Bill Gates is arguably the number one business leader that the past quarter-century has produced. An instinctive innovator and incurable entrepreneur for most of his life, he started what would be a long career in programming computers at the tender age of 13. He quit Harvard in his junior year to develop what would eventually be Microsoft, co-founding it with Paul Allen in 1975.

His unfailing vision made him see the better future of software. He bought DOS for only a few thousand dollars and instantly transformed it into a bestseller for Microsoft. He went on to produce other bestselling Microsoft products. In 1978, Microsoft became a one million dollar company. Nearly twenty-five years later, the company has become the market leader in the software industry with assets of close to $30 billion.

What Bill Gates clearly saw was technology leading the future, if technology is systematically controlled. He, thus, made MS-DOS and Windows the universal standard for personal computing, controlling a significant chunk of the market up until the Internet dictated such technology.

The impact of his leadership is seen in the very homes of millions of Microsoft users. Gates put the PC in ordinary homes, and created the ease of personal computing that has become second nature to modern man. If billions of people across the globe now know how to use a computer, and if practically every modern home has a PC, this is because of Gates’ legacy to the software industry.

Image

Via WIRED/Ask Rea Maor