Bill Gates says he didn't find school 'interesting' and was 'lazy' at math when he was young (2024)

FAQs

What did Bill Gates say about school? ›

Students who do well in math are much more likely to graduate from college and go on to successful careers, even if those careers are not in a STEM field. That's according to Bill Gates, who notes that those who complete high school Algebra 1 by ninth grade are more likely to complete a college education as well.

Early Life

Known as Trey to his family, Bill was a bright and competitive child who loved math and reading. At age 8, he began reading encyclopedias for fun.

Where did Bill Gates go to college? Bill Gates attended Harvard University. However, he dropped out in his junior year to found Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen.

Bill Gates had several entrepreneurial ventures prior to co-founding Microsoft. He created a traffic monitoring system in high school and sold it to local authorities. Later, while studying at Harvard, he developed a computerized version of the game "tic-tac-toe" that allowed users to compete against the computer.

Elon Musk was not valedictorian in high school. Neither was Bill Gates whose 2.2 GPA at one point alarmed his parents. Ronald Reagan graduated with a C-average. None of these esteemed men were mediocre in intelligence or achievements, regardless of their high school grades.

Elon Musk's homeschool education curriculum was full of books on many different aspects of life. After his parents' divorce, Elon stayed with his father. He spent his early years in South Africa.

It turns out the Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist actually loves math — and is very good at it — but he also acknowledges that it's "America's least favorite subject." In essence, Gates says math education hasn't kept up with how the world has evolved.

Microsoft's cofounder Bill Gates lacked motivation when he was at school and was 'lazy' at math. He admitted in his podcast that he used to think "the less effort you put in, the cooler you were." The billionaire dropped out of Harvard University to join the computing revolution and start Microsoft.

What do you really know about Bill Gates? 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. The private school he attended as a child was one of the only schools in the US with a computer.

Remarkably, he has only graduated from one institution: that would be Lakeside School, the Seattle prep school where he was class of '73. (Though he attended Harvard, he dropped out after in the spring of his sophom*ore year).

Did Bill Gates get a degree? ›

Bill Gates never finished his undergraduate degree — the billionaire dropped out of Harvard University after three semesters to start Microsoft. “What does a college dropout know about graduation?

College dropout Bill Gates shares advice he never heard at the graduation he never had. Despite dropping out of Harvard University after only three semesters, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates managed to carve out a pretty good life for himself with his tech company and his philanthropic pursuits.

What is Bill Gates IQ? Bill Gates's IQ is 157 ± 6, according to our mathematical analysis based on SAT score averages. With a correlation coefficient of 0.8 between SAT scores and IQ, this approach provides a trustworthy approximation. What is Einstein IQ?

Bill Gates typically tends to use the color black. However, he reveals he does not have a favorite color because of his color blindness. In the interview, Bill also stated that he developed a colorless mode on the color matching game, Zuma, so that he could play the game.

But hindsight is always 20/20, and back in 1987, when Microsoft's star was still on the rise, Gates became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at age 32 — which was not too shabby, either. Gates has been ranked atop the list of world's richest people a whopping 25 times since.

RULE 1: Life is not fair - get used to it! RULE 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world expects you to accomplish BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Bill Gates says he didn't find school 'interesting' and was 'lazy' at math when he was young. Microsoft's cofounder Bill Gates lacked motivation when he was at school and was 'lazy' at math. He admitted in his podcast that he used to think "the less effort you put in, the cooler you were."

Like their father, Jennifer Gates and her siblings attended Seattle's elite Lakeside School, a private high school that has been recognized for excellence in STEM subjects — and that received a $40 million donation from Bill Gates in 2005 to build its financial-aid fund.