4th May 2018

Speech 1.6 Assessment

Draft:

Intro –

Imagine having 100 Billion dollars … you could do anything. Well Bill Gates an entrepreneur billionaire has that much money and I am here to inform you about the struggles he has been through and what he has chosen to do with it. Bill Gates is 62-years-old born in 1955, from Washington, USA. He is currently the 2nd richest person in the world having a net worth of 90.5 billion dollars … you probably can’t conceive that … its 9 zeros! He has obtained all that money from establishing Microsoft which I assume you all know what the company is. I have chosen to have bill gates as the focus for my speech as I find his journey and how he overcame his obstacles quite interesting and motivating and I want to make you see what I do. Today I will describe about how Bill overcame the failure of his first business failing to create Microsoft and now what he is doing to help the world after succeeding then what his life journey has taught us all.

 

Body –

Traf-O-Data was a computer programme that Bill created in 1970 at age 15 with the help of Paul Allen a friend of his. Traf-O-Data did make them about $20,000, which…still imagine having $20,000 at our age you could pretty much buy all we need Food, Clothes and Phones, but then when Bill Gates wanted to leave school and work on the business with Paul full-time his parents wouldn’t let him because they wanted him to go to University and become a lawyer. Therefore Bill had to stay in school and Paul Left to Washington State University breaking them up causing the business to crash and disband … and I know and many of you will know how it feels when you create something that you put your heart and soul into but it fails miserably and you feel like you just want to give up and forget about it because it’s too much work, but Bill thought otherwise.

 

Luckily Bill Loved working with computers so much he didn’t give up and actually the experience of starting a business helped him to know how to start one and from learning from his past mistakes he can make it even better. He kept in touch with Paul Allen and They put their problems of Failure behind them and decided to create a new business in 1975 which was named Microsoft. The company started slowly as all businesses do but after about 4 years of Bill and Paul working together on Microsoft they were grossing around 2.5 million dollars and after another 2 years their worth shot up going to about 16 million dollars which is a 640% increase in half the time and it just kept sky rocketing from there to now where it is of a net worth of 560 billion dollars after 43 years of the business being functioning. Imagine the feeling he would feel after overcoming a disastrous failure and I’m not just talking about a small obstacle in everyone’s lives I’m talking about an obstacle that could have caused his career to go down the drain and Microsoft could have never existed, but luckily he overcame it to create the 3rd largest business in the entire world producing him billions of dollars. He’d feel invincible he wouldn’t need to worry about money for the rest of his lives or his children lives and probably their children lives.

 

Now in 2018 Bill Gates is worth 90.5 billion dollars and Microsoft being 6 times that with about 127,000 employees all over the world which is over 100 times the amount of people in this school. With the money bill has gained he has been helping the world by donating large sums of money in fact he has donated over $50 billion dollars to companies and charities all over the world which is over half of his total net worth at the moment, showing he is one of the most selfless men in the world at the moment. One of his largest donations he has given was 4.6 Billion dollars picture this if he donated that to world vision he would be able to give 92 million goats or set up over 14 million schools for people In need, he has also started the giving pledge with the help of Warren Buffett who is another Billionaire in 2009 which is a pledge made by him and other billionaires that they will donate most of their wealth to people and groups in need. would you do that? would you donate most of your wealth if you where the richest person in the world? or would you spend your money on things you want like a 4.6Billion dollar Yacht that is plated in gold and platinum? Bill Gates is donating this colossal amount of money because and I quote “He enjoys the work”. Him and his wife also grew up in families that got taught to leave the world better than when they came into it so he and his wife have been trying to make the world a better place which I find personally quite inspiring.

 

Conclusion –

Bill Gates has had an amazing life from his parents disagreeing with what he loves causing his first business to fail to overcoming that failure to create one of the largest companies making him one of the richest people in the world. I have learnt a lot from researching about his life but one of the main points is in one of his quotes, he said “I failed in some subjects in exams, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.” What I take out of this is that you can do anything at all it will just take determination and passion. Which we can see as Bill had a lot of passion towards technology and computers therefore he persevered and overcame the obstacles to succeed in creating a business based around technology. Another thing his life has taught me is that even though life is short there is almost always a second chance so if you fail or if you aren’t able to overcome an obstacle you can pretty much always start from the beginning again but like before you need enough determination and passion for whatever you are doing. One last I have learnt from researching Bill Gates and Microsoft is to always look ahead into the future, he said that one of the reasons Microsoft always got ahead of its competitors was that he was always looking into the future to try to predict what people will want so for example you might create the new thing like how fidget spinners took over for a bit of time. From learning about Bill Gates and his life journey it has really made me ask myself what I would do if I had that much money? Would I be selfless like him and donate billions away or be greedy and keep it all? and I hope I have made you ask yourself that as well.

 

Join the conversation! 2 Comments

  1. Ben, you have presented interesting details about this man. You could consider extending the moments when you relate to the audience. Consider using relevant anecdotes, examples that would relate to their lives. Also, just a question: What do you think motivated Bill Gates to donate these large sums of money?

    Reply
  2. Ben, there are some thought-provoking questions presented to your audience here. I think that you could expand throughout your speech on additional lessons that we learn from Bill Gates’ experiences and lessons. Lastly, re-read this speech writing out loud, adding words and punctuation where necessary. There are a few sentences here that need re-structuring for sense 🙂

    Reply

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