Bill Gates Has Just Given Out Lots Of Inspiring Advice For New College Graduates

OfficeChai Team

Bill Gates never finished college – he had dropped out of Harvard in his second year to start a company. The company was called Microsoft, and it made him the richest man in the world. Gates today is 61, and worth nearly 90 billion dollars (Rs. 5,50,000 crore). Even though he himself dropped out, college graduates routinely approach him for advice on how to plan their careers. Gates has now made his advice accessible to everyone through a series of 15 tweets. He talks about how he feels the future will pan out, what makes him happy, and what makes him happy.

Gates had enrolled into Harvard in a pre-law major, but had taken lots of math and computer science courses. This was in 1973, and things have changed since then. Gates says that if he were joining college today, he’d study Artificial Intelligence, energy or biosciences. 

Gates also dispelled a common myth young college students can have — it’s not all about being intelligent. “It’s not as important as I used to think,” he says. And he says that intelligence can take lots of forms, and is not one dimensional.

Gates has managed to do pretty well for himself, but even the richest man in the world has regrets. Gates thinks that didn’t know enough about the world’s inequities when he’d started out. He appears to be making up for lost time ever since — the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has been carrying out charitable projects across the world, including fighting malaria in Africa, and polio in south Asia. In India, it’s collaborating with the Indian government towards building toilets for all.

Like several other successful people, Gates wants to surround himself with people who challenge him and push him to be his best self. And he measures his happiness by whether people close to him are happy, and the difference he makes for others.

He also has a book recommendation. Gates is an avid reader, but he says the most useful book he’s ever read is The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker. Pinker is a cognitive scientist and linguist, and he argues how the world is essentially becoming a better place — even though it appears that the world witnesses a lot of violence and hardships, we’re actually living through the most peaceful time in human history. 

And Gates ends on a positive note. “This is an amazing time to be alive,” he says. “I hope you make the most of it.”