What secret is known billionaires: the true stories of people who changed the world

Bill gates, Elon Musk, mark Zuckerberg... Sure that you heard those names and realize how much these people did for the modern world.

Their biography, and the history of other famous billionaires, is often cited as a clear evidence that people can succeed from scratch. But are all these stories true?

About the secrets, riddles and rumors related to the richest people in the world, read our material.

Bill Gates

Let's start with a study of the biographies of bill gates, because he is sort of the benchmark sample the stereotypical nerd loser who achieved success through his intelligence. It is believed that this man made a real breakthrough in the world of computer technology, and it is to him that we should be grateful for the fact that now I have the opportunity to use PC.

In most articles about bill gates to find the phrase that "future genius and billionaire came from a simple family lawyer." But whether it was "simple", really?

It turns out that one of his ancestors was a major parliamentarian, and later the mayor of my hometown of Seattle. Grandfather of bill gates on the maternal side were Vice-President of the National Bank of the United States.

As for father bill William Henry gates II, he was a known corporate lawyer and mother Mary Maxwell gates is a successful businesswoman. In addition, she became the first woman included in United Way Worldwide, the world's largest charitable organisation, represented in 41 States. Not so all simply...

Bill gates in his youth. In 1977 he was arrested for speeding

By the way, the real name of bill gates — William Henry gates III (William Henry Gates III). Sounds, is not it? Long before his birth, the family of gates was highly respected not only in Seattle but throughout Washington state. And most of his family had a major connection in the field of business, politics and public life.

Let us return briefly to the mother of bill gates and try to capture the "invisible" link between her membership in the United Way and the breakneck breakthrough of the son in the early 80s. it Turns out that along with Mary Maxwell in one structure worked John Opel and John Akers, who held senior positions at IBM.

And, as we know, the deal with IBM, Microsoft became a starting point to a resounding success. In the 80-ies, not without the help of mom, of course, an unknown company has received an offer from the IT giant IBM to develop the operating system. Then bill gates bought from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) the right to almost the finished product — the operating system 86-DOS (QDOS) created by Tim Paterson, adapted it to the PC and got the famous MS-DOS.

A license to use MS-DOS, he sold IBM, asking to retain copyright of Microsoft. Surprisingly, the company agreed and even signed an unusual for that time, the patent law Treaty on the digital product. So, Microsoft has continued to remain the owner of the system and received from IBM substantial deductions from each sold together with the computer a copy of the OS.

Soon saw the light of the new operating system Windows NT (later 2000/XP/Vista/Win7), and together with her company gates went to the stock exchange that almost instantly made him the owner of a multimillion-dollar state. So "computer genius from an ordinary family a self-made man". Deserves its success story of respect or not — to solve only to you.

Mark Zuckerberg

Following in our rich list is mark Zuckerberg. He has the title of youngest billionaire in the world, but it goes to the usual "Golf" and dressed in ordinary clothes of the shops. Many call him a kind of symbol of the new century and, again, set an example to the young generation, they say, look what has managed to make the guy from simple family.

After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, mark Zuckerberg went to Harvard. Obviously, to pay for the education his father had to put 30 seals per day. There the young man studied at the faculty of psychology and concurrently attended courses in it. In their interests he pointed out "C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, VBscript, JavaScript, PHP and ASP" and repeatedly called himself a "hacker by vocation."

At Harvard (by the way, bill gates is also there), he became a member of the Jewish society of alpha Epsilon PI (ΑΕΠ) and together with his friends Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitam created a social network Facebook. The first time financial assistance was provided by classmate Eduardo Saverin, who comes from a wealthy family from Brazil.

Later his contribution to the development of the project and that as many as half a million dollars, made successful businessman Peter Thiel, owner of Palantir Technologies. Who knows, this private American company engaged in the development of software for data tracking, encryption and decryption, reconnaissance and the like. Until 2008, the only client of the company was the CIA. In 2010 started selling products on a global level.

One of the biggest projects Palantir Technologies are:

In General, you understand that this is a very cool guys. Now let's think, why do such cool guys need to invest in research for unknown students?

Do not you worry, like, write comments, yours because "nobody watches"...

Elon Musk

In most cases, in the biography of Elon musk you can read the following: born in South Africa, in a poor family of an engineer and a nutritionist. "The guy from a poor African family is famous in the whole world and became a billionaire! Wow!" — you might think. But if you dig deeper, it turns out that the parents of the Mask was not so poor. His father was involved in the implementation of many large projects and run a business. The mother is a dietician also was a model and even won the contest "Miss South Africa-1969".

By the way, grandma and grandpa Mask had become famous, but in its own way: at one time they were the first people who managed to fly a single-engine aircraft from South Africa to Australia.

All childhood Elon Musk held in prestigious private schools, and upon graduation, moved to live in Canada. Rumor has it that there is a young man, "work, anywhere", and literally was on the verge of poverty. But — that's a miracle! — after a year of "poor Mask" is one of the most prestigious universities in the country — the Queen's University at Kingston (Queen's University).

Two years later, Elon receives a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania and moved to the United States. Followed by practice in reputable companies in Silicon valley, meeting influential people, the Foundation of brother's own company Zip2 and cooperation with... Peter Thiel. Thus, which tracks terrorists and gave Zuckerberg a half-million on Facebook.

Going back to Mark Zuckerberg, we can add that in 2010, he publicly joined the "giving pledge". It is a philanthropic campaign started in June 2010 bill gates (him again), his wife and Warren Buffett. She encourages the richest people in the world donate money for a good cause. To date, this oath was signed by more than 187 billionaires from 22 countries.

Among them Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, Barron Hilton, Richard Branson and others. I can only imagine what the amount of spinning in this "common Fund".

Who, how and in whose interests will manage this structure in the future, remains a mystery. By the way, is not the first year this organization is suspected of lack of transparency and the inadequacy of the actions stated charitable mission. However, this is just speculation, but I hope that one day the world will know the whole truth about the people who decide his fate.