The Microsoft co-founder reflected on the company’s early years on his Gates Notes blog on April 2nd in honour of the company’s 50th anniversary this year. Although Gates has undoubtedly written a lot of code over the past 50 years, he referred to this as “the coolest code I’ve ever written”. Further, he posted a picture of himself with the code displayed on a massive stack of paper. According to Gates, the cover image of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics magazine, which showed the Altair 8800—a groundbreaking personal computer made by a little business named MITS—inspired him. The developers of Altair were contacted by 19-year-old Gates and his Harvard friend Paul Allen, who informed them that they had a BASIC programming language for the microprocessor that powered the Altair 8800. The Altair could be programmed using such software.
How Microsoft came into Existence?
For two months, Gates and his friends worked around the clock coding the software they said already existed. After Gates and Allen showed the code to the MITS president, the software was licensed. According to Gates, their new business, which they chose to name Micro-Soft, released Altair BASIC as its debut product. Gate added that the hyphen was eventually eliminated later. The rest, as they say, is the history of software. That 50-year-old code is available for download from Gates’ post. He went on to say that although computer programming has advanced significantly over the past 50 years, he is still quite pleased with the final product.
‘The Next Day’ by Melinda Gates
Melinda French Gates, Gates’s ex-wife, was also in the news on April 2 since her new book, The Next Day, will be releasing on April 15. She is talking candidly about the dissolution of her marriage to Gates as that date draws near. After 27 years together and three kids, the couple were separated in 2021. Melinda French Gates claimed in her book that she was “having nightmares about a beautiful house collapsing all around her — and then waking up in a panic night after night” in 2019. She said she was troubled by Bill Gates’s meetings with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and agreed with his public admission that he wasn’t always faithful in the marriage.
Since then, Bill Gates has expressed regret over his encounter with Epstein. Eventually, Melinda French Gates claimed that her nightmares would transform into pictures of her family perched on a cliff edge, where she “plummeted” into nothingness. According to media reports, she wrote, “I knew, in that moment, that I was going to have to make a decision — and that I was going to have to make it by myself.”
Warren Buffet is known as one of the best investors in the history of the stock market. His principles and teachings have always been widely used and regarded by the financial analysts and are one of the top 10 richest men in the world. Warren Buffet is the 8th richest man in the world and is also known for his pledging and charitable works. The 90 year old billionaire has announced to resign from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Let’s look at the reason behind it.
On 23 June 2021, the billionaire and the most famous investor in the world, Warren Buffet has announced that he is resigning from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has donated more than half of his wealth towards donation and charitable purposes since he had pledged 15 years ago in order to give away his fortune by running Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Why did Warren Buffet Resigned from Gates Foundation?
Warren Buffet did not provide any specific reason as to why he was stepping down from the position. He has said in a statement that he has been an inactive trustee of the organization for a very long time.
Warren Buffet has been resigning from the posts of all the corporate boards that he is part of other than Berkshire Hathaway. However, the decision to step down from the board of the Gates Foundation comes at an odd time when Bill Gates and Melinda Gates has announced to end their 27 years of marriage.
On the same day, Warren Buffet also announced that he has given away USD 4.1 billion worth of the shares of Berkshire Hathaway as part of his pledge to donate 90% of his wealth. Warren Buffet is halfway there while considering the most recent donation.
He conveyed that over many decades he has been able to gather a lot of wealth by just doing what he loves the most to do. He added that compound interest, a long runway, associates, and the country have worked their magic.
Warren Buffet has announced to donate USD 4.1 billion in shares to five different foundations which include Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. However, it is estimated that the major share of the donation was given away to the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation has received around USD 3.2 billion and the total donation made by the billionaire is around USD 27 billion.
Warren Buffet’s donation also goes to another foundation named Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation which is run by the children of Warren Buffet Howard, Susan and Peter. The foundation is named after his late wife. The other two foundations where he has donated the shares are the Novo Foundation and the Sherwood Foundation.
Warren Buffet Net Worth
Bill and Melinda Gates on Warren Buffet Resigning from Gates Foundation
Bill Gates had conveyed in a statement about Warren Buffet’s resignation and said that, he is grateful for the great friendship with Warren Buffet and added that he would always have a sense of maintaining a deep accountability to Buffet.
Melinda Gates had also conveyed her message saying that, the teachings of Warren Buffet will help the foundation in charting a way forward.
Suzman had sent an email to the employees of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where he had discussed with Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates on how to strengthen the decision making and governance and added that he would share more information about it in the month of July.
He said that he has been discussing about long-term stability and the sustainability about the Foundation due to the recent announcement of the divorce of Bill and Melinda Gates. He also added that he is fully concentrated on following the guidance provided by Warren Buffet in order to use to resources provided by Buffet, Bill and Melinda in the best way possible.
Conclusion
According to certain estimations and findings of the Forbes magazine, if Warren Buffet did not donate most of his wealth to charitable purposes he would have had a net worth that would be equal to the CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos who is the world’s richest person.
FAQ
What companies do Warren Buffett Own?
Warren Buffett runs Berkshire Hathaway, which owns more than 60 companies, including insurer Geico, battery maker Duracell and restaurant chain Dairy Queen.
What is the net worth of Warren Buffett?
The net worth of Warren Buffett is estimated to be around 10,500 crores USD.
What is the purpose of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty.
Bill Gates and Melinda Gates who are the co-founders of the world’s largest private charitable foundation have filed for divorce. On 3 May 2021, they decided to end their 27 years of marriage as they required space in their personal life and would want to grow individually. Let’s look at what would be the future of the largest charitable foundation in the world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill gates are the co-founder of one the world’s leading technology firm Microsoft. He had dropped out of Harvard University in the year 1975 to start the technological firm. Bill Gates had owned the majority of the stock in the company which made him a multimillionaire and one of the wealthiest men in the world.
In the year 2000, Gates had stepped down from the position of CEO of Microsoft in order to concentrate on philanthropy.
About Melinda Gates
Melinda French Gates was an employee of Microsoft before getting married to Bill Gates. She was raised in Dallas and completed Economics and Computer Science at Duke University. In the year 2015, she founded an investment company that will be focused on women and families which is Pivotal ventures.
In the year 2019, she had published a book that was focused on female empowerment called The Moment of Lift.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has become one of the most influential and powerful forces in the global public health. Over the past 2 decades, the charitable foundation is estimated to have spent around USD 50 billion to bring a business approach in order to fight against poverty and diseases.
The Bill and Melinda gates foundation has backed a wide range of programmes which include polio and malaria eradication, vaccines and child nutrition. In the year 2020, during the global pandemic due to Covid-19, the foundation had committed an amount of USD 1.75 billion to the relief of Covid-19.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was launched in the year 2000. The private charitable philanthropic foundation is considered as the largest non-profit foundation in the United States and the world’s largest foundation.
The foundation has a net asset of around USD 43 billion according to the latest financial data available on the website. The couple has been reported to have contributed of around USD 36 billion from the time period of 1994 to 2018.
In the year 2020, Warren Buffet has contributed stocks from his Berkshire Hathaway Inc of more than USD 36 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. It was as part of the plans which he had announced previously that is to give away his entire fortune before his death.
The couple had filed a joint resolution regarding the dissolution of their marriage. They have conveyed that their legal union was broken in a way that couldn’t be made right but they added that they had reached to an agreement on how to divide their wealth between each other. The details of the division of wealth were not disclosed.
They had posted a tweet on their individual accounts which said that they had decided to end their marriage after a great deal of thought and a lot of work on their relationship.
They added that they would require space and more privacy in their new life as they have realized that they will no longer be able to grow together as a couple in the next phase of their life.
FAQ
What is the purpose of the Gates Foundation?
Gates Foundation focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty in developing countries.
What disease did the Gates Foundation eradicate?
Gates Foundation made progress toward eradicating polio.
Who is the CEO of the Gates Foundation?
Mark Suzman is the CEO of the Gates Foundation.
Conclusion
In a separate statement, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had said that the couple would remain as the co-chairs and trustees of the organization and would work together for the foundation to shape the foundation strategies and approve it, to advocate the issues faced by the foundation and to set the overall direction of the organization.
On 3 May 2021, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates had announced that they were ending their 27 years of marriage. Bill Gates is the co-founder and the former CEO of Microsoft whereas his wife Melinda French Gates is one of the most powerful women in the world. Let’s look at what would be the net worth of Bill Gates after the divorce as he is one of the richest men in the world.
The couple had announced on 3 May 2021 that they have planned to end their 27 years of marriage life. Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates conveyed through Twitter that they had come to the decision to end their marriage after a great deal of thoughts and a lot of work on their relationship.
Bill Gates Tweet
They added that they have raised 3 incredible children and also worked together to build a foundation that works across the globe which will enable all people to lead productive and healthy lives.
Net Worth of Bill Gates
Bill Gates is one of the richest men around the globe making him one of the world’s richest billionaires. A global high net worth data and intelligence company called Wealth-X has estimated the net worth of Bill Gates to be around USD 134.1 billion.
The success of Bill Gates had begun with Microsoft. But as of now, He has just 19.6 % of his wealth through the shares of Microsoft. According to Wealth-X, the amount added to Bill Gates’ net worth through Microsoft is estimated to be around USD 26.1 billion.
The majority of the money of Bill Gates is now tied up with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation but the exact value is not yet revealed. Bill Gates has also joined with Warren Buffet where they together founded the Giving pledge which asks the billionaires to give away more than half of their wealth to philanthropy.
All these have been a hurdle in the division of wealth between Bill Gates and Melinda Gates making it much more complicated. They have separation agreements but it is seen that the terms have not yet been made public according to the court documents.
The Cascade Investment is considered to be one of the biggest assets of Bill Gates. He funded the company with the amount he received after the sales of Microsoft’s stock. According to Wealth-X, his investment in Cascade has a valuation of around USD 30 billion. This accounts for around 22 % of his net worth.
Through Cascade Investments Bill Gates has shareholdings worth of billions of dollars in different companies such as Deere and Company of around USD 11 billion, Canadian National Railways of around USD 11 billion and Diageo of around USD 1.6 billion.
Through Cascade investment Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation trust reportedly own stocks.
Other holdings of Bill Gates
The real estate portfolio of Bill Gates is considered to be worth multi billion dollars. According to Wealth-X, his portfolio is worth more than USD 160 million. Some of his valuable real estate investments include a lakeside home in Washington of around 66,000 square feet, 30-acre estate in Florida, two additional properties in California and so on. He also has a private island called Grand Bogue Caye in Belize.
Bill Gates House
The car collection of Bill Gates is estimated by Wealth-X to be around USD 650,000 and an extensive art collection estimated around USD 130 million which includes some works of Leonardo da Vinci. His car collection includes brands such as Porsche, Jaguar and Ferrari.
Other than these over the years, Bill Gates has provided billions of dollars to their foundation that is Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Monica Mazzei who is a divorce attorney reacting towards Bill and Melinda’s foundation and family offices has said that the decision will depend on what extent both of them are planning to work together.
She said that even in the friendliest divorces she has seen the preference has always been to split the foundation into two so that there are fewer chances to mingle with each other and more freedom for each other. She said that the same was applicable to the family offices as well.
There are certain predictions that the assets may be divided into halves. The law of Washington states that any asset which is acquired during a marriage is equally owned by both the partners. But it does not mean exactly half, the court can allocate it according to what is just and right. According to Forbes, if the Bill gates and Melinda split their fortune equally, Melinda would be worth approximately $65.25 billion.
FAQ
What is Bill Gates wife worth?
According to Forbes, if the Bill gates and Melinda split their fortune equally, Melinda would be worth $65.25 billion.
What is the Net worth of Bill Gates?
The net worth of Bill Gates is 13,050 crores USD.
What is Bill Gates IQ?
The IQ of the Bill Gates is 160.
Conclusion
Since Bill Gates and Melinda Gates have clarified that they would be working together in the foundation and asked to provide some space and freedom, we will have to look forward to how the wealth will be divided among them.
