Bill Gates is the best entrepreneur we have studied. He has all the qualities that a great entrepreneur must possess and he knew how to use these strengths to make himself successful. At the young age of 15, he created a program called Traf-O-Data that measured traffic flow in Seattle—a concept quite hefty for a fifteen-year old to care about and wrap his mind around. Gates was very intelligent, scoring a 1590 out of a possible 1600 on his SAT. Although intelligence alone does not make a good entrepreneur, it is a bonus when an entrepreneur has such genius qualities. Like Vaynerchuk, Gates thrived under pressure. Gates and Paul Allen heard about the first micro-computer and called MITS to tell them they had written a software compatible for their computer, when in reality they did not. They spent a short two months developing a software for the computer, without actually having one to test it out on. This put them in a high pressure situation in which they had to try to live up to their word. When they presented their product to MITS, it was a success. Their success was a result of the ability to do well under pressure, a characteristic essential to …show more content…
Along the way, Gates and Microsoft faced competition with Apple’s Macintosh, but this didn’t stop him. He wasn’t successful right away with his new Windows operating system, but his perseverance and strong drive led him to continue developing and bettering his product. Gates was a competitor and he would not give up; this attribute was so critical to Gate’s successes because he used his competition to push him to succeed. By 1999, Gates totaled sales of $19.7 billion and had a personal wealth of $90 billion. Although money is not the ultimate indicator of a model entrepreneur, in Gate’s case, his wealth shows the outreach and impact his product had on the