14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft co-founder and one of the richest men in the world, Bill Gates said in a recent interview that returning to the Redmond-based technology giant in a full-time role was impossible, as he prefered to focus on his charity work.
Gates told Neil Tweedie of The Telegraph that he would keep his part-time job at Microsoft, but his main focus would remain the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“My full-time work for the rest of my life will be at the foundation. I still work part-time for Microsoft. I’ve had two careers and I’m lucky that both of them have been quite amazing,” Gates said in the interview.
“I loved my Microsoft: it prepared me for what I’m doing now. In the same way that I got to see the PC and internet revolutions, now I see child death rates coming down. I work very long hours and try to learn as much as I can about these things, but that’s because I enjoy it.”
Bill Gates, who struggles to eradicate polio, says his foundation will invest no less than $1.8 billion (€1.35 billion) in the next six years to support these efforts.
If you were wondering, Gates is not the only one who’s injecting money into this foundation, as billionaire Warren Buffett has already invested no less than $17.5 billion (€13.1 billion).
And even though he’s currently holding just a part-time role at Microsoft, Bill Gates is the second richest man in the entire world, with a net worth of $61 billion (€45 billion), according to Forbes’ very own top.
In addition, the same publication places Gates on the fourth position in “The World’s Most Powerful People” ranking, after Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin, but ahead of British Prime Minister David Cameron, Pope Benedict XVI, French President Francois Hollande and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.