Bill Gates Finally Gets to Say He Graduated From Harvard–Booyah!
Well, it’s about time Microsoft’s Bill Gates amounted to something. Just being one of the most powerful figures in technology (and, oh yes, the world’s richest man) is all well and good, but you’re nothing without that Harvard diploma hanging from the wall of your gigantic and luxurious Seattle compound.
Check that task off for Gates, who got his honorary degree yesterday after dropping out of Harvard in 1975 to found what would become the software giant. He also delivered the commencement address to 15,000 graduates in Harvard Yard (you can access the text here) and gave The Wall Street Journal’s Rob Guth an interview about that and a lot of big issues.
Guth did a piece and also a video interview right below. Both are yet another example of the famously aggressive tech mogul’s more reflective bent, as he moves from running Microsoft to guiding his ambitious philanthropic efforts.
That softer side of Gates was also much in evidence in his recent joint interview with Apple’s Steve Jobs that we did last week at D5. We have a post on the interview and the video of the encounter is up in many parts on this site.
It is also available in its entirety for download for free on Apple’s iTunes, where it remains the No. 1 video and audio podcast. The link to the joint interview on iTunes is here and it will connect you to the Gates/Jobs interview page on iTunes, but only if you have downloaded the iTunes software.
Also below, courtesy of Harvard, we have embedded the whole speech (in five parts, including Gates shown in one of those goofy graduation outfits) by Gates, whose family can finally relax now that he is a college grad and has the paper to prove it.