A lot of talk on the web about today being Bill Gates’ last day at Microsoft. Here are some of my favorites.
Bill Gates and the Greatest Tech Hack Ever
Fortune
And here’s my Bill Gates story. My Dad made me take typing lessons. It was around 8th grade and I didn’t want to, because I thought typing was for girls. But as the saying goes Father knows best. Looking back now I can see that learning to type sparked my interest in computers and writing.
My Dad then bought me a computer from Radio Shack. The first time I was ever aware of Microsoft was teaching myself how to program in BASIC. One advantage I had was I knew how to type! I had a Microsoft BASIC manual that I would spend hours looking up ways to make my programs do what I wanted them to do. This was around 1983-84, and I was a Junior in High School.
I would read anything I could about him and Microsoft. I was, and still am, a big geek about the history of personal computers. To this day I sign my email’s with “gr” because I read somewhere that Bill Gates used to sign his email’s with “bg”.
The world is better place because of Microsoft. And the great part is that Bill is going to give it all back to try to make the world an even better place.
10 PRINT “THANK YOU BILL, AND GOOD LUCK!”
20 GOTO 10
gr
I am also a Gates fan and believe he has changed the face of business forever and wish him well with his foundation. Years ago I was introduces to his “lessons speech” and still believe they apply today.
Lessons from Bill Gates
MT. WHITNEY HIGH SCHOOL in Visalia,CA
Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
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