Bill Gates was making lots of news as we began the new millennium, but here’s a story about Gates you may not have heard. Gates and Paul Allen were students and friends at Harvard when the world’s very first personal computer came out. It was called the Altair. However, even though the Altair was a breakthrough in computing, it did not have a programming language of its own.
G a t e s a n d Allen had a lot of confidence in their programming skills, so they called the manufacturer and said they’d written a programming language that would run on the Altair. They offered to come to the company’s h e a d q u a r t e r s i n Albuquerque during semester break and demonstrate it.
However, only after the commitment was made and the appointment set did Gates and Allen actually begin to write the program that they claimed to have created. Allen, acknowledged to be the better programmer of the two, took their program to Albuquerque. Its very first test would be the big test demonstration for the Altair Company. The programming passed with flying colors. Both Bill Gates and Paul Allen were off on careers t h a t w o u l d change the course of history. And, in the process, make both of them enormously wealthy.Frequently, success is a matter of how much faith you have in your own abilities, because faith in your abilities determines how much risk you’re willing to take to be successful.
SECOND THOUGHTS by Mort Crim
National radio broadcaster and author of seven books, including Second Thoughts, shares his essays, which are like the voice of an old friend - kind, encouraging and filled with gentle wisdom. To learn more about Mort Crim and hear a daily “Second Thought,” visit www.mortcrimsecondthoughts.com