Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, Inc (MSFT), has built the ultimate business system. For those of you wanting financial freedom take note.
As junior at Harvard University he and childhood friend took a an already developed technology and built it into the world’s number 1 operating system. Number 1 by a long shot, over 99% of computers worldwide run the Windows operating system in one form or another (or something like that statistic). He then got people to work for him, went public with his company, figured out how to ingrain the Windows system on every computer, and has been the richest man in the world (according to Forbes) for the last 12 consecutive years.
Now after 20 years Bill Gates will be removing himself from the day to day duties of Microsoft to attend to some of his other passions. Family and philanthropy. At 50 years old Gates not only has one of the most powerful companies in the world, is the richest person in the world, he also runs, with his wife Melinda Gates, the worlds biggest charity foundation. The William and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Although he will remain chairman of Microsoft he will continue to allow financial matters to be handled by fellow Harvard Classmate and CEO Steve Ballmer and will slowly allow Ray Ozzie to take over chief software architect. The shift is said to bring in a new mind with Ozzie that will allow the company to transition out of the desktop software industry and into the online arena. Bill Gates will wait out the release of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 and stay on to help ease the transition until 2008. Also heading up the research and strategy arena will be Craig Mundie.
Gates has made it clear that these three people. Ballmer, Ozzie, and Mundie are fully capable of taking Microsoft to the next level and increasing the value of MSFT for its shareholders.
