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103-462: When the manuscript was last sold to Bill Gates at Christie's auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for US$ 30,802,500 (equivalent to $ 63,320,092 in 2023), it was the most expensive manuscript ever sold. The leather-bound notebook comprises 36 sheets, 29 × 22 cm. The manuscript is not a single linear script but a mixture of Leonardo's observations and theories on astronomy and

206-558: A 501(c)(4) organization supporting Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign . In response to the report, he did not explicitly address the donation or endorse Harris, but said "this election is different." In 1998, Gates rejected the need for regulation of the software industry in testimony before the United States Senate. During the Federal Trade Commission 's (FTC) investigation of Microsoft in

309-907: A congressional page in the House of Representatives. He was a national merit scholar when he graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973. He did not stay at Harvard long enough to choose a concentration, but took mathematics (including Math 55 ) and graduate level computer science courses. While at Harvard, he met fellow student and future Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer . Gates left Harvard after two years while Ballmer stayed and graduated magna cum laude . Years later, Ballmer succeeded Gates as Microsoft's CEO and maintained that position from 2000 until his resignation in 2014. Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as

412-598: A systems engineer , software engineer or programmer , though day-to-day activities may overlap. Systems architects interface with multiple stakeholders in an organization in order to understand the various levels of requirements, the domain, the viable technologies, and anticipated development process. Their work includes determining multiple design and implementation alternatives, assessing such alternatives based on all identified constraints (such as cost, schedule, space, power, safety, usability, reliability, maintainability, availability, and other "ilities" ), and selecting

515-791: A Microsoft employee, which an external law firm had begun probing in late 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gates has widely been looked at by media outlets as an expert on the issue, despite him not being a public official or having any prior medical training . His foundation did, however, establish the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator in 2020 to hasten the development and evaluation of new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients for COVID-19 , and, as of February 2021, Gates expressed that he and Anthony Fauci frequently talk and collaborate on matters including vaccines and other medical innovations to fight

618-530: A November 2020 interview, he said: "What are these, like, nudists? I mean, you know, we ask you to wear pants, and no American says, or very few Americans say, that that's, like, some terrible thing." Melinda Gates suggested that people should emulate the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family, who sold their home and gave away half of its value, as detailed in their book, The Power of Half . Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what

721-426: A breakthrough innovation in sustainable energy technology could drive down both greenhouse gas emissions and poverty, and bring economic benefits by stabilizing energy prices. In 2011, he said: "If you gave me the choice between picking the next 10 presidents or ensuring that energy is environmentally friendly and a quarter as costly, I'd pick the energy thing." In 2015, he wrote about the challenge of transitioning

824-453: A building works on the overall design, making sure it will be pleasing and useful to its inhabitants. While a single architect by himself may be enough to build a single-family house, many engineers may be needed, in addition, to solve the detailed problems that arise when a novel high-rise building is designed. If the job is large and complex enough, parts of the architecture may be designed as independent components. That is, if we are building

927-500: A career in law. During his childhood, his family regularly attended a church of the Congregational Christian Churches , a Protestant Reformed denomination. Gates was small for his age and was bullied as a child. The family encouraged competition; one visitor reported that "it didn't matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock; there was always a reward for winning and there

1030-598: A combination of "microcomputer" and "software", and their first office was in Albuquerque. The first employee Gates and Allen hired was their high school collaborator Ric Weiland . They dropped the hyphen within a year and officially registered the trade name " Microsoft " with the Secretary of the State of New Mexico on November 26, 1976. Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies. Microsoft's Altair BASIC

1133-403: A company that services emissions-intensive private jets. In 2019, he began to divest from fossil fuels . He does not expect divestment itself to have much practical impact, but says that if his efforts to provide alternatives were to fail, he would not want to personally benefit from an increase in fossil fuel stock prices. After he published his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster , parts of

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1236-429: A danger especially for smaller investors who could not survive the potentially high losses. Gates also does not own any cryptocurrencies himself. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller , and donated some of his Microsoft stock in 1994 to create the "William H. Gates Foundation". In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations and donated stock valued at $ 5 billion to create

1339-641: A demonstration, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration was held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico ; it was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC . MITS hired Allen, and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with him at MITS in November 1975. Allen named their partnership "Micro-Soft",

1442-632: A fireside chat moderated by journalist and news anchor Shereen Bhan virtually at the Singapore FinTech Festival on December 8, 2020, on the topic, "Building Infrastructure for Resilience: What the COVID-19 Response Can Teach Us About How to Scale Financial Inclusion". Governments are there to think ahead to bad things that might happen. In the case of (the COVID-19) pandemic, not enough

1545-558: A further $ 1 billion to Breakthrough Energy. In December 2020, he called for the U.S. federal government to create institutes for clean energy research, analogous to the National Institutes of Health . Gates has also urged rich nations to shift to 100% synthetic beef industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food production. Gates has been criticized for holding a large stake in Signature Aviation ,

1648-412: A housing complex, we may have one architect for the complex, and one for each type of building, as part of an architectural team. Large automation systems also require an architect and much engineering talent. If the engineered system is large and complex enough, the systems architect may defer to a hardware architect and/or a software architect for parts of the job, although they all may be members of

1751-462: A joint architectural team. The architect should sub-allocate the system requirements to major components or subsystems that are within the scope of a single hardware or software engineer, or engineering manager and team. But the architect must never be viewed as an engineering supervisor. (If the item is sufficiently large and/or complex, the chief architect will sub-allocate portions to more specialized architects.) Ideally, each such component/subsystem

1854-493: A long one, an architect is needed until the system is accepted by the user: the architect ensures that all changes and interpretations made during the course of development do not compromise the users' viewpoint. Architects are generalists. They are not expected to be experts in any one technology but are expected to be knowledgeable of many technologies and able to judge their applicability to specific situations. They also apply their knowledge to practical situations, but evaluate

1957-548: A major player in the industry. The press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the IBM PC. PC Magazine asked if Gates was "the man behind the machine?". Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates the president and chairman of the board, with Paul Allen as vice president and vice chairman. In early 1983, Allen left

2060-526: A million people that you didn't expect to die from a pandemic , or nuclear or bioterrorism ." Gates also identified innovation as the "real driver of progress" and pronounced that "America's way better today than it's ever been." Gates has often expressed concern about the potential harms of superintelligence ; in a Reddit "ask me anything", he stated that: First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though

2163-477: A result of the 2020 United States presidential election which led to the January 6 United States Capitol attack , Gates said a permanent ban of Trump "would be a shame" and would be an "extreme measure". He warned that it would cause "polarization" if users with different political views divide up among various social networks, and said: "I don't think banning somebody who actually did get a fair number of votes (in

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2266-430: A solution to one of a series of unsolved problems presented in a combinatorics class by professor Harry Lewis . His solution held the record as the fastest version for over 30 years, and its successor is faster by only 2%. His solution was formalized and published in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou . Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen and joined him at Honeywell during

2369-580: A water, sanitation and hygiene program to provide sustainable sanitation services in poor countries. Its agriculture division supports the International Rice Research Institute in developing Golden Rice , a genetically modified rice variant used to combat vitamin A deficiency . The foundation aims to provide women and girls in the developing world with information and support regarding contraception and, ultimately, universal access to consensual family planning . In 2007,

2472-458: Is a sufficiently stand-alone object that it can be tested as a complete component, separate from the whole, using only a simple testbed to supply simulated inputs and record outputs. That is, it is not necessary to know how an air traffic control system works in order to design and build a data management subsystem for it. It is only necessary to know the constraints under which the subsystem will be expected to operate. A good architect ensures that

2575-505: Is typically a very senior technologist with substantial, but general, knowledge of hardware, software, and similar (user) systems. Above all, the systems architect must be reasonably knowledgeable of the users' domain of experience. For example, the architect of an air traffic system needs to be more than superficially familiar with all of the tasks of an air traffic system, including those of all levels of users. The title of systems architect connotes higher-level design responsibilities than

2678-553: The Los Angeles Times criticized the foundation for investing its assets in companies that have been accused of worsening poverty, pollution and pharmaceutical firms that do not sell to developing countries . Although the foundation announced a review of its investments to assess social responsibility, it was subsequently canceled and upheld its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices. Gates delivered his thoughts in

2781-523: The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. One was Mission Innovation , in which 20 national governments pledged to double their spending on research and development for carbon-free energy in over five years' time. Another initiative was Breakthrough Energy , a group of investors who agreed to fund high-risk startups in clean energy technologies. Gates, who had already invested $ 1 billion of his own money in innovative energy startups, committed

2884-615: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , which was identified by the Funds for NGOs company in 2013, as the world's largest charitable foundation, with assets reportedly valued at more than $ 34.6 billion. The foundation allows benefactors to access information that shows how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust . Gates, through his foundation, also donated $ 20 million to

2987-553: The Carnegie Mellon University for a new building to be named Gates Center for Computer Science which opened in 2009. Gates has credited the generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller as a major influence. He and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and their charity work is partly modeled on the Rockefeller family 's philanthropic focus, whereby they are interested in tackling

3090-936: The TRS-80 Model 100 , but he wrote code that shipped with the company's products as late as 1989. Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1985 when Gates announced Microsoft Excel : "Bill Gates likes the program, not because it's going to make him a lot of money (although I'm sure it will do that), but because it's a neat hack ." During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics , which were considered anti-competitive . This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings. In June 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his role at Microsoft to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He gradually divided his responsibilities between two successors when he placed Ray Ozzie in charge of management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy. The process took two years to fully transfer his duties to Ozzie and Mundie, and

3193-707: The University of Essex stated, "Gates speaks as if all the lives being lost in India are inevitable but eventually the West will help when in reality the US & UK are holding their feet on the neck of developing states by refusing to break [intellectual property rights] protections. It's disgusting." Gates is opposed to the TRIPS waiver . Bloomberg News reported him as saying he argued that Oxford University should not give away

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3296-625: The higher layers, and may disappear altogether at the highest layers. The acceptance test is a principal responsibility of the systems architect. It is the chief means by which the program lead will prove to the users that the system is as originally planned and that all involved architects and engineers have met their objectives. A building architect uses sketches, models, and drawings. An automation systems (or software or hardware) architect should use sketches, models, and prototypes to discuss different solutions and results with users, engineers, and other architects. An early, draft version of

3399-856: The mobile operating system race to Android was his biggest mistake. He stated that it was within their skill set of being the dominant player, but partially blames the antitrust litigation during the time. That same year, Gates became an advisory board member of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum . In March 2020, Microsoft announced Gates would be leaving his board positions at Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft to dedicate himself to philanthropic endeavors such as climate change, global health and development, and education. The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2021 that Gates stepped down before Microsoft's board finished its investigation into Gates's alleged inappropriate sexual relationship with

3502-476: The user's world. It is principally captured in the computer-human-interfaces (CHI) of the engineered system. The engineered system represents the engineering solutions— how the engineer proposes to develop and/or select and combine the components of the technical infrastructure to support the CHI. In the absence of an experienced architect, there is an unfortunate tendency to confuse the two architectures. But —

3605-492: The "federal, state, and local contracts." Gates has also provided personal donations to educational institutions. In 1999, Gates donated $ 20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the construction of a computer laboratory named the "William H. Gates Building" that was designed by architect Frank Gehry . While Microsoft had previously given financial support to the institution, this

3708-584: The 1990s, Gates was reportedly upset at then Commissioner Dennis Yao for "float[ing] a line of hypothetical questions suggesting possible curbs on Microsoft's growing monopoly power". According to one source: Gates was vexed. "He started by calling Yao's ideas socialistic," recalls a source familiar with the July 15 meeting, "and as he got angrier and angrier and louder and louder, he got into calling them Communistic." After Facebook and Twitter had banned Donald Trump from their platforms on February 18, 2021, as

3811-617: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world's largest private charity . Through the foundation, he led an early 21st century vaccination campaign that significantly contributed to the eradication of the wild poliovirus in Africa. In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge , whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth towards philanthropy. William Henry Gates III

3914-644: The Codex Leicester was on display from 29 October 2018 to 20 January 2019 in Florence at the Aula Magliabechiana of the Uffizi . Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist best known for his roles at Microsoft Corporation . He co-founded the software company with his childhood friend Paul Allen and later held

4017-605: The Microsoft board in February 2014 and assumed the role of technology adviser to support newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella . In March 2020, Gates left his board positions at Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway to focus on his philanthropic efforts on climate change , global health and development, and education. Since 1987, Gates has been included in the Forbes list of the world's top billionaires . From 1995 to 2017, he held

4120-465: The PC. Microsoft made a deal with SCP to be the exclusive licensing agent of 86-DOS, and later the full owner. Microsoft employed Paterson to adapt the operating system for the PC and delivered it to IBM as PC DOS for a one-time fee of $ 50,000. The contract itself only earned Microsoft a relatively small fee. It was the prestige brought to Microsoft by IBM's adoption of their operating system that would be

4223-582: The adoption of the bill. The bill should cut the global greenhouse gas emissions in a level similar to "eliminating the annual planet-warming pollution of France and Germany combined" and may help to limit the warming of the planet to 1.5 degrees – the target of the Paris Agreement . He thanked both Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer for their efforts in a guest essay in The New York Times , where he said "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 may be

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4326-641: The architect can already assemble the end system (almost) unaided. Or, s/he may still need the help of a hardware or software engineer to select components and to design and build any special purpose function. The architects (or engineers) may also enlist the aid of other specialists— in safety , security , communications , special purpose hardware, graphics , human factors , test and evaluation , quality control , reliability , maintainability , availability , interface management, etc. An effective systems architectural team must have access to specialists in critical specialties as needed. An architect planning

4429-429: The board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was criticized for his business tactics , which were considered anti-competitive . In June 2008, Gates transitioned into a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation , the private charitable foundation he and his then-wife Melinda had established in 2000. He stepped down as chairman of

4532-461: The climate activist community criticized Gates's approach as technological solutionism . In 2022, educational streamer Wondrium produced the series "Solving for Zero: The Search for Climate Innovation" inspired by the book. In June 2021, Gates's company TerraPower and Warren Buffett 's PacifiCorp announced the first sodium nuclear reactor in Wyoming . Wyoming Governor Mike Gordon hailed

4635-846: The codex was the centerpiece of a two-month exhibition hosted by the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin . The codex was on view at the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona , from 24 January 2015 to 12 April 2015 for the exhibition Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester and the Power of Observation . Its presentation at the Phoenix Art Museum was the first time a work by Leonardo was displayed in Arizona. The codex

4738-740: The company after receiving a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, effectively ending the formal business partnership between Gates and Allen, which had been strained months prior due to a contentious dispute over Microsoft equity. Later in the decade, Gates repaired his relationship with Allen and together the two donated millions to their childhood school Lakeside. They remained friends until Allen's death in October 2018. Microsoft and Gates launched their first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985, in an attempt to fend off competition from Apple 's Macintosh GUI , which had captivated consumers with its simplicity and ease of use. In August 1986,

4841-465: The company produced in its first five years. As the company grew, he transitioned into a manager role, then an executive. DONKEY.BAS , is a computer game written in 1981 and included with early versions of the PC DOS operating system distributed with the original IBM PC. It is a driving game in which the player must avoid hitting donkeys . The game was written by Gates and Neil Konzen . IBM ,

4944-518: 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, the partnership deteriorated due to mounting creative differences. The operating system grew out of DOS in an organic fashion over a decade until Windows 95 , which hid the DOS prompt by default. Windows XP was released one year after Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO. Windows 8.1

5047-405: The component interactions and interfaces (including with the environment, especially the user), and the technologies and resources to be used in its design and implementation. The systems architect's work should seek to avoid implementation issues and readily permit unanticipated extensions/modifications in future stages. Because of the extensive experience required for this, the systems architect

5150-566: The conference, Gates warned that the world was not prepared for the next pandemic, a situation that would come to pass in late 2019 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. In March 2018, Gates met at his home in Seattle with Mohammed bin Salman , the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia to discuss investment opportunities for Saudi Vision 2030 . In June 2019, Gates admitted that losing

5253-404: The cost/benefits of various solutions using different technologies, for example, hardware versus software versus manual, and assure that the system as a whole performs according to the users' expectations. Many commercial-off-the-shelf or already developed hardware and software components may be selected independently according to constraints such as cost, response, throughput, etc. In some cases,

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5356-407: The engineer thinks in terms of hardware and software and the technical solution space, whereas the users may be thinking in terms of solving a problem of getting people from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time and with a reasonable expenditure of energy, or of getting needed information to customers and staff. A systems architect is expected to combine knowledge of both the architecture of

5459-419: The engineers have determined to be doable within the given (engineering) constraints. In systems design , the architects (and engineers) are responsible for: Large systems architecture was developed as a way to handle systems too large for one person to conceive of, let alone design. Systems of this size are rapidly becoming the norm, so architectural approaches and architects are increasingly needed to solve

5562-403: The engineers on the other. Very large, highly complex systems may include multiple architects, in which case the architects work together to integrate their subsystems or aspects, and respond to a chief architect responsible for the entire system. In general, the role of the architect is to act as a mediator between the users and the engineers, reconciling the users' needs and requirements with what

5665-490: The family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates and investor Warren Buffett each signed a commitment they called the " Giving Pledge ", which is a commitment by all three to donate at least half of their wealth, over the course of time, to charity. The Foundation has received criticism, particularly over its role in Common Core , with critics stating the support is " cronyist " in that it profits from

5768-463: The final product and overall look and feel do not stray very far from the users' intent. The engineer should focus on developing a design that optimizes the constraints but ensures a workable, reliable, extensible and robust product. The provision of needed services to the users is the true function of an engineered system. However, as systems become ever larger and more complex, and as their emphases move away from simple hardware and software components,

5871-590: The global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations. The foundation is organized into five program areas: Global Development Division, Global Health Division, United States Division, and Global Policy & Advocacy Division. Among others, it supports a wide range of public health projects, granting aid to fight transmissible diseases such AIDS , tuberculosis and malaria , as well as widespread vaccine programs to eradicate polio . It grants funds to learning institutes and libraries and supports scholarships at universities. The foundation established

5974-464: The highest layers). Architects are expected to understand human needs and develop humanly functional and aesthetically-pleasing products. A good architect is also the principal keeper of the users' vision of the end product, and of the process of deriving requirements from and implementing that vision. Architects do not follow exact procedures. They communicate with users/sponsors in a highly interactive, relatively informal way— together they extract

6077-411: The initial draft of the test plan should be developed contemporaneously with the requirements. All stakeholders should sign off on the acceptance test descriptions, or equivalent, as the sole determinant of the satisfaction of the requirements, at the outset of the program. The use of any form of the word "architect" is regulated by "title acts" in many states in the US, and a person must be licensed as

6180-550: The intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned. In an interview that was held at the TED conference in March 2015, with Baidu co-founder and CEO, Robin Li , Gates said he would "highly recommend" Nick Bostrom 's recent work, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies . During

6283-399: The interview, he provided his perspective on climate change, his charitable activities, various tech companies and people involved in them, and the state of America. In response to a question about his greatest fear when he looks 50 years into the future, Gates stated: "there'll be some really bad things that'll happen in the next 50 or 100 years, but hopefully none of them on the scale of, say,

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6386-515: The leading supplier of computer equipment to commercial enterprises at the time, approached Microsoft in July 1980 concerning software for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC , after Gates's mother mentioned Microsoft to John Opel , IBM's then CEO . IBM first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. IBM's representatives also mentioned that they needed an operating system, and Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of

6489-421: The most suitable options for further design. The output of such work sets the core properties of the system and those that are hardest to change later. In small systems the architecture is typically defined directly by the developers. However, in larger systems, a systems architect should be appointed to outline the overall system, and to interface between the users, sponsors, and other stakeholders on one side and

6592-419: The narrow application of traditional systems development principles have been found to be insufficient— the application of more general principles of systems, hardware, and software architecture to the design of (sub)systems is seen to be needed. Architecture may also be seen as a simplified model of the finished end product— its primary function is to define the parts and their relationships to each other so that

6695-508: The origin of Microsoft's transformation from a small business to the leading software company in the world. Gates had not offered to transfer the copyright on the operating system to IBM because he believed that other personal computer makers would clone IBM's PC hardware. They did, making the IBM-compatible PC, running DOS, a de facto standard. The sales of MS-DOS (the version of DOS sold to customers other than IBM) made Microsoft

6798-450: The pandemic. Gates has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio with stakes in companies in multiple sectors and has participated in several entrepreneurial ventures beyond Microsoft, including: Gates considers climate change and global access to energy to be critical, interrelated issues. He has urged governments and the private sector to invest in research and development to make clean, reliable energy cheaper. Gates envisions that

6901-648: The positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief software architect . He was also being its largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Gates was born and raised in Seattle, Washington . In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico . Gates led the company as its chairman and chief executive officer until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer , but he remained chairman of

7004-409: The presidential election) – well less than a majority – but I don't think having him off forever would be that good." In April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic , Gates was criticized for suggesting that pharmaceutical companies should hold onto patents for COVID-19 vaccines . The criticism came due to the possibility of this preventing poorer nations from obtaining adequate vaccines. Tara Van Ho of

7107-409: The problems of large to very large systems. In general, increasingly large systems are reduced to 'human' proportions by a layering approach, where each layer is composed of a number of individually comprehensible sub-layers-- each having its own principal engineer and/or architect. A complete layer at one level will be shown as a functional 'component' of a higher layer (and may disappear altogether at

7210-462: The program ready for their senior year. Towards the end of their junior year, Evans was killed in a mountain climbing accident, which Gates described as one of the saddest days of his life. He then turned to Allen who helped him finish the system for Lakeside. At 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen called Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor. In 1972, he served as

7313-478: The project as a step toward carbon-negative nuclear power. Wyoming Senator John Barrasso also said that it could boost the state's once-active uranium mining industry. Gates spent many efforts to make pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 because of his importance to climate. He tried to convince Joe Manchin to support a climate bill from the year 2019 and especially in the months before

7416-570: The project in 1987. The codex was sold to Bill Gates by Christie's auction house on 11 November 1994 in New York for US$ 30,802,500. Until 2021, the codex remained the most expensive book ever sold. After Gates acquired the codex, he had its pages scanned into digital image files, some of which were later distributed as screensaver and wallpaper files on a CD-ROM as part of a Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 desktop theme, which would later be included with Windows 98 and Windows ME . A comprehensive CD-ROM version (titled Leonardo da Vinci )

7519-511: The properties of water, rocks, fossils, air, and celestial light. The topics addressed include: The codex consists of 18 sheets of paper, each folded in half and written on both sides, forming the complete 72-page document. At one time the sheets were bound together, but they are now displayed separately. It was handwritten in Italian by Leonardo, using his characteristic mirror writing , and supported by copious drawings and diagrams. The codex

7622-413: The rights to its COVID-19 information, as it had announced, but instead sell it to a single industry partner, as it did. His views on the value of legal monopolies in medicine have been linked to his views on legal monopolies in software. Gates has been critical of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin . According to him, cryptocurrencies provide no "valuable output", contribute nothing to society, and pose

7725-480: The single most important piece of climate legislation in American history" given its potential to spur development of new technologies. Gates gave further insights on climate change in his commencement address at Northern Arizona University on May 6, 2023, where he was bestowed an honorary doctorate. In October 2024, The New York Times reported Gates had recently donated $ 50 million to Future Forward USA Action,

7828-491: The summer of 1974. In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 was released based on the Intel 8080 CPU , and Gates and Allen saw the opportunity to start their own computer software company. Gates dropped out of Harvard that same year. His parents were supportive of him after seeing how much he wanted to start his own company. He explained his decision to leave Harvard: "if things hadn't worked out, I could always go back to school. I

7931-409: The system is fielded and in use), it is a lot easier subsequently to evolve a simple concept than one laden with exceptions, special cases, and much "fine print." Layering the architecture is important for keeping the architecture sufficiently simple at each layer so that it remains comprehensible to a single mind. As layers are ascended, whole systems at lower layers become simple components at

8034-483: The system remotely via Teletype , Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including Fortran , Lisp , and machine language . The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970 when the company went out of business. The following year, a Lakeside teacher enlisted Gates and Evans to automate the school's class-scheduling system, providing them computer time and royalties in return. The duo worked diligently in order to have

8137-417: The system, however complex, is built upon relatively simple and "clean" concepts for each (sub)system or layer and is easily understandable by everyone, especially the users, without special training. The architect will use a minimum of heuristics to ensure that each partition is well defined and clean of kludges , work-arounds , short-cuts , or confusing detail and exceptions. As users needs evolve, (once

8240-565: The title of the wealthiest person in the world every year except in 2008 and from 2010 to 2013. In 1999, he became the first ever centibillionaire when his net worth briefly surpassed US$ 100 billion. Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued other business and philanthropic endeavors. He is the founder and chairman of several companies, including BEN , Cascade Investment , TerraPower , Gates Ventures , and Breakthrough Energy . He has donated to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through

8343-413: The true requirements necessary for the designed (end) system. The architect must remain constantly in communication with the end users and with the (principal) systems engineers. Therefore, the architect must be intimately familiar with the users' environment and problem, and with the engineering environment(s) of likely solution spaces. The user requirements specification should be a joint product of

8446-418: The users and architect: the users bring their needs and wish list, the architect brings knowledge of what is likely to prove doable within the cost, time and other constraints. When the users needs are translated into a set of high-level requirements is also the best time to write the first version of the acceptance test , which should, thereafter, be religiously kept up to date with the requirements. That way,

8549-410: The users will be absolutely clear about what they are getting. It is also a safeguard against untestable requirements, misunderstandings, and requirements creep. The development of the first level of engineering requirements is not a purely analytical exercise and should also involve both the architect and engineer. If any compromises are to be made— to meet constraints- the architect must ensure that

8652-593: The users' manual is invaluable, especially in conjunction with a prototype. Nevertheless, it is important that a workable, well written set of requirements, or specification , be created which is reasonably understandable to the customer (so that they can properly sign off on it, but the principal users' requirements should be captured in a preliminary users' manual for intelligibility). But it must use precise and unambiguous language so that designers and other implementers are left in no doubt as to meanings or intentions. In particular, all requirements must be testable , and

8755-414: The users' world and of (all potentially useful) engineering systems architectures . The former is a joint activity with the users; the latter is a joint activity with the engineers. The product is a set of high-level requirements reflecting the users' requirements which can be used by the engineers to develop systems design requirements. Because requirements evolve over the course of a project, especially

8858-423: The whole can be seen to be a consistent, complete, and correct representation of what the users' had in mind— especially for the computer-human-interface. It is also used to ensure that the parts fit together and relate in the desired way. It is necessary to distinguish between the architecture of the users' world and the engineered systems architecture. The former represents and addresses problems and solutions in

8961-489: The widely used CP/M operating system. 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 asked if Microsoft could provide an operating system. A few weeks later, Gates and Allen proposed using 86-DOS , an operating system similar to CP/M, that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to

9064-752: The world's energy system from one based primarily on fossil fuels to one based on sustainable energy sources. Global energy transitions have historically taken decades. He wrote, "I believe we can make this transition faster, both because the pace of innovation is accelerating, and because we have never had such an urgent reason to move from one source of energy to another." This rapid transition, according to Gates, would depend on increased government funding for basic research and financially risky private-sector investment, to enable innovation in diverse areas such as nuclear energy , grid energy storage to facilitate greater use of solar and wind energy, and solar fuels . Gates spearheaded two initiatives that he announced at

9167-607: Was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC) which banned Gates, Paul Allen , Ric Weiland , and Gates's best friend and first business partner Kent Evans for the summer after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time. The four students formed the Lakeside Programmers Club to make money. At the end of the ban, they offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for extra computer time. Rather than using

9270-485: Was a national bank president. Gates also has an older sister Kristi (Kristianne) and a younger sister Libby. He is the fourth of his name in his family but is known as William Gates III or "Trey" (i.e., three) because his father had the "II" suffix. The family lived in the Sand Point area of Seattle in a home that was damaged by a rare tornado when Gates was 7. When Gates was young his parents wanted him to pursue

9373-566: Was always a penalty for losing". At age 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school . When he was in 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 students. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC , and he

9476-424: Was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington as the only son of William H. Gates Sr. (1925–2020) and his first wife, Mary Maxwell Gates (1929–1994). His ancestry includes English , German , and Irish / Scots-Irish . His father was a prominent lawyer , and his mother served on the board of directors of First Interstate BancSystem and United Way of America . Gates's maternal grandfather J. W. Maxwell

9579-446: Was completed on June 27, 2008. Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft, Gates has continued his philanthropy and works on other projects. He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 to become technology advisor at the firm to support newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella . Gates provided his perspective on a range of issues in an interview that was published in the March 2014 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. In

9682-402: Was done. We can't forget that another pandemic will come and we'll need to invest in being ready in that, ... while not forgetting that we were not prepared and we're going to have to invest – just like having a fire department – some money in an intelligent way and actually simulate what might happen and make sure that we're ready for it. Gates favors the normalization of COVID-19 masks. In

9785-504: 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. After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, Gates and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems

9888-518: Was officially on leave." Gates read the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics which demonstrated the Altair 8800 , and contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform. In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for

9991-611: Was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked out and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, he wrote An Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90% of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and the Altair "hobby market" was in danger of eliminating the incentive for any professional developers to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software. This letter

10094-547: Was purchased at auction from the Leicester estate in 1980 by the wealthy industrialist and art collector Armand Hammer , for $ 5.1 million ($ 18.9 million in 2023); he later renamed the notebook the Codex Hammer. Hammer commissioned Leonardo da Vinci scholar Carlo Pedretti to compile the loose pages of the codex back into its original form. Over the next seven years, Pedretti translated each page to English, completing

10197-641: Was released by Corbis in 1997. The Codex Leicester has been unbound, with each page individually mounted between glass panes. It is on public display once a year in a different city worldwide. In 2000, it was displayed at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum. In 2004, it was exhibited in the Château de Chambord , and 2005 in Tokyo . One page was exhibited at the Seattle Museum of Flight 's 2006 exhibit Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius . From June to August 2007,

10300-414: Was the first personal donation received from Gates. Chief software architect The systems architect is an information and communications technology professional. Systems architects define the architecture of a computerized system (i.e., a system composed of software and hardware) in order to fulfill certain requirements . Such definitions include: a breakdown of the system into components,

10403-458: Was the last version of the OS released before Gates left the chair of the firm to John W. Thompson on February 5, 2014. During Microsoft's early years, Gates was an active software developer, particularly in the company's programming language products, but his primary role in most of the company's history was as a manager and executive. He has not officially been on a development team since working on

10506-696: Was then on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in an exhibition Leonardo Da Vinci, the Codex Leicester, and the Creative Mind that opened 21 June 2015, where it remained on display until 30 August 2015. As part of the same tour, the Codex Leicester was also on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina from 31 October 2015 to 17 January 2016. For the 500th anniversary of da Vinci's death,

10609-427: 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. The company moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979. Gates said he personally reviewed and often rewrote every line of code that

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