What Is Entrepreneurship: Essay on Bill Gates

Entrepreneurship

Introduction

What is an entrepreneur? Generally, the entrepreneur can be defined as a person who is willing to take greater risk to organize and operates a business. (McClelland, 1976)

Based on the author Chad Brooks in Business News Daily Senior Writer entrepreneurship is the development of a business from the ground up coming up with an idea and turning it into a profitable business.

According to Ajay Bam, a lecturer for entrepreneurship at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business said that “Entrepreneurship is the journey of opportunity exploration and risk management to create value for profit and /or social good(F.Drucker, 1985)

All these are different perspectives and views of different leaders about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.

According to me, an entrepreneur is a person or a firm who invests his or her money willing to take a risk to start a business hoping for the profit in future.

In this report, I am going to describe one of the famous international entrepreneurs, Bill Gates.

Background information about Bill Gates

Gates was born on 28th October 1955, in Seattle, Washington. He is the son of William H. Gates Sr. (b. 1925) and Mary Maxwell Gates (1929-1994). His ancestry includes English, German, and Irish/Scots-Irish.

His father was a famous lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate Bank System and the United Way of America. Gates’ maternal grandfather was J. W. Maxwell, a national bank president.

He grew up in an upper-middle-class family with his two sisters. Gates's older sister is Kristi (Kristianne) and a younger sister is Libby. Gates's family lived in the Sand Point area of Seattle a home that was damaged due to a rare tornado when Gates was seven years old.

Early in his life, he found out that his parents wanted him to go on with law career which he was not interested in. Gate was small for his age and was bullied as a child. He preferred to stay in his room where he would shout out “I’m thinking” when his mother asked him what he was doing.

At the age of 13, he enrolled in the private lakeside prep school, and he wrote his first software program

As the principal founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is one of the most influential and richest people in the world. The recent estimates of his wealth put it at US$84.2 billion (Jan. 2017); this is the equivalent of the combined GDP of several economies. In recent years he has retired from working full-time at Microsoft and has instead concentrated on working with his charitable foundation The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Entrepreneurial attributes of Bill Gates

A Bill gate is undoubtedly the most successful drop-out of Harvard University. He left Harvard University for the sake of building his own software empire-Microsoft. In 2006, Harvard University invited Bill Gates to honor him with an honorary degree.

Bill Gates's personality quality of quickness and ability was very much obvious at the age of 13 when he developed his first computer program for playing tic-tac. He developed Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen on 4th April 1975.

When bill gates was in school he talk big to his teachers that he would become a millionaire by the age of 30 years and he became a billionaire at the age of 31 years old.

Bill gates have an ENTJ personality. People with ENTJ personality type are often logical, critical, and objective. They tend to challenge others. Such personality types are decisive in nature. They are born leaders and are often to be strategic visionaries. Bill Gates has all these qualities.

Here is a few personality behaviors that have contributed to the success of Bill Gates:

1. Gates is a philanthropist

In 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were formed by him and his wife Melinda Gates. Bill Gates took retirement from his position of CEO and became the chief software architect to concentrate on his philanthropic goals through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. When he retired from Microsoft, he had plans in his mind to impact in the world through philanthropy. In 2005, he was bestowed with an honorary knighthood by queen Elizabeth 2 for his persistent contribution to the UK.

Here are a few domains Bill Gates has contributed in his philanthropic efforts:

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• $1 billion of the money goes to scholarship programs,
• $750 million for vaccines and immunization,
• $350 million to teachers, schools, etc.
• $200 million to the library programs
• $100 million to children’s vaccine institute,
• $50 million to the Malaria Vaccine institute,

2. Founder of Microsoft is Highly Competitive

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs once shared an excellent bond to the extent that Bill Gates helped Steve Jobs in his hard times. But when Apple was getting successful, bill gates no more shared a good bond with Steve Jobs and also asked his family not to use any Apple products.

3. Bill Gates is a Greedy Reader

Bill Gates believes that reading is the only way to improve his understanding and also it helps him to learn new things. He believes that reading allows him to explore a new area or domain of knowledge. He prefers to read hard books rather than reading e-books. Bill Gates reads around 50 books per year, i.e. around one book per week. Since childhood, he has a habit of reading voraciously. Because of this his mother made a rule that no one will touch any book at the dining table.

4. Gates knows how to prioritize

We all know that a person’s success or failure depends on his/her habits and prioritization of time management. Bill Gates knows it very well. He makes sure that he manages his time meticulously to ensure essential commitments. He knows how and when to say no to something.

5. Bill Gates Does not abide by Rules

In 1975, he was arrested for driving without a valid driving license. Then in 1977, Bill gate was arrested in New Mexico for a traffic violation. In the initial years of Microsoft, he had so many speeding tickets that he had to hire the best traffic attorney in Washington to come out of trouble.

Spotting opportunities of Bill Gates

Bill Gates is very inspiring person. He created the single most influential technology the world has ever seen. It suits of our modern age, and it made him so wealthy that now he is up to reduce poverty and improve the education system.

In 1994, Gates and his wife Melinda found a charitable organization called Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which supports initiatives in global health and education. The aim of this foundation is to reduce poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world.

Bill Gates has received many numerous international and national accolades, and honorary doctorates from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden in 2002, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan in 2005, Harvard University in June 2007, and other universities.

Making millions through programming was not Bill Gates's set goal; he was just following his heart, his passion. Programming was his obsession and it gave him happiness. Passion, concentration, and persistence is one way to describe Bill Gates.

Evaluating the environment

Bill Gates's 1stCompany was a failure. He is one of the most innovative and practical leaders the world has ever seen. But his journey to success he faced many challenges. One of the challenges is that when Microsoft first opened Bill Gates became very successful, but when the MITS found out Bill Gates's age people all over the world stopped buying them for a while which led to financial problems.

Gates credits his first business as being invaluable as a learning experience. He overcome all internal and external factors and became a founder of Microsoft. He is always being 1 step ahead of his competitors.

Venture Financing

When gates started his business he relied on his parents. Even though there are plenty of partnerships, the fact that Gates had wealthy parents to fall back on helped immensely as he built one of the most successful companies in the world. Gates' parents watched his back until he became successful.

Success Factors of Bill Gates

Here are the keys to the success of bill Gates;

1. Get in early—and learn.

There are head starts to every success. Gates had a big one. In 1969, when he was in eighth grade—where there are very few schools had any kind of computer system-his school bought an early machine along with blocks of processing time. Gates was excused from regular math classes to learn to program and became enthralled with it.

2. Seek forgiveness, not permission

Too many people fail to succeed because they hold themselves back. Whether it was youthful folly or instinct, Gates didn’t fall into this category.

3. Value your work

Another big problem many people have is they are afraid to ask for money. Gates never faced that problem. At the age of 14, he was writing code for a local company’s payroll program. At the age of 17, he and Allen launched a company that used an early computer program that helps to count road traffic.

4. Learning matters more than school.

Gates was a good student-he scored almost perfectly on the SAT- and he was from a family that valued education. He enrolled at Harvard at the age of 17, but he spent time using Harvard’s computers rather than focusing on studies

5. When you’re in charge, take charge.

When Gates was running Microsoft, Gates had a reputation as a difficult, extremely competitive boss. Much like his contemporary Steve Jobs, descriptions of his reaction to employees he disagreed with in meetings were harsh.

Lessons learned

Here are a few lessons I have learned from Bill Gates

• Bill Gates is not distracted by his success. Success can easily cloud anyone’s judgment when it becomes a benchmark. But bill Gates looks beyond his success while executing business decisions. Gates is a leader who recognizes that his success should not bias business ethics.
• I found out that Bill gate is a caring person. He found Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations with his wife; to save lives and improve global health.
• Bill Gates is vision oriented. Microsoft was able to beat its competitors because of Gates's vision. He always visions something bigger at every point. He was ahead of other competitors because he lacked no dream.

Conclusion

As Bill Gates is a man of few words with many ideas. He is one of the richest people in the world. He made our lives easier by making Microsoft. He is a person who values every minute. Overall, he is the best entrepreneur I have ever known,

References

1. (Rachel, 2015)
2. (Bellis, 2019)
3. (Harnish, 2016)
4. (Rampton, 2016)
5. (Murphy)

Bibliography

1. Bellis, M. (2019, July 24). Biography of Bill Gates.
2. F.Drucker, P. (1985).
3. Harnish, C. (2016, November 6). how Bill Gates is changing the world.
4. McClelland. (1976).
5. Murphy, B. (n.d.). what makes Bill Gates so successful?
6. Rampton, J. (2016, September 9 ). How Bill Gates became a Leadership Legend.
7. rasel. (2015). Entrepreneurship Definition by Various Authors.