How Bill Gates makes and spends his billions

With a net worth of
approximately $89 billion, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest men in the world. If he spent $1 million a day, it'd take him 245 years to spend his fortune. Here's how he made all that cash.

In 1975, Gates co-founded Microsoft. At 31, he became the world's youngest billionaire at the time. In 1995, he released Windows 95 and became the world's richest man. He's been at the top of the list ever since. Gates is also a leading philanthropist.

He stepped down as Microsoft CEO to focus on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It has given away $41.3 billion to charity. Gates doesn't forget to splurge on himself, though. He bought a $21 million jet in 1997. He's had tons of luxurious cars over the years. He even once got arrested for speeding in a Porsche 911. Gates has an extensive art collection. In 1988, he spent $36 million on a Winslow Homer painting.

That piece hangs in his $63 million home in Seattle. It has 24 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, a reception hall that holds 200 people, a home theater, and an artificial stream stocked with fish.

In 2010, Bill, Melinda, and Warren Buffett created the "The Giving Pledge." Those who join pledge to give half of their wealth to charity.

Bill Gates (born October 28, 1955) is the chairman of Microsoft Corporation, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. He consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third. Born on October 28, 1955, Gates grew up in Seattle with his two sisters. Their father, William H. Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary Gates, was a schoolteacher. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Gates was married on January 1, 1994, to Melinda French Gates. They have three children. Gates is an avid reader, and enjoys playing golf, tennis and bridge. Gates loved to stay up all night working. One time, a new secretary came in on Monday morning to find him sprawled out on the floor. She thought he was unconscious, but he'd just been up all weekend and was taking a quick catnap. On June 27, 2008, Gates transitioned out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates didn't lose his title as the world's richest man but he gave it away by ploughing billions into his charitable foundation. But had Gates not given away any money, he would be worth $88 billion. Gates and his wife Melinda have so far given $28 billion to their foundation, the largest in the United States. Gates's philanthropy had influenced the way other rich people in the United States approach their own philanthropy.

Surprising Facts About Billionaire Entrepreneur Bill Gates

He's the founder of Microsoft, an inventor and the world's most prolific philanthropist. He's also the richest man on the planet, with a net worth north of $79 billion. What do you really know about Bill Gates?

1. Born William Henry Gates III, Bill's nickname as a child was "Trey," reflective of The Third" following his moniker, as he was the fourth consecutive Gates man of the same name.
2. The private school he attended as a child was one of the only schools in the US with a computer. The first program he ever used was a tic-tac-toe game.
3. Although it's been widely reported that Gates hacked his prep school computers, he reportedly wrote the class scheduling program himself and added a feature that would place him in classes with mostly female students.
4. He comes by philanthropy naturally--Gates' mother served on the board of directors for the United Way.
5. He scored 1590 (out of 1600) on his SATs.
6. Gates, Paul Allen and Paul Gilbert launched a company while Gates and Allen were still students at Lakeside School in Seattle. Their Traf-O-Data 8008 computer was designed to read data from roadside traffic counters and create reports for traffic engineers.
7. Gates dropped out of Harvard just two years into his program to chase his dream (alongside Allen) of writing software for the new generation of computers that launched with the Altair 8800. Their company was called "Micro-Soft."
8. Bill almost achieved his goal of being a millionaire by the age of 30. He became a millionaire at 31.
9. His all-time favorite business book is Business Adventures by New Yorker's John Brooks, published in 1969.
10. Gates was arrested in 1977 for driving without a license in New Mexico.
11. In 1994, he was asked by a TV interviewer if he could jump over a chair from a standing position. Gates promptly took the challenge and leapt over the chair like a boss.
12. Also in 1994, he purchased Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester for $30 million US.
13. He flew coach until 1997, even though his net worth was already well into the double-digit billions.
14. Media attempted to create a new title for Gates--"centibillionaire"--during the dot-com boom, when his net worth briefly surpassed $101 billion.
15. Gates predicted (inaccurately) in 2004 that within two years, email spam would be obliterated.
16. Queen Elizabeth of England knighted Gates with the KBE Order in 2005, in recognition of his charitable contributions worldwide.
17. Gates earned an honorary degree from Harvard in 2007, thirty-two years after dropping out.
18. In 2010, Gates and his friends Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett signed the "Gates Giving Pledge," promising to give half of their wealth to charity.
19. No one was immune from the #IceBucketchallenge craze in 2014--not even Gates, who accepted the challenge from Mark Zuckerberg.
20. Gates believes that telemarketers, accountants, auditors and retail salespeople will all become obsolete in 20 years as robots take over their jobs.
21. Bill Gates doesn't believe in leaving children a ton of money as inheritance; his three kids (daughters Jennifer and Phoebe and son Rory) are set to inherit just $10 million each of his multi-billion dollar fortune.
22. The 66,000 sq ft. Gates estate in Washington took seven years and $63 million to build. Half a million board-feet of lumber went into the construction of the opulent property, which features a trampoline room with a 20-foot ceiling, a reception hall to accommodate up to 200 guests, 24 bathrooms, six kitchens and more.
23. Gates is no longer the largest individual shareholder in Microsoft--he relinquished that title in 2014.
24. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had a complex relationship. Jobs once kept Gates waiting for an hour out of spite, but kept a letter from Gates beside his bed as his condition worsened before his death.
25. What's on Bill's bucket list? Just don't die.