( The fortunate and unfortunate events that shaped the lives of Kent Evans, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen. It highlights the one in a million chance of luck and bad luck they experienced.)
One in a Million chance of Opportunity
Out of one million and some odd number of High schools listed in 1967 all over the world, Lakeside Private School was probably the only one that boasted of a computer.
It happened accidentally. That year, the school had appointed a retired military officer as the science and math teacher. He persuaded the School’s Mother’s Club to provide a computer to the school. Computer was a new thing and only big multinational companies like IBM and GE were using them. The Mother’s club had just completed a fund raising campaign successfully and were flush with funds. Thus the Lakeside Private School of Seattle became one of the earliest schools in the world to provide computer to its 300 students.
In a way, that was just a one in a million bit of good luck that the 300 students of the Lakeside private school got the opportunity to see a computer. But only 3 out of the 300 students could take advantage of this one in a million opportunity. They were in order of their merits:
- Kent Evans
- Bill gates
- Paul allen.
Kent and Bill were the most enthusiastic of the lot. They even used the computer to prepare a scheduler for the teaching program of the school for that year. This was the first programming done by Bill gates.
One in a Million chance of Bad luck
In 1972, Kent went on a mountaineering trip and never returned from the trip. It was again a one in a million chance that a boy in his teens will die in a school mountaineering camp. Ridiculous. But it happened. Kent the senior partner died in 1972.
Kent and Bill had made a lot of future plans around this computer. Kent even had dreamt that their computer company would be enlisted in the Fortune 500 list. This was the time when 90% of the world had not heard of the word computer even.
That was just one in a million bit of bad luck. Isn’t it.
Who says fortune favours the brave ?
That left Bill Gates and Paul Allen to form a team to bring their dream into a reality. Paul dropped out of Washington State University and Bill left Harvard University to start a joint venture to deal in Microcomputers ( as against most of the companies that had huge frames then) and write Softwares for them.
On April 4, 1975 they formed their tiny company incorporating both the initials *Micro-Soft*.
Fate turned its magic wand once again.
In 1982, at the age of 29 years, Paul was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. He resigned from Microsoft in 1983.
It is a one in a million chance of bad luck that a young man of 29 will contract a cancer of lymphoma for no fault of his.
But then fortune and misfortunes seldom depend on our efforts and practices.
That left Bill Gates alone to run the megalith computer giant: *Microsoft*.
Bill Gates went on to become the richest man of the planet from 1995 through 2017 (except in 2008 and from 2010 through 2013). He was overtaken by Jeff Bezos in 2018 only after he donated $55 billion to the Gates Foundation.
This story reminds me of a great Shloka in our Bhagavad Gita
Chapter 11, Verse 33
“तस्मात्त्वमुत्तिष्ठ यशो लभस्व
GITA 11:33
जित्वा शत्रून्भुङ्क्ष्व राज्यं समृद्धम् |
मयैवैते निहता: पूर्वमेव
निमित्तमात्रं भव सव्यसाचिन्”
“Tasmāt tvam uttiṣhṭha yaśho labhasva
Jitvā śhatrūn bhuṅkṣhva rājyaṁ samṛiddham ।
Mayaivaite nihatāḥ pūrvam eva
Nimitta-mātraṁ bhava savya-sāchin ।”
O Great Arjun ! O Savyasachin !!
It’s already ordained that you will win this war. You will earn the fame of the greatest warrior on the earth and will rule over the Bharat.
You can’t avoid the win, name and fame even if you try Because that’s already decided by ME.
ରମାକାନ୍ତ ମହାପାତ୍ର
Dr Ramakanta's Ideas 