Deep down, every new and aspirational entrepreneur wants to be like Bill Gates. And that is a natural way to feel like, given that he is one of the world’s wealthiest people who has set entrepreneurial examples for many generations to come. Bill Gates is a role model for many people not just because he is a multi-billionaire, but because he created something so unique without which most life will almost halt today in the tech-driven world.
In the 1970s, Gates and Paul Allen, with whom Gates founded Microsoft later, first went into business together in developing “Traf-o-Data,” a computer program that monitored traffic patterns in Seattle. They netted $20,000 for their efforts. Gates and Allen founded the Microsoft Corporation on April 4, 1975, by pooling their earnings and savings from the previous venture. And the rest is history.
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Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard two years into college to begin Microsoft, the company that would make him a tycoon by age 26. He unquestionably is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. His software company started a modern technological revolution.
Gates’ success at Microsoft earned him the wealthiest person globally for the better part of a decade. Although he has stepped down as CEO of Microsoft, young entrepreneurs are full of expectations to learn basic entrepreneurial lessons from this man to succeed in the business realm.
If you want to follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates, here are some key learnings from his life.
Persistence and perseverance go a long way
Bill Gates’ tenacity has made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs in modern history. If you want to be like Bill Gates, you need to take inspiration from life outside the door, just like Gates, to realise that overnight success is a fool’s plan. In an interview in the 1990s, Bill Gates said, “There is nothing that was overnight in building Microsoft”. After many days, weeks, months and years of efforts, one entrepreneurial idea gets picked up. You need persistence in the struggle for success.
Learning is perpetual
From a young age, it is crucial to keep in touch with different experiences. Since childhood, Gates expanded his knowledge, both about business and life, by acquiring new skills at every stage. You must follow the ever-growing journey of skills and knowledge and learn about new things.
That is what Bill did to create new ventures that boosted his business acumen along with being a ‘tech-wiz’. Gates’ perpetual learning has melded a popular business lesson for today’s entrepreneurs – the thirst for knowledge should be unquenchable to be successful.
Learn from mistakes
As a tech-giant and professional, when faced with failure, Bill Gates advises accepting failure, learning from mistakes and moving on rather than complaining and quitting. One of his famous passages reads, “Celebrating success is good, but paying heed to the text of failure is more important.”
To reflect upon her/his failure is imperative in any entrepreneur’s journey. Loss is a trade-off for success as it brings you close to planning and helps analyse the causes of failure. This way, as a business entrepreneur, you can fix problems and avoid repeating the same mistakes repeatedly.
Futuristic thinking brings fundamental changes
To stay one step ahead of the contest, any company or young entrepreneur must academically, factually and intelligently anticipate the future and prepare in advance. Part of Bill Gates’ success depends on his vision for the future. That’s why Microsoft has always been an edge over the competition.
Even in retirement Bill Gates ponders about the future. In a 2018 interview, Gates predicted that mobile devices, Internet TV and physical user interfaces would become prevalent in the years to come, and history has confirmed this.
In a nutshell, this is the briefest learning compendium from the success and giant of the knowledge treasure that is Bill Gates. His life is an exemplar for an entire generation of aspiring business folk. While no one can be the personality replication of another person, people sure can learn a lot from Bill to become successful in the highly competitive world of business and technology.
