best friend and later business partner, Paul Allen. Gates went on to form a group in high school of programmers that automated their school’s payroll system and then started a company called Traf-O-Data (Bill Gates, 2014) Traf-O-Data sold traffic counting systems to local city governments all before he finished high school (Bill Gates, 2014).

Gates is perhaps one of the most famous college dropouts. He may have been accepted into Harvard, which is no easy feat but he never graduated; he dr...

... middle of paper ...

...efore they happened and then capitalize (Friedman, 2004). Gates would take trends that were already established and then send his troops in to exploit those trends (Gates, B. 2012). That is not to say the Gates was not driven. Both Gates and Walton were extremely driven and both men wanted to win. The main difference between the two successful men was that Sam Walton paid more attention to his own bottom line, while Bill Gates is giving away 95% of his bottom line to the greater good. Sam Walton and Bill Gates used similar creative processes. They both wanted to improve upon existing processes. Walton did not invent discount retailing but he mastered the art of chain store discounting. Bill Gates did not invent the computer operating system, but he created a way to adopt the operating system of a large computer into a microcomputer, and later personal computers.