Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has revealed he would advise his younger self that “smartness” is not necessarily the most important thing in life.
The billionaire, who dropped out of university to develop the Windows software which revolutionised the IT world, said that intelligence was not as “single dimensional” as he once believed.
“I would explain that smartness is not as single dimensional and not quite as important as I thought it was back then,” he said in reply to a question about advice to his 19-year-old self.
“I would say you might explore the developing world before you get into your forties. I wasn’t very good socially back then, but I am not sure there is advice that would fix that - maybe I had to be awkward and just grow up.”
He enrolled to study law at an Ivy League college, although he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do in life and spent most of his time at university on computers before dropping out in 1975.
Asked what his measure of success is, Gates – who is worth more than £60 billion (R970bn) – referred to another wealthy businessman.
“Warren Buffet has always said the measure is whether people close to you are happy or love you. It’s also nice to feel like you made a difference – inventing something or raising kids or helping people in need.”
Asked what he considers to be his greatest achievement, he cited Windows - but hopes his humanitarian work through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will eventually become as important as his software.
“Although the foundation work is super promising and will be the biggest thing over the decades ahead, I still think the chance to be part of the software revolution, empowering people, was the biggest thing I have gotten to do.
“Right now I am very focused on making sure we successfully eradicate polio – that will be amazing if we do it, as good as shipping even the best software product.”
Discussing the role IT plays in society, the entrepreneur anticipated the day when computers can “read and understand information like humans do”.
“There is a lot of work going on in this field – Google, Microsoft, Facebook, academia Right now computers don’t know how to represent knowledge so they can’t read a text book or pass a test.”