Bill (William Henry) Gates (61) is the richest man in the world. According to the latest rankings of the world's billionaires by Forbes magazine, his assets are $86 billion.
He is not only a founder of the software company Microsoft but also a philanthropist, an avid reader, a blogger and even a knight.
Originally he planned to be a lawyer like his father but he quit his law studies at Harvard in order to focus fully on computers.
In 1987, when he was 31 years old, he became the youngest billionaire of his time. He became the richest person in the world for the first time in 1995. Since then he has lost that first place only a few times.
