Bill Gates’ IQ: Early Life, Education & Career Analysis

It is not so common in history for geniuses who share Bill Gates’ IQ to build a fortune and profit commercially from being so intelligent. Instead of becoming a misunderstood visionary, he turned out to be exceptionally practical and made himself one of the most successful businessmen worldwide.
Moreover, according to Forbes, he is one of the wealthiest people in the world. So, what’s the story behind this fascinating person? How high is his IQ actually, and how has he used it so far? These are only a few of the many questions we’ll tackle in this article.

What Is Bill Gates’ IQ?

While there’s no official record of Bill Gates ever taking an IQ test, his school achievements were always exceptional, and he was famous for being an incredibly fast learner. There are anecdotes about him hacking the school computers, manipulating class schedules, and a lot of stories about his eidetic memory.

So, there’s no doubt he is not an average person, but the exact number of his IQ score is not known to the public. He is, however, estimated to have a high IQ of over 160, meaning his score falls in the same range as those of Stephen Hawking, Nikola Tesla, Steve Jobs, and other geniuses.

Many people like to compare him to Elon Musk, probably because of their somewhat similar business stories. And when we look at Elon Musk vs. Bill Gates's IQ, the numbers are pretty similar, too, at least judging by the data available on the internet.

No matter what Bill Gates’ IQ score was, his vision, passion, and determination would surely lead him to success. Plus, he was even lucky enough to receive an excellent education. So, he played well with the cards he’s been dealt, never backing away from working hard, and there's more than his IQ that contributed to his paramount success.

Bill Gates Early Life & Education

Bill Gates Early Life & Education

Credit: CNBC

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was the middle child in a stable and financially affluent family to his father, William Gates, an attorney, and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates, a schoolteacher.

At school, Bill Gates was tiny for his age, which made him the subject of mocking and peer bullying. Such treatment only fueled his desire to pursue science further, and he excelled in math, electronics, and computer science from a young age.

He passed his SAT exam with a score of 1590 out of 1600 and continued to excel during his studies. Education played an essential role in his life, and he often emphasized the importance of it.

He earned four honorary doctorate degrees from Nyenrode Business University, the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, Waseda University in Japan, and Harvard University in the USA. It is interesting that at first, he pursued a pre-law program at Harvard but dropped it because his passion for computer science prevailed.

During his studies at Harvard, he met Paul Allen, also a gifted student, with whom he started a company now well-known under the name of Microsoft.

Bill Gates & Founding of Microsoft

Bill Gates IQ & Founding of Microsoft

Bill Gates’ success story started like a business hero movie—in a small garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his college best friend, Paul Allen.

The two of them were so confident in their vision that they dropped out of their studies to fully dedicate themselves to writing software for the MITS Altair 8800, which turned out to be one of the first commercially successful personal computers. From this point on, Microsoft has already established itself as a promising company, and its success story has started to unfold.

Not long after, in 1980, IBM offered a project to Microsoft to develop an operating system for their new product, the IBM PC. Bill Gates was wise enough to see the business potential of such a proposal and used this opportunity to expand Microsoft's influence and ensure the company’s leading position in the PC industry.

As the popularity of personal computers increased, Microsoft's endeavors became rather successful in the years that followed. The next pivotal point for Bill Gates and his company was the introduction of Windows 3.0 in 1990, followed by the even greater commercial success of Windows 95 in 1995.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Microsoft’s product portfolio expanded, and the company had already established absolute dominance in the industry. After making many excellent strategic decisions and leading his company to such huge success, Bill Gates decides to step down as the company’s CEO and dedicate himself to philanthropic work.

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Bill Gates’ Beliefs and Public Work

From a boy picked out at school for being tiny, Bill Gates grew into a gifted student, young company owner, business magnate, and one of the most powerful people in the world. Moreover, he continues to amaze everyone with his drive, vision, and initiatives.

After achieving paramount success, he delved into charity work. Moved by social issues, he was motivated to exert a positive influence on global health, education, and the overall state of humanity.

Education remained one of his biggest passions. So, Bill started the Bill & Melinda Foundation with his then-wife in 2000, focusing on addressing the problems of lack of access to education, poverty alleviation, and global health.

This Foundation took numerous initiatives and committed significant resources to combat the major health issues in the entire world, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, the recent COVID crisis, and numerous vaccination campaigns.

He also partnered with various pharmaceutical companies to support the development of the COVID vaccine and played a significant role in alleviating the pandemic health crisis.

Controversies Around Bill Gates and His Success

Controversies Around Bill Gates IQ and His Success

Like many geniuses, Bill has been the subject of numerous allegations. While it is not our place to offer conclusions about whether such allegations are true or false, we’ll share some of the most significant ones with you and leave it to decide if these could be true.

Being the most dominant company in the market, Microsoft has faced allegations of engaging in anticompetitive practices to maintain a monopoly in the PC industry. The first lawsuit came from the USA Department of Justice and several states.

Various conspiracy theories have always circulated around Bill Gates. The most recent was created relatively recently and is related to vaccination.

Allegedly, Bill Gates is believed to have caused the COVID crisis on purpose by releasing the virus to profit from the vaccines. Despite being debunked by credible health experts, these and similar conspiracy theories about his initiatives continued to follow him.

His philanthropic work is under constant scrutiny by the public as well, as many are suspicious of his real intentions and influence on policies regarding global health.

Key Takeaways

Bill Gates’ life continues to be an inspiration for people of all ages and capabilities. He advocates education and encourages hard work, perseverance, and other personal qualities, claiming they are just as important for success as IQ.

His views of the world and advice for success can also be found in the books he wrote, leaving a legacy to humanity that is more than the wealth he made. And, talking about his wealth, he mentioned on various occasions that his children will not inherit all of it but that a large part will be prescribed to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

While we may argue about the real Bill Gates’ IQ score, his legacy and influence are undeniably yet to be seen by future generations.