Billy and me.So what's Bill Gates (person) Bill Gates - William Henry Gates III, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, which he co-founded in 1975 with Paul Allen. In 1994 Gates is a billionaire, worth $9.35b and Microsoft is worth about $27b. really like? That's been the question of the month for me, having spent some time with software giant Microsoft's founder while in Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. , Nevada recently. The short answer is: intense. The long answer, well, take a look at our conversation in this issue. He can be combative and gives no ground if he thinks your questioning is misinformed. But, he was generous with his time and wants his message to be understood. Who wouldn't be intense after a career--one only just reaching mid-stride--such as his? The man who took computing out of the geeky world of garage tinkerers and into our daily lives is bent on Adj. 1. bent on - fixed in your purpose; "bent on going to the theater"; "dead set against intervening"; "out to win every event" bent, dead set, out to moving further into our reality. He wants Microsoft products on our phones, in our ears and operating our appliances. It's a huge mission, and one in which he believes passionately, that software "magic," as he calls it, can change lives. Gates lacks no followers in Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. , and not just because he's the world's richest person, by Forbes magazine's accounting (US$40.7 billion net worth in 2003, "self made," as the magazine dryly notes). About six months ago, our ring of correspondents in the region, a canny lot and very smart, started pestering me about the tech rebirth they were witnessing in their own countries. Software in Uruguay, start-ups in Brazil, cellular phone coders working overtime in Argentina. At first I was skeptical, but when the fourth story idea rolled in with the same you're-not-gonna-believe-this tech focus, I knew it was real, and that we had to hit it hard. Luckily, Gates was able to take the time to help out. P.S. For the rest of us (abuse) for The Rest Of Us - (From the Macintosh slogan "The computer for the rest of us") 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced products. 2. not worth tens of billions, take a look at the Top Funds feature starting on page 34. Greg Brown Greg Brown may refer to:
gbrown@latintrade-inc.com |
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