Bill Gates *literally* can't give his money away fast enough

Bill Gates *literally* can’t give his money away fast enough

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That’s right, Bill Gates *literally* can’t give his money away fast enough. The former Microsoft head honcho is one of the most philanthropic men on the planet, and yet has still topped the Forbes rich list for the 16th time in the last 21 years.

I have no doubt many of you are more than a little familiar with Mr. Gates’ professional life and how he got into that position. However, a suspect far fewer of you are aware of the insane sums he regularly gives away, or what he’s done with that cash.

I thought this was a good opportunity for a very brief overview of how and why Bill Gates is once again the richest man on the planet.

Bill Gates: he is not only the richest person in technology, but also the richest person on Earth;
with a net worth of $79.2 billion.
Take that in for a second.
Seventy Nine BILLION dollars.
$79,200,000,000.00

Now, how about some few extra factoids to back that up.

  • This calculation is after he gave away approximately one third of his remaining stake in Microsoft over the past year
  • Bill Gates earns $250 every SECOND. That’s about $20 Million a day.
  • If Bill Gates was a country he would be the 63rd richest Country on earth
  • Bill Gates sold his first computer program for $4,200 at the age of 17, which was a time-tabling system for his high school. One version of the story suggests it was programmed to schedule him in classes with the girls he liked…
  • Gates and three other high school students were banned from computer usage by Seattle-based CCC (Computer Center Corporation) after they were caught exploiting its operating system bugs to steal computer time.
  • Gates once told his university teachers that he aimed to become a millionaire by the age of 30. …He went on to become a billionaire by the age of 31.
  • Bill Gates’ children will only inherit $10 million each, out of his (current) $79 billion net worth, with the rest going to charitable causes.
  • 6 million lives (so far) have been saved by Bill Gates with vaccines and better healthcare.
  • Bill Gates continued to fly coach until 1997, when his net worth was already $36 billion.
  • Bill Gates pays over $1 million per year in property taxes for his house (which I’m assuming therefore is on the large side).
  • In fact Gates lives in 66,000 square feet situated on the edge of lake Washington. The house is famous for the technology it incorporates. Much of the house is built underground into the hill, so the house looks smaller than it actually is. The house also has two secret rooms behind pivoting bookcases, one containing a bar.
  • Bill Gates Sponsors a Machine that turns poo Into drinking water.
  • Gates left Microsoft on June 27, 2008 to take up a full-time philanthropic role in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

What I personally think is most remarkable is that this current net worth also includes gifting $1.5 billion to his philanthropic foundation (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) in November 2014.

In case you aren’t familiar with their work, Gates laid out some decisive goals for the foundation in their annual January newsletter. While continuing to work on improving U.S. education and global health, the foundation is also committed to getting Africa to feed itself and wants to help spread mobile banking so that the poor can transform their lives.

The figure which really blows my mind is that this latest gift sets his current lifetime giving at $29.5 billion.

That’s right, Bill Gates has given to charity a sum in excess of a third of his current worth.

Want some perspective on that?
Take your current salary. And your savings. And your car value. Add them all together.
Own a house? throw the value of that in too.

Take that whole number and divide it by 3. That’s how much you’d have to give away to be proportionately equal to this level of charitable donation.

So lets take a moment to recognise the man behind the MS badge. Its also nice to know that at least some of our hard earned cash that we spend on all things Xbox is actually going to very worthy causes.

^HooksaN (@HooksaN)

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