$ cat ./records/a-teenage-gates-helps-run-the-northwest-power-grid-in-a-job-for-t-1974.txt
A Teenage Gates Helps Run the Northwest Power Grid in a Job for TRW
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Before founding Microsoft, a teenage Bill Gates gained crucial hands-on experience on real-world software. Around 1974, Gates (then on leave from Lakeside School) and Paul Allen were hired by TRW to help debug the computer system managing the Bonneville Power Administration's electrical grid in the Pacific Northwest, earning roughly $165 a week and rooming together in Vancouver, Washington. The intense, high-stakes work sharpened the programming partnership the two would soon turn into Microsoft.
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Co-founded Microsoft with Paul Allen
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Related Accomplishments
1990s
Gates keeps a collection of rare and classic cars
Despite his reputation for frugality in some areas, Bill Gates has long indulged a passion for cars, assembling a collection that has included several Porsches — among them the 911 he has owned for decades and the storied 959 — as well as other classics. His automotive tastes, and the saga of importing the then-illegal 959, are among the more colorful footnotes of his personal life.
1990s
Gates retreats for solitary, twice-yearly 'Think Weeks'
For years Bill Gates retreated twice a year to a secluded cabin for a solitary 'Think Week,' during which he read stacks of papers, books, and employee proposals with no interruptions, emerging with strategic memos that shaped Microsoft's direction. The ritual became famous as a model of deep, focused thinking by a busy executive, and was credited with helping spark major pivots — including Microsoft's embrace of the internet. Gates carried the habit of voracious, deliberate reading into his philanthropy.
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