35 Fascinating Facts about Bill Gates

In 1994, Bill Gates purchased the Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex for $30,802,500. Three years later he had its pages scanned into digital image files, some of which were later distributed as a screen saver and wallpaper files on a CD-ROM as part of Microsoft Plus! for Windows so everyone could enjoy them.

2. Bill Gates succeeded in his mission to build a Toilet to help combat the sanitary crisis across multiple parts of Africa and India. Costing $350, it's powered by worms, and doesn't require to be hooked up to a sewer system.

3. In 1989, Bill Gates answered a Microsoft tech support call, and identified himself only as "William", then solved the issue. The customer called back later specifically requesting him.

4. Bill Gates received an honorary knighthood from the Queen but as an American he cannot use the title “Sir.”

5. Bill Gates has a McDonald’s Gold Card for unlimited free fast food.

In 1997, Bill Gates invested $150 million in Steve Job’s company Apple to save it from going bankrupt.

7. Bill Gates wrote his school's computer program for scheduling students in their classes. He edited it so he would end up sitting with female students.

8. Bill Gates once released mosquitos during a Ted Talk, stating that "poor people shouldn't be the only ones to have this experience."

9. In 1994, Bill Gates bought out all the available rooms at the 250-room hotel to keep media from staying there and reportedly hired all the helicopters on Maui to keep photographers from flying over the wedding.

10. Bill Gates' idea of a splurge was a used Porsche 911 after Microsoft went public that made him worth over $350 million before the age of 30.

Bill Gates coyly defended his LSD use by saying 'I never missed a day of work.'

12. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett once went to China to encourage their billionaires about the benefits of Philanthropy (giving to their community). They were mainly ignored because Philanthropy (outside of supporting family) is not part of Chinese culture.

13. When Bill Gates bought his engagement ring from Warren Buffett’s Jewelry store, he ignored Buffett’s unsolicited advice that as a rule of thumb you should spend 6% of your net worth on such an item.

14. Bill Gates' wealth topped $100 billion for a brief period in 1999, but antitrust trials and tech stocks decline saw his fortune fall to just over $60 billion the following year.

15. Bill Gates was so addicted to Minesweeper, he used to sneak into a colleague's office after work to play.

Bill Gates once greatly offended the Bolivian government because he tried to give Bolivia thousands of chickens.

17. Bill Gates enjoyed Richard Feynman’s lectures so much that he worked with MIT to make them available in enhanced video format to the public.

18. Bill Gates used to memorize the license plates of Microsoft employees to keep tabs on them.

19. The generic silhouette in Microsoft Outlook is actually a shadow cutout of Bill Gates' mugshot when he got arrested for a driving offense in 1977.

20. Bill Gates' first business was Traf-O-Data, a company that created machines that recorded the number of cars passing a given point on a road.

In 1995, Bill Gates ran a promo that featured himself in the classic video game Doom.

22. In 2013, Bill Gates admitted that the Ctrl+Alt+Delete command was a mistake, and should have been a single button.

23. Bill Gates has given away over $28 billion since 2007 resulting in an estimated more than 6 million lives saved.

24. In 2004, Bill Gates was the most spammed person in the world with more than 4 million emails per day. Microsoft had to set up a whole department just to deal with this issue, and only forward a dozen of important emails to his direct inbox.

25. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer once did a spoof of Night at the Roxbury.