Editing Bill Gates (section)

== Early life and education ==
William Henry Gates III was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington,<ref>{{cite web|title=Bill Gates (American computer programmer, businessman, and philanthropist)|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bill-Gates|access-date=March 20, 2013|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130328082612/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/226865/Bill-Gates|archive-date=March 28, 2013}}</ref> as the only son of [[William H. Gates Sr.]]{{efn|His father was named William H. Gates II, but he is now generally known as William H. Gates, Senior to avoid confusion with his son.}} (1925–2020) and his first wife, [[Mary Maxwell Gates]] (1929–1994).<ref name=mary-maxwell-gates-obit>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-helped-her-son-start-microsoft.html|title=Mary Gates, 64; helped her son start Microsoft|date=June 11, 1994|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=April 3, 2020|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=April 20, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160420102313/http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary-gates-64-helped-her-son-start-microsoft.html|url-status=live}}</ref> His ancestry includes [[English people|English]], [[Germans|German]], and [[Irish people|Irish]]/[[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scots-Irish]].<ref>"Microsoft founder Bill Gates has Yorkshire roots". ''The Telegraph''. June 23, 2020.</ref> 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 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.{{sfn|Manes|1994|p=15}}<ref name="leibovich20001231">{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/12/31/alter-egos/91b267b0-858c-4d4e-a4bd-48f22e015f70/|title=Alter Egos|last=Leibovich|first=Mark|date=December 31, 2000|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=June 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161225224631/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/12/31/alter-egos/91b267b0-858c-4d4e-a4bd-48f22e015f70/|archive-date=December 25, 2016|url-access=subscription}}</ref> The family lived in the [[Sand Point, Seattle|Sand Point]] area of Seattle in a home that was damaged by a rare [[tornado]] when Gates was 7.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lange|first1=Greg|last2=Stein|first2=Alan|date=February 14, 1999|title=Tornado with 100-m.p.h. winds hits Seattle and Juanita on September 28, 1962.|url=http://www.historylink.org/File/886|work=[[HistoryLink]]|access-date=December 18, 2018 |archive-date=October 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019094436/http://www.historylink.org/File/886 |url-status=live}}</ref>

When Gates was young his parents wanted him to pursue a career in law.{{sfn|Manes|1994|p=47}} During his childhood, his family regularly attended a church of the [[Congregational Christian Churches]], a [[Protestant Reformed Churches in America|Protestant Reformed]] denomination.<ref name="Congregational 1">{{cite book|title=Bill Gates: Entrepreneur and Philanthropist | url = https://archive.org/details/billgatesentrepr0000lesi |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/billgatesentrepr0000lesi/page/12 12] | first =Jeanne M |last=Lesinski|publisher=Twenty First Century Books|access-date=March 10, 2011|isbn= 978-1-58013-570-2|year=2008}}</ref><ref name="Congregational 2">{{cite book|title=Bill Gates speaks: Insight from the world's greatest entrepreneur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LUwu-DTwa5cC&pg=PA3|first=Janet |last=Lowe|publisher=Wiley|access-date=March 10, 2011|isbn=978-0-471-40169-8|year=2001}}</ref><ref name="Congregational 3">{{cite book|title=Something happened: A political and cultural overview of the seventies|url=https://archive.org/details/somethinghappene00berk |page=[https://archive.org/details/somethinghappene00berk/page/228 228]|author-link=Edward D. Berkowitz|first=Edward D|last=Berkowitz|publisher=Columbia University Press|access-date=March 10, 2011|isbn=978-0-231-12494-2|year=2006|url-access=registration}}</ref>

Gates was small for his age and was bullied as a child.<ref name="leibovich20001231" /> The family encouraged competition; one visitor reported that "it didn't matter whether it was [[Hearts (card game)|hearts]] or [[pickleball]] or swimming to the dock; there was always a reward for winning and there was always a penalty for losing".<ref name="nerds2">{{cite episode|title=Part II|series=Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires|credits=Cringely, Robert X.|url=https://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html|network=PBS|air-date=June 1996|season=1|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813010139/http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html|archive-date=August 13, 2017}}</ref>
[[File:Paul Allen and Bill Gates at Lakeside School in 1970.jpg|thumb|Gates (right) with [[Paul Allen]] seated at [[Teletype Model 33]] ASR terminals in [[Lakeside School (Seattle)|Lakeside School]], 1970]]

At age 13, he enrolled in the private [[Lakeside School (Seattle)|Lakeside Prep School]].{{sfn|Manes|1994|p=24}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Soundaian|first=S.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nYGcDwAAQBAJ&q=bill%20gates%20banned%20for%20summer%20pdp-10&pg=PA50|title=New Dimensions of Management|date=June 10, 2019|publisher=MJP Publisher|access-date=October 14, 2020}}</ref> When he was in the 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.{{sfn|Manes|1994|p=27}} Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in [[BASIC]], and he 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.{{sfn|Gates|1996|p=12}} After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, Gates and other students sought time on systems including [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[Programmed Data Processor|PDP]] minicomputers. One of these systems 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 [[Bug (engineering)|bugs]] in the operating system to obtain free computer time.{{sfn|Manes|1994|p=34}}{{r|leibovich20001231}}

The four students formed the Lakeside Programmers Club to make money.{{r|leibovich20001231}} At the end of the ban, they offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for extra computer time. Rather than using the system remotely via [[Teleprinter|Teletype]], Gates went to CCC's offices and studied [[source code]] for various programs that ran on the system, including [[Fortran]], [[Lisp (programming language)|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 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.<ref name="leibovich20001231" />

At age 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen called [[Traf-O-Data]] to make traffic counters based on the [[Intel 8008]] processor.{{sfn|Gates|1996|p=14}} In 1972, he served as a [[congressional page]] in the House of Representatives.<ref name="Schuman2008">{{cite book|first=Michael A.|last=Schuman|title=Bill Gates: Computer Mogul and Philanthropist|url=https://archive.org/details/billgatescompute0000schu|url-access=registration|year=2008|publisher=Enslow Publishers, Inc.|isbn=978-0-7660-2693-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/billgatescompute0000schu/page/34 34]}}</ref><ref name="Sims2018">{{cite book|first=Marcie|last=Sims|title=Capitol Hill Pages: Young Witnesses to 200 Years of History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L1NLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA196|year=2018|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-6972-4|page=196|access-date=May 5, 2018}}</ref> He was a [[National Merit Scholarship Program|national merit scholar]] when he graduated from Lakeside School in 1973.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=416|title=National Merit Scholarship Corporation&nbsp;– Scholars You May Know|work=nationalmerit.org|access-date=October 25, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160228095002/http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=416|archive-date=February 28, 2016}}</ref> He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the [[SAT|Scholastic Aptitude Tests]] (SAT) and enrolled at [[Harvard College]] in the autumn of 1973.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://theweekmagazine.com/article.aspx?id=803|title=The new – and improved? – SAT|access-date=May 23, 2006|work=[[The Week]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060510205250/http://theweekmagazine.com/article.aspx?id=803|archive-date=May 10, 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{sfn|Gates|1996|p=15}}

He did not stay at Harvard long enough to choose a concentration, but took mathematics (including [[Math 55]]) and graduate level computer science courses.<ref>{{cite web|title=Timeline: Bill Gates: 1973; from google (bill gates major in harvard) result 3|publisher=[[NPR]]|url=https://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2008/june/bill_gates/gates_timeline_04.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151005190613/http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2008/june/bill_gates/gates_timeline_04.html|archive-date=October 5, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TO5LIILHmcYC&pg=RA1-PA263|title=Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization|first1=Michael|last1=Hitt|first2=R. Duane|last2=Ireland|first3=Robert|last3=Hoskisson|isbn=978-1-111-82587-4|page=263|access-date=October 25, 2015|year=2012|publisher=Cengage Learning}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/the-no-1-thing-bill-gates-wishes-hed-done-at-harvard.html|title=The No. 1 thing Bill Gates wishes he'd done in college|last=Mejia|first=Zameena|date=April 29, 2018|website=CNBC|access-date=April 3, 2020|archive-date=March 3, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303174636/https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/27/the-no-1-thing-bill-gates-wishes-hed-done-at-harvard.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Gates devised an algorithm for [[pancake sorting]] as a solution to one of a series of [[List of unsolved problems in mathematics|unsolved problems]]<ref name="Kestenbaum2008">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92236781|title=Before Microsoft, Gates solved a pancake problem|last=Kestenbaum|first=David|date=July 4, 2008|publisher=National Public Radio|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110919161456/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92236781|archive-date=September 19, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> presented in a [[combinatorics]] class by professor [[Harry R. Lewis|Harry Lewis]]. His solution held the record as the fastest version for over 30 years, and its successor is faster by only 2%.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.utdallas.edu/news/2008/09/17-002.php |publisher=University of Texas at Dallas |date=September 17, 2008 |title=UT Dallas team bests young Bill Gates with improved answer to so-called pancake problem in mathematics |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100826084836/http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2008/09/17-002.php|archive-date=August 26, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref> His solution was formalized and published in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist [[Christos Papadimitriou]].<ref name="gatespapadimitriou">{{cite journal|last1=Gates|first1=William|last2=Papadimitriou|first2=Christos|year=1979|title=Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal|journal=Discrete Mathematics|volume=27|issue=1|pages=47–57|doi=10.1016/0012-365X(79)90068-2|doi-access=free|issn=0012-365X}}</ref>

Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen and joined him at [[Honeywell]] during the summer of 1974.{{sfn|Wallace|1993|p=59}} 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.{{sfn|Gates|1996|p=18}} 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.{{sfn|Gates|1996|p=19}} He explained his decision to leave Harvard: "if things hadn't worked out, I could always go back to school. I was officially on leave."<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ4G1RtoKyI&t=53 The History of Microsoft – 1976] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211023447/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ4G1RtoKyI&t=53 |date=February 11, 2017 }}: Bill Gates explaining that his departure from Harvard was reversible if Microsoft had failed.</ref>