17 weird things about Bill Gates
Most people know three things about Bill Gates:
He is one of the richest men in the world.
He is the co-founder of one of the most successful technology companies in history, Microsoft.
He is an extremely generous philanthropist through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But despite his efforts as a philanthropist and his online presence, there are a lot of things about Gates that many are unaware of.
Here are 17 things you probably didn't know about Bill Gates:
1. As a teenager at Lakeside Prep, Gates designed his first program on a General Electric computer. It was a version of tic-tac-toe where you could play against the machine.
2. When the school discovered Gates' code skills, they let him design the program that coordinated the students and classes. Gates craftily modified the code to coincide in class with a "considerable number of interesting girls."
3. Gates also read the entire "World Book Encyclopedia" series when he was a teenager.
4. Gates achieved a near perfect score of 1590 out of 1600 on the American College Entrance Exam (SAT).
5. Like many other successful tech entrepreneurs, Gates dropped out of college. Gates left Harvard University in 1975 to dedicate himself fully to Microsoft.
6. Two years after leaving Harvard, Gates was arrested in New Mexico. He was driving without a license and ran a red light.
7. At Microsoft, Gates used to memorize the license plates of his employees to keep track of his comings and goings. "I finally had to quit, when the company reached considerable size," he said.
8. Speaking of cars, Gates has a collection of Porsches. The star was the sports car Porsche 959, which he bought 13 years before the car was approved by the US Agency for Environmental Screening and the Department of Transportation.
9. For his air travel, Gates used to fly economy class. Today he moves on the plane that he has had since 1997, which he calls the "great waste" of him.
10. Besides his plane, one of Gates's biggest splurges was the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci. He acquired them in 1994 at an auction for $ 30.8 million.
11. Despite his immense wealth, Gates tells his children that they will inherit only $ 10 million each, just a fraction of their $ 90.9 billion fortune. "Leaving your children billions is not doing them a favor," he said.
12. Although he spends most of his time with his foundation, Gates assures that he still works at Microsoft as his personal assistant, who "will remember everything, will help me find things to pay attention to."
13. Gates claims that if Microsoft hadn't worked, he probably would have been a researcher in artificial intelligence.
14. Despite his interest in artificial intelligence, Gates says he is "concerned about super intelligence." Other famous science and technology leaders such as Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking are also involved in this field.
15. What is Bill Gates's favorite group? Weezer. He also says that U2 is one of his favorites and states that he is still "waiting for Spinal Tap to come back on tour."
16. Gates ensures that he reads 50 books a year. "Reading is the only way I learn new things and put my intellect to the test," he says.
17. Gates does not speak any foreign languages. That, he says, is his biggest regret in life thus far.
