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Amitabh Bachchan
"Bachchan" redirects here. For other uses, see Bachchan (disambiguation).
| Amitabh Bachchan | |
|---|---|
 Amitabh Bachchan in 2009 | |
| Born | Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan 11 October 1942 Allahabad, United Provinces, British India |
| Residence | Prateeksha, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Occupation | Actor, producer, singer, television presenter |
| Years active | 1969–present |
| Spouse | Jaya Bhaduri (1973–present) |
| Children |
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| Website | |
| srbachchan.tumblr.com | |
listen), born Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan on 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the "angry young man" of Hindi cinema, and has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades.[1][2] Bachchan is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema.[3][4][5]Bachchan has won numerous major awards in his career, including three National Film Awards as Best Actor, and fourteen Filmfare Awards. He is the most-nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 37 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He also had a stint in politics in the 1980s. He has received both the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan civilian awards from the Indian government.
Contents |
Early life
See also: Bachchan family
Bachchan was born in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, in north central India. His father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a Hindi poet and his mother, Teji Bachchan, was a Sikh from Faisalabad (now in Pakistan).[6] Bachchan was initially named Inquilaab, inspired from the phrase made famous during the Indian independence struggle, Inquilab Zindabad, which means "long live revolution". However, at the suggestion of fellow poet Sumitranandan Pant, Harivansh Rai changed the name to Amitabh which means, "the light that would never go off." Though his surname was Shrivastava, his father had adopted the pen-name Bachchan (meaning "child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all his works. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films, and, for all public purposes, it has become the surname of all members of his family. Bachchan's father died in 2003 and his mother in 2007.[7]Amitabh is the elder of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's two sons, the second being Ajitabh. His mother had a keen interest in theatre and had been offered a role in a film, but preferred her domestic duties. She had some degree of influence in Bachchan's choice of career because she always insisted that he should take the centre stage.[8]
Career
Early work: 1969–1972
Bachchan made his film debut in 1969 as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award winning film Bhuvan Shome. Thereafter he got his first acting role as one of the seven protagonists in Saat Hindustani, a film directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Madhu and Jalal Agha. Though the film was not a financial success, Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Newcomer.[9]Anand (1971) followed, where he starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. Bachchan's role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garned him his first Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. He then played his first negative role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in Parwaana (1971). This was followed by several films including Reshma Aur Shera (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film Guddi which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film Bawarchi. In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy Bombay to Goa, directed by S. Ramanathan. Many of his films during this early period did not do well, but that was about to change.[10]
Rise to stardom: 1973–1983
Director Prakash Mehra cast him in the leading role for the film Zanjeer (1973) as Inspector Vijay Khanna. The film was a sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it and established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood cinema.[2] He earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. Filmfare considers this one of the iconic performances of Bollywood history.[10] The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together; not only in Zanjeer but in films such as Abhimaan which followed and was released only a month after their marriage. Later, Bachchan played the role of Vikram in the film Namak Haraam, a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and scripted by Biresh Chatterjee addressing themes of friendship. His supporting role won him his second Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award.[citation needed]
Bachchan starred in comedies such as Chupke Chupke (1975) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and in films such as Kabhie Kabhie (1976). In 1976, he was once again cast by director Yash Chopra in his second film, Kabhi Kabhie, a romantic tale in which Bachchan starred as a young poet named Amit Malhotra who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja played by actress Rakhee Gulzar. The film saw him again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in Amar Akbar Anthony where he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. In 1978 he starred in all four of the highest grossing films of India in that year.[15] He once again resumed double roles in films such as Kasme Vaade as Amit and Shankar and Don playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also performed in Trishul and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar which both earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. He was billed a "one-man industry" by the French director François Truffaut.[16]
In 1979, for the first time, Amitabh was required to use his singing voice for the film Mr. Natwarlal in which he starred alongside Rekha. His performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Best Actor Award and the Filmfare Best Male Playback Awards. In 1979, he also received Best Actor nomination for Kaala Patthar (1979) and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed film Dostana, in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. Dostana proved to be the top grossing film of 1980.[17] In 1981, he starred in Yash Chopra's melodrama film Silsila, where he starred alongside his wife Jaya and rumoured lover Rekha. Other films of this period include Ram Balram (1980), Shaan (1980), Lawaaris (1981), and Shakti (1982) which pitted him against legendary actor Dilip Kumar.[18]
1982 injury while filming Coolie
On 26 July 1982, while filming Coolie in the University Campus in Bangalore, Bachchan suffered a near fatal intestinal injury during the filming of a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar.[19] Bachchan was performing his own stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in hospital for many months, at times close to death. The public response included prayers in temples and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him, while later, there were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating.[20] Nevertheless, he spent many months recovering and resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, the film was a box office success.[21]The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. Also, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury and the ensuing publicity of the accident.[20]
Later, he was diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. His illness made him feel weak both mentally and physically and he decided to quit films and venture into politics. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received and stated before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop").[22]
Politics: 1984–87
In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's seat of 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and won by one of the highest victory margins in general election history (68.2% of the vote).[23] His political career, however, was short-lived: he resigned after three years, calling politics a cesspool. The resignation followed the implication of Bachchan and his brother in the "Bofors scandal" by a newspaper, which he vowed to take to court. Bachchan was eventually found not guilty of involvement in the ordeal.[24]His old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during a financial crisis due to the failure of his company ABCL. Therefore Bachchan started to support Amar Singh's political party, the Samajwadi party. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and became a Rajya Sabha member.[25] Bachchan has continued to do favors for the Samajwadi party, including advertisements and political campaigns. These activities have recently gotten him into trouble again in the Indian courts for false claims after a previous incident of submission of legal papers by him, stating that he is a farmer.[26]
A 15 year press ban against Bachchan was imposed during his peak acting years by Stardust and some of the other film magazines. In his own defense, Bachchan claimed to have banned the press from entering his sets until late 1989.[27]
Slump and retirement: 1988–1992
In 1988, Bachchan returned to films, playing the title role in Shahenshah, which was a box office success due to the hype of Bachchan's comeback.[28] After the success of his comeback film however, his star power began to wane as all of his subsequent films failed at the box office. The 1991 hit film, Hum, for which he won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award, looked like it might reverse this trend, but the momentum was short-lived as his string of box office failures continued. Notably, despite the lack of hits, it was during this period that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor, for his performance as a Mafia don in the 1990 film Agneepath. These years would be the last he would be seen on screen for some time. After the release of Khuda Gawah in 1992, Bachchan went into semi-retirement for five years. In 1994, one of his delayed films Insaniyat was released but was also a box office failure.[29]Producer and acting comeback 1996–99
Bachchan turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (A.B.C.L.) in 1996, with the vision of becoming a 10 billion rupees (approx 250 million $US) premier entertainment company by the year 2000. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering the entire section of the India's entertainment industry. Its operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film was produced by the company. Tere Mere Sapne failed to do well at the box office but launched the careers of actors such as Arshad Warsi and South films star Simran. ABCL produced a few other films, none of which did well.In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film Mrityudata, produced by ABCL. Though Mrityudaata attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the 1996 Miss World beauty pageant, Bangalore but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by Indian Industries board. The Bombay high court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats till the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to Sahara India Finance for raising funds for his company.[30]
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career and had average success with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998),[29] and received positive reviews for Sooryavansham (1999)[31] but other films such as Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were box office failures.
Return to prominence: 2000–present
In May 2007, two of his films Cheeni Kum and the multi-starrer Shootout at Lokhandwala were released. Shootout at Lokhandwala did very well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while Cheeni Kum picked up after a slow start and only had average success.[36] A remake of his biggest hit, Sholay (1975), entitled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception.[36] The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best ever since Black.[37] Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, Shantaram, directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008.[38] The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.[39] Vivek Sharma's Bhoothnath, in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. Sarkar Raj, the sequel of the 2005 film Sarkar, released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box-office. Paa, which released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through Kandahar, directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal.[40] The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814.[41] Bachchan did not receive any remuneration for this film.[42]
Television career
In the year 2000, Bachchan stepped up to host India's adaptation of the British television game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? entitled, Kaun Banega Crorepati. As it did in most other countries where it was adopted, the program found immediate success. He has hosted all but one of the seasons of the show. Canara Bank withdrew its law suit against Bachchan in November 2000. Bachchan hosted KBC till November 2005, when he fell ill. At that time he was admitted to Lilavati Hospital's ICU once more, to undergo surgery for diverticulitis of the small intestine.[43] During the period and that following his recovery, most of his projects were put on hold, including KBC.[44] The show's success set the stage for his return to film popularity. In 2009 Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire in the first question of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? contest "Amitabh Bachchan" was the correct answer to the question "Who was the star of Zanjeer? Feroz Abbas Khan performed as Amitabh Bachchan in a scene in the movie while Anil Kapoor performed as the host of the contest. Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss in 2009.[45]Voice
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Personal life
See also: Bachchan family
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. (May 2012) |
Barabanki land case
In the runup to the Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections, 2007, Bachchan made a film extolling the virtues of the Mulayam Singh government. His Samajwadi Party was routed, and Mayawati came to power.[citation needed]On 2 June 2007 a Faizabad court ruled that he had legally acquired agricultural land designated specifically for landless Dalit farmers.[48] It was speculated that he might be investigated on related charges of forgery, as he has allegedly claimed he was a farmer.[49] On 19 July 2007, after the scandal broke out, Bachchan surrendered the land acquired in Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh and Pune. He wrote to the chief minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, to donate the lands that were allegedly acquired illegally in Pune.[50] However, the Lucknow Court has put a stay on the land donation and said that the status quo on the land be maintained.
On 12 October 2007, Bachchan abandoned his claim in respect of the land at Daulatpur village in Barabanki district.[51] On 11 December 2007, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court gave a clean chit to Bachchan in a case pertaining to alleged fraudulent allotment of government land to him in Barabanki district. A single Lucknow bench of Justice said there was no finding that the actor "himself committed any fraud or manipulated any surreptitious entry in the revenue records".[52][53]
After receiving a positive verdict in Barabanki case, Amitabh Bachchan intimated to Maharashtra government that he did not wish to surrender his land in Maval tehsil of Pune district.[54]
Raj Thackeray's criticism
Main article: 2008 attacks on North Indians in Maharashtra
Responding to Raj's accusations, the actor's wife, SP MP Jaya Bachchan, said that the Bachchans were willing to start a school in Mumbai, provided the MNS leader donated the land to build it. She told the media, "I heard that Raj Thackeray owns huge properties in Maharashtra, in Mumbai—Kohinoor Mills. If he is willing to donate land, we can start a school in the name of Aishwarya here."[58] Raj responded to it saying, "Jaya bachchan claims she does not know me then how come she knows how much property I own?". Amitabh abstained from commenting on the issue. However, he apologized to Raj for controversial remarks from Jaya in some other incidence. "[59]
Bal Thackeray refuted the allegations, stating, "Amitabh Bachchan is an open-minded person, he has great love for Maharashtra, and this is evident on many occasions. The actor has often said that Maharashtra and specially Mumbai has given him great fame and affection. He has also said that what he is today is because of the love people have given him.[citation needed] The people of Mumbai have always acknowledged him as an artiste.[citation needed] It was utter foolishness to make these parochial allegations against him. Amitabh is a global superstar. People all over the world respect him. This cannot be forgotten by anyone. Amitabh should ignore these silly accusations and concentrate on his acting."[60]
On 23 March 2008, more than a month and half after Raj's remarks, Amitabh finally spoke out in an interview to a local tabloid saying, "Random charges are random; they do not deserve the kind of attention you wish me to give."[61] Later, on 28 March at a press conference for the International Indian Film Academy, when asked what his take was on the anti-migrant issue, Amitabh said that it is one's fundamental right to live anywhere in the country and the constitution entitles so.[62] He also stated that he was not affected by Raj's comments.[63]
Awards, honours and recognitions
Apart from National Film Awards, Filmfare Awards and other competitive awards which Bachchan won for his performances throughout the years, he has been awarded several honours for his achievements in the Indian film industry.[citation needed] In 1991, he became the first artist to receive the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in the name of Raj Kapoor. Bachchan was crowned as Superstar of the Millennium in 2000 at the Filmfare Awards. The Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in 1984[64] and the Padma Bhushan in 2001.[65] France's highest civilian honour, the Knight of the Legion of Honour, was conferred upon him by the French Government in 2007 for his "exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond".[66] In 2011, actor Dilip Kumar blogged that Black should have been nominated for an Oscar. Kumar added: "If any Indian actor, in my personal opinion, deserves the world's most coveted award, it is you."[67]In 1999, Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in a BBC Your Millenium online poll. The organisation noted that "Many people in the western world will not have heard of [him] ...[but it] is a reflection of the huge popularity of Indian films."[68] In 2001, he was honoured with the Actor of the Century award at the Alexandria International Film Festival in Egypt in recognition of his contribution to the world of cinema.[69] Many other honours for his achievements were conferred upon him at several International Film Festivals, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Asian Film Awards.[70]
In June 2000, he became the first living Asian to have been immortalised in wax at London's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.[71] Another statue was installed in New York [72] and Hong Kong in 2009.[73]
In 2003, he was conferred with the Honorary Citizenship of the French town of Deauville.[74] He was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Jhansi, India, in 2004,[75] the University of Delhi in 2006,[76] the De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, in 2006,[77] the University Brandan Foster by the Leeds Metropolitan University in Yorkshire, UK, in 2007,[78] and the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, in 2011.[79]
On the 27th of July, 2012, Amitabh Bachchan was given the due honor to carry the Olympic torch during the last leg of its relay in in London's Southwark.[89][90]
encyclopedia of bill gates,histry of bill gates,life of bill gates,all about bill gates life
Bill Gates
For other people named Bill Gates, see Bill Gates (disambiguation).
| Bill Gates | |
|---|---|
 Gates at the World Economic Forum in 2007 | |
| Born | William Henry Gates III October 28, 1955 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Residence | Medina, Washington, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (dropped out) |
| Occupation | Co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO of Cascade Investment Chairman of Corbis |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Net worth |  US$ 61 billion (2012)[1] |
| Board member of | Berkshire Hathaway |
| Religion | None (Agnostic[2][3]) |
| Spouse | Melinda Gates (m. 1994) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents | William H. Gates, Sr. Mary Maxwell Gates |
| Signature |  |
| Website | |
| Bill Gates | |
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts.[10][11] In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.[12]
Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January 2000. He remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work, and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, and Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.
Contents |
Early life
Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His parents are of English, German, and Scots-Irish descent.[13][14] His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way. Gates's maternal grandfather was J. W. Maxwell, a national bank president. Gates has one elder sister, Kristi (Kristianne), and one younger sister, Libby. He was the fourth of his name in his family, but was known as William Gates III or "Trey" because his father had the "II" suffix.[15] Early on in his life, Gates's parents had a law career in mind for him.[16] When Gates was young, his family regularly attended a Congregational church.[17][18][19]At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school.[20] When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the school's students.[21] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly. When he reflected back on that moment, he said, "There was just something neat about the machine."[22] After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.[23]
At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via Teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970, when the company went out of business. The following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four Lakeside students to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties. After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success."[22] At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.[24] In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page in the U.S. House of Representatives.[25]
Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT[26] and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.[27] While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who later succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft.
Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard[31] and spent a lot of time using the school's computers. Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen, and he joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.[32] The following year saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company.[33] Gates dropped out of Harvard at this time.[34] He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.[31]
Microsoft
Main articles: History of Microsoft and Microsoft
BASIC
Microsoft's BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter saying that MITS could not continue to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software without payment.[37] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.[36] The company moved from Albuquerque to its new home in Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979, after the former rejected his loan application.[35]
During Microsoft's early years, all employees had broad responsibility for the company's business. Gates oversaw the business details, but continued to write code as well. In the first five years, Gates personally reviewed every line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it as he saw fit.[38]
IBM partnership
IBM approached Microsoft in July 1980 regarding its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.[39] The computer company first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system.[40] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and told him to get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS (QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner, of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered it to IBM as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000.[41]Gates did not offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system, because he believed that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system.[41] They did, and the sales of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.[42] Despite IBM's name on the operating system the press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the new computer, with PC Magazine asking if Gates were "The Man Behind The Machine?"[39] He oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates President of Microsoft and the Chairman of the Board.[35]
Windows
Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, mounting creative differences caused the partnership to deteriorate. It ended in 1991, when Gates led Microsoft to develop a version of OS/2 independently from IBM.[43]Management style
From Microsoft's founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had primary responsibility for the company's product strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and wherever Microsoft achieved a dominant position he vigorously defended it. He gained a reputation for being distant to others; as early as 1981 an industry executive complained in public that "Gates is notorious for not being reachable by phone and for not returning phone calls."[44]As an executive, Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers. Firsthand accounts of these meetings describe him as verbally combative, berating managers for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.[45][46] He often interrupted presentations with such comments as, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"[47] and, "Why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?"[48] The target of his outburst then had to defend the proposal in detail until, hopefully, Gates was fully convinced.[47] When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."[49][50][51]
Gates's role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years, particularly on the company's programming language products. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100,[52] but wrote code as late as 1989 that shipped in the company's products.[50] On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his day-to-day role over the next two years to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors, placing Ray Ozzie in charge of day-to-day management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.[53]
Antitrust litigation
Further information: United States Microsoft antitrust case and European Union Microsoft competition case
Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying 'I don't recall,' so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail that Gates both sent and received.[55]Gates later said he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. As to his demeanor during the deposition, he said, "Did I fence with Boies? ... I plead guilty. Whatever that penalty is should be levied against me: rudeness to Boies in the first degree."[56] Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization and tying, and blocking competition, both in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[56]
Appearance in ads
Gates appeared in a series of ads to promote Microsoft in 2008. The first commercial, co-starring Jerry Seinfeld, is a 90-second talk between strangers as Seinfeld walks up on a discount shoe store (Shoe Circus) in a mall and notices Gates buying shoes inside. The salesman is trying to sell Mr. Gates shoes that are a size too big. As Gates is buying the shoes, he holds up his discount card, which uses a slightly altered version of his own mugshot of his arrest in New Mexico in 1977 for a traffic violation.[57] As they are walking out of the mall, Seinfeld asks Gates if he has melded his mind to other developers, after getting a yes, he then asks if they are working on a way to make computers edible, again getting a yes. Some say that this is an homage to Seinfeld's own show about "nothing" (Seinfeld).[58] In a second commercial in the series, Gates and Seinfeld are at the home of an average family trying to fit in with normal people.Post-Microsoft
Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft (where he remains Chairman[59]), Gates continues his philanthropy and, among other projects, purchased the video rights to the Messenger Lectures series called The Character of Physical Law, given at Cornell University by Richard Feynman in 1964 and recorded by the BBC. The videos are available online to the public at Microsoft's Project Tuva.[60][61]In April 2010, Gates was invited to visit and speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he asked the students to take on the hard problems of the world in their futures.[62][63]
Personal life
The family resides in The Gates's home, an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina. According to King County public records, as of 2006 the total assessed value of the property (land and house) is $125 million, and the annual property tax is $991,000.
His 66,000 sq ft (6,100 m2) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, as well as a 2,500 sq ft (230 m2) gym and a 1,000 sq ft (93 m2) dining room.[64]
Also among Gates's private acquisitions is the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci, which Gates bought for $30.8 million at an auction in 1994.[65] Gates is also known as an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby.[66] He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.[67][68]
Gates was number one on the Forbes 400 list from 1993 through to 2007 and number one on Forbes list of The World's Richest People from 1995 to 2007 and 2009. In 1999, Gates's wealth briefly surpassed $101 billion, causing the media to call him a "centibillionaire".[69] Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In a May 2006 interview, Gates commented that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.[70] Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667 and $350,000 bonus totalling $966,667.[71] He founded Corbis, a digital imaging company, in 1989. In 2004 he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.[72] In March 2010 Bill Gates was bumped down to the second wealthiest man behind Carlos Slim.
Philanthropy
Further information: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Gates began to appreciate the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted suggesting that he could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world.[73] The foundation allows benefactors access to information regarding how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.[74][75] The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a major influence. Gates and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, namely those global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.[76] As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.[77] They plan to eventually give 95% of their wealth to charity.[78]The foundation was at the same time criticized because it invests assets that it has not yet distributed with the exclusive goal of maximizing return on investment. As a result, its investments include companies that have been charged with worsening poverty in the same developing countries where the Foundation is attempting to relieve poverty. These include companies that pollute heavily, and pharmaceutical companies that do not sell into the developing world.[79] In response to press criticism, the foundation announced in 2007 a review of its investments, to assess social responsibility.[80] It subsequently canceled the review and stood by its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.[81] The Gates Millennium Scholars program has been criticized for its exclusion of Caucasian students.[82][83]
Gates's wife urged people to learn a lesson from the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family, which had sold its home and given away half of its value, as detailed in The Power of Half.[84] Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what the family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Gates, investor Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's CEO) signed a promise they called the "Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge", in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time.[85][86][87]
Recognition
In 1987, Gates was listed as a billionaire in the pages of Forbes' 400 Richest People in America issue, just days before his 32nd birthday. As the world's youngest self-made billionaire, he was worth $1.25 billion, over $900 million more than he'd been worth the year before, when he'd debuted on the list.[88]
In 1994, he was honoured as the twentieth Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands, in 2000;[92] the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, in 2002;[93] Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005; Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in April 2007;[94] Harvard University in June 2007;[95] the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, in January 2008,[96] and Cambridge University in June 2009.[97] He was also made an honorary trustee of Peking University in 2007.[98] Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005,[99] in addition to having entomologists name the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.[100]
In November 2006, he and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in Mexico, and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".[101] In October 2009, it was announced that Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business Leadership of The Franklin Institute for his achievements in business and for his philanthropic work. In 2010 he was honored with the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America, its highest award for adults, for his service to youth.[102]
In 2011, Bill Gates was ranked as the fifth most powerful person in the world, according to rankings by Forbes magazine.[103]
Investments
- Cascade Investments LLC, a private investment and holding company, incorporated in United States, is controlled by Bill Gates, and is headquartered in the city of Kirkland, Washington.
- bgC3, a new think-tank company founded by Bill Gates.
- Corbis, a digital image licensing and rights services company.
- TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company.
Books and films
To date, Bill Gates has authored two books. The Road Ahead, written with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson, was published in November 1995, and it summarized the implications of the personal computing revolution and described a future profoundly changed by the arrival of a global information superhighway. Business @ the Speed of Thought was published in 1999, and discusses how business and technology are integrated, and shows how digital infrastructures and information networks can help getting an edge on the competition.Gates has appeared in a number of documentaries, including the 2010 documentary film Waiting for "Superman",[104] and the BBC documentary series The Virtual Revolution.
Gates was prominently featured in Pirates of Silicon Valley, a 1999 film which chronicles the rise of Apple and Microsoft from the early 1970s to 1997. He was portrayed by Anthony Michael Hall.
See also
- List of billionaires (also see List of college dropout billionaires and List of wealthiest non-inflated historical figures)
- Paul Allen – Microsoft's co-founder, friend, and fellow billionaire
- Gary Kildall (October 25, 2004). "The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved June 9, 2010.
Books
- Fridson, Martin (2001). How to Be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-41617-7.
- Gates, Bill (1996). The Road Ahead. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-026040-4.
- Lesinski, Jeanne M. (2006). Bill Gates (Biography (a & E)). A&E Television Networks. ISBN 0-8225-7027-0.
- Manes, Stephen (1994). Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself The Richest Man in America. Touchstone Pictures. ISBN 0-671-88074-8.
- Wallace, James (1993). Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-471-56886-4.
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