If it wasn’t already obvious, the webmaster is deeply, embarrassingly infatuated with Bill Gates. In fact, when I coded this (very shitily) back in 2023, it was originally meant to be an entirely Bill-centric site. That plan has since been scrapped, and I decided it was best to keep Billy in containment so I could move on to other interests, seeing as I had several other projects rattling around at the same time.

This section will provide a comprehensive history of Bill Gates or at least, as comprehensive as I can reasonably make it. I may stray further away from usual biographic paraphrases and just try to bring out the most interesting point in his story.

INTRODUCTION

William Henry “Trey” Gates III, however, is actually the fourth of his line (stop making this harder for me, Bill Sr.), born on the 28th of October, 1955. Known for his un-ignorable work as chairman of Microsoft, the mogul climbed his way into history bearing the title of richest man in America. Despite his uber-nerd, greasy outward appearance, he didn’t seem to fall behind when it came to his early womanizing ways at Microsoft, and even now, at his ripe current age of 70, rumours of a couple flings still float about.

CHILDHOOD

As a child, Bill had a habit of rocking back-and-fourth, a behavior he said began very early in his life and followed him throughout Microsoft and late adult-life, he says it began on a rubber hobby-horse and later continued whenever he was thinking hard: seated, standing. He later wrote about this tendency in his memoir, - Source Code - describing the repetitive rocking as something that helped settle his thoughts.

He spent a large portion of his childhood summers at a place known as Camp Cheerio (also called Cheerio Lodge), a lakeside retreat where children often swam, boated, and explored the outdoors.

As a child, Gates was widely described by his parents and later by himself as intensely difficult to manage, intense, and prone to obsessive focus. His parents took him to a child psychologist when he was young because of frequent outbursts. In interviews and in his memoir, he has acknowledged that, admittedly, many of his childhood behaviors resemble traits now associated with autism. However, Gates has never been formally diagnosed in public

By fifth grade, he was being sent to a school speech specialist several times a week because adults thought his voice sounded wrong. He found the sessions humiliating and pointless. Eventually, the specialist suggested that he be held back a year in school, suggesting that he was "retarded".

LAKESIDE

Bill got dumped there when he was about 13. Private school meant obedience, something Bill lacked. He prided himself as the class clown, slacking off on purpose and internally fixated on how he represented himself, however that personality he curated didn't quite stick at this school. The important part was that this is the timeframe which kickstarted Bill's interest in computers.

the school’s mothers’ club raised enough money to lease a teletype terminal. it wasn’t a modern computer lab. it was a direct line into a shared mainframe miles away. you typed something. it answered back. almost immediately. Bill became absorbed in it.

Paul allen was also there, older and already thinking far ahead. along with his best friend at the time, kent evans, and ric weiland, - who later came out and advocated for gay rights - they formed a small group that spent most of their time around the terminal. they would later call themselves the lakeside programmers group.

in 1972, kent evans, one of bill’s closest friends, died in a mountain climbing accident. he was 17. this mattered more than most people write about, or perhaps not brought up at all. it was the first real break in Bill's life, 'he was absolutely crushed' said Paul Allen.

Bill had contracted with Lakeside to write a scheduling program in FORTRAN during summer vacation. “I was going to do it with Kent,” he told me. “I need help. Do you want to work on it with me?” (...) Bill stayed depressed for )weeks, but his spirits gradually lifted as we immersed ourselves in the project, going at it full-bore in McAllister Hall like old times. Often we’d work past midnight and sleep on cots we’d brought to campus.(...) I was impressed by how cleanly Bill broke the job into its component parts, and especially how he “preloaded” himself into an English class with a dozen or more girls and no other boys. Bill and I became closer that summer. Our age gap no longer seemed to matter; we had what I call high-bandwidth communication.

QUOTED IN PAUL ALLEN - IDEA MAN.

paul would drag bill along for any experience he could get out of him. A bit of a hippie by nature, Paul allen leaned toward experimentation. he let Bill try things that he probably wouldn’t have touched alone. Gates has admitted to trying marijuana and not dealing with it well at all, anxiety, paranoia, discomfort instead of anything pleasant.

Through all the fun, they never slowed down when it comes to thinking up on their next business opportunities. Perhaps one of the stepping stone in their relationship, that bloomed into something bigger, with their first baby concieved, a traffic configuration project in the name of "TRAF-O-DATA". They brainstormed other names for a new and fresh company, originally meant to be "Gates&Allen".

"How about 'Micro-Soft'?" said Paul Allen.

MICRO-SOFT

I'm sure everyone's heard of the story time and time so I'll try to skim through this part:

in 1975, bill gates and paul allen saw the altair 8800 on the cover of popular electronics. they called the company - Bill spoke in place of Paul - and claimed they already had a version of the programming language BASIC written for it. they didn’t.

They wrote the program in a rush, but finished it just in time. However, when Paul got on that flight, he realized he had forgotten the bootstrap loader. Paul had to recode by hand on a stenopad. The code worked out well enough to impress Ed Robert and his assistant Bill Yates - no, seriously. Everything works out.

They established their brand "Micro-soft" for the first time on the 4th of April, 1975.

Paul handled the hardware instincts. Bill handled the contracts, the structure. The company started small. With rented offices, long nights, handwritten code,...

their rule was simple: computers were useless without software. microsoft would own the software. Would probably be reasonable if their leader wasn't a megalomaniac.

April of 1977, Bill Gates flew to San Francisco to attend the first West Coast Computer Faire.

On the first day I was talking to a crowd of people about our Extended BASIC when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a handsome guy around my age with long black hair, a tightly cropped beard, and a three-piece suit. He was a few booths away, holding court with his own gaggle of people. Even from a distance I could tell he had a certain aura about him. I said to myself, “Who is that guy?” That was the day I met Steve Jobs. Apple, though smaller than many of the other companies, stood out. (...)That first encounter in the spring of 1977 would mark the start of a long relationship between Steve Jobs and me, marked by cooperation and rivalry.

QUOTED IN BILL GATES - SOURCE CODE

A ragtag group assembled for a family portrait in 1978 Albuquerque. Early employee Bob Greenberg, pictured in the middle, won a free portrait after calling in to a radio show and guessing the name of an assassinated president. The gang reluctantly gathered together in some of their finest attire.

UNFINISHED, but you get the point.