But it wasn’t always that way

M
icrosoft cofounder and world’s richest man Bill Gates is universally
revered today as one of the greatest philanthropists. Gates public
persona has undergone huge transformation in the 392 years that
Microsoft has been around. At first he was known as a brilliant but obnoxious
technical wiz kid. then as a brilliant but hot tempered CEO. then as a ruthless
businessman taken down by the department of justice. Then as a visionary
technologist subject to occasional email tantrums while keeping watch over the
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
And only after that did he become a full time philanthropist helping to save the
world’s children from polio, malaria, poverty, and bad education. So it’s not
surprising that over the years, Microsoft employees and other who knew him in
the early days have a lot of stories about him, as a recent thread on quora proved.
Here are the best responses:
From Brad Silverberg, SVP at Microsoft 1990-1999
Shortly after I have joined Microsoft in 1990, Bill, I, and a few others on the
windows team were flying to NY from Seattle for some customer meetings. This
was shortly after the launch of windows 3.0. through this was almost 25 years
ago, Microsoft was a public, prosperous company. Yet, company policy was that
everyone flew coach. And there was Bill, sitting in coach, in the middle seat. It
didn’t matter to him; he spent the whole flight reading. He wasn’t as universally
recognized then so it wasn’t such an issue for him to fly commercial
It made a big impression on me, a new Microsoft employee, seeing Bill lead by
example.
Note: Gates doesn’t fly coach anymore. he owns his own plane and calls it his
“guilty pleasure’”

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