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Long before computers were ubiquitous as they are today, came along a man with a bold vision and tenacity to make it happen. And that man was William Henry Gates III or more commonly known as Bill Gates. Yesterday was his last day as a fulltime employee at Microsoft. For his next move, Gates is transitioning his role from becoming one of the greatest technopreneurs of all time to the greatest philanthropists in the history of mankind.

With so many media outlets covering his departure from Microsoft, I felt that it is pointless for me to reinvent the wheel to create another story. Instead, I have chosen to compile a list of articles to commemorate him and I would give my thoughts as a closing summary.

1. Microsoft Original Family in 30 years’ perspective
   
2. The Other Side of Bill Gates
   
3. Bill Gates’ Hits and Misses
4. Looking Back to Gates’ Good Old Days
5. Bill Gates’ Look-alike and a Brief History of his Haters
6. Bill Gates co-appearing with Steve Jobs at The D Conference
7. MIcrosoft Chronology
8. Bill Gates Now and the Future

Contrary to what many have claimed that Gates is an accidental billionaire, I would like to disagree. I think life does provide opportunity to become an accidental millionaire, but there’s certainly no coincidence in becoming a billionaire. Personally, I feel that Gates’ wealth is a byproduct of his hard-earned effort of building an obscure company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico to a Redmond, Washington-based company that have brought the world into computer age.

Being a human, Gates had done many good deeds as well as unpleasant ones. Instead of looking at someone’s achievement from blackened lens, I would like to share the five invaluable lessons we can learn from his achievements:

1. Gates was fortunate to discover his talent in computers and programming at a young age.
2. Instead of following the ordinary path pf graduating from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard University, Gates decided to dropout of college to pursue his passion.
3. He built his company based on a bold vision that one day computer would be available to every household or business.
4. Despite of the many ups and downs, he had successfully steered the company to remain competitive in an unfriendly and competitive landscape.
5. Unlike many leaders who hold on to power until their downfall, Gates releases his while he is still at his prime time. At the age of 52, he is secure enough to build a non-profit “Philansoft” to make a bigger legacy than he had already created.

so in layman’s terms:

1. Discover your talents
2. Pursue your passion
3. Visualize your big dreams
4. Never give up
5. Know when to move on

I wish him well and I hope he can execute successfully again in his next vision to improve the lives of millions of people.

Want to get wisdom from Bill Gates? Check out books written by him:

• Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy
• The Road Ahead: Completely Revised and Up-to-Date

Tags: bill gates, D Conference, microsoft

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Biography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.