Bill Gates- 5 things you didn't know about the Technology Mogul/Philanthropist

   The company Microsoft is a household name to those in the information technology field. Even more popular is the name Bill Gates, a man who is well known as one of the richest men in the world. He founded Microsoft along with Paul Allen and has dominated the world richest people list for about 29 years. He is also well known as a generous philanthropist under the charitable Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  But apart from being a very wealthy technopreneur, here are 5 things you probably never knew about the generous technology mogul and philanthropist:

1.   He was a rich kid: The earliest stories of bill gates we were told in our early schooldays was that of a poor kid who dropped out of school and ended up creating Microsoft. What most of those people who told us such stories failed to mention was that he dropped out of Harvard, one of the 8 Ivy League schools.  With a prominent lawyer for a dad, a mum who was a director on a couple of company boards and a grandfather who was a national bank president, Bill Gates was no poor kid. He was a rich kid who had access to the best educational institutions.

2.  He was also book smart, a brainy genius: With a SAT score of 1590 out of 1600 in high school or secondary school, he is what Nigerians call an “efiwe”, a bookworm. Who said bookworms and first-class students can’t be innovators?

3.  Microsoft is not his only business venture: Apart from Microsoft, he is involved in other ventures among which we have Cascade Investments LLC-a private investment and holding company, gCb3 - a think tank founded by him, Corbis-a digital image licensing and rights company, Research Gate- a social networking site for scientists where he is an investor and  TerraPower, a nuclear reactor design company.

4.  He is an author: Bill Gates has authored two books till date one of which he coauthored with Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson titled “The Road Ahead” which was  published inn1995. The other book titled “Business @ the speed of thought” was published in 1999 and it discusses how business and technology are integrated. 

5. He has a flower fly named after him: Finally, the flower fly, Eristalis gatesi was named Bill Gate’s flower fly in his honor in 1997 by entomologists because of his contributions to the science of Dipterology. How cool is that?

    Lastly, here’s a tidbit you might find interesting: He is so generous that he and his wife plan on giving out about 96% of his wealth to charity with only $30 million dollars to be left as inheritance to his 3 children. I bet you didn't know that too.