THE KID WHO UNLOCKED A WORLD OF KNOWLEDGE AND OPPORTUNITIES
BILL GATES
In 1975, at just 19 years old Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and co-founded Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen. They were not chasing billions, they were chasing a vision. Gates believed softwares could be the great equalizer, that technology could put power in the hands of ordinary people, and he was willing to risk everything on it; his vision changed the world forever.
Under Gates' relentless drive, Microsoft did not just build software, it built the operating system for the modern world, MS-DOS, then Windows, then Office. Suddenly, ideas could travel the world at the speed of light; a farmer in Kenya could access market prices on a phone; students in rural India could learn from the world's best teachers; a small business owner in Brazil could compete with global giants. His early vision of "a computer on every desk and in every home" sounded like science fiction in the 1970s; today, it is a reality for billions. Households now own computers, and personal computing has spread globally, fueling innovation in every field from medicine to space exploration.
Gates extraordinary success did not stop him from thinking bigger, he used it as a launchpad for a bigger vision. In 2000, at the peak of his career, Gates stepped down as the CEO of Microsoft to focus on philanthropy. With his then-wife Melinda, he launched the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable organization. They poured their fortune (and later, billions from Warren Buffett) into the toughest problems on Earth: extreme poverty, preventable diseases, and unequal education, an endeavour that yeilded extraordinary results.
Since 2000, the number of children who die before their fifth birthday has been cut in half, thanks to the foundation's work on vaccines, nutrition, and global health partnerships. Through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund, they have helped vaccinate hundreds of millions of kids, saving tens of millions of lives from polio, measles, malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis.
Polio is on the brink of eradication; new vaccines and treatments are in the pipeline, the foundation has committed over hundred billion dollars in its first twenty-five years and plans to spend another two-hundred billion dollars in the next two decades. This is not just charity, it is strategic, data-driven problem-solving at scale. Gates approaches global challenges like he approached software, identify the bottlenecks, invest in breakthroughs, measure what works, and iterate relentlessly.
His drive is not ego, nor fame, but a deep, stubborn belief that human suffering is solvable, and that innovation is the key. Gates is famous for reading voraciously, questioning assumptions, and learning from failure. He once said, "Success is a lousy teacher, it seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." He has applied that mindset to everything, from debugging code to debugging global health systems. He has poured billions into clean energy, education reform, and even reinventing the toilet for the developing world, because he sees a future where technology does not just make the rich richer, but lifts everyone.
Bill Gates was not born a superhero, he was a kid who loved computers, worked insanely hard, failed often, and kept going. He turned a garage startup into a global force, then turned that force into a weapon against poverty and disease. You don't need to be the Founder of the next Microsoft or donate billions, you just need to start where you are. Bill Gates did not just change the world, he showed us that we all have the power to do the same.
365 men who changed the world.
Kamikun John, Author 366 days of wisdom.
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