There was a certain gravitas to his statements."īILL'S DAD is the co-chair and CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which, with an endowment of $24 billion, is the largest philanthropy in world history. He conveyed, somehow, without being too explicit, his high expectations of us. He had this quality of energetic leadership. I was a kid willing to cause trouble and break any rules, but if Dad was intent on something, you just didn't think twice about crossing him. "It was one thing to have Mom upset, but when Dad's upset, you just don't mess around. "My dad's a very thoughtful person, and things that should be dealt with seriously, he deals with seriously and you listen," says Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who grew up in Seattle's View Ridge neighborhood, the middle of three children. Even in casual conversation, if you could call it that, he doesn't so much chat as elocute. His speech is as precise as his starched button-down shirts. ("I have many dimensions," he says, "all of them excessive.") The retired attorney is witty without being jocular. He stands 6 feet 6 inches in size 14 tasseled loafers and a gray suit, size 48. The elder Gates has few pretensions, but that doesn't mean he isn't imposing. He gets impatient when voices aren't loud enough for his 77-year-old ears to hear. He listens with an open mind whether ideas come from a local teen mom or President Jimmy Carter. He delves, with delight, into the semantics of Chapter 4b in a draft of the Washington State Tax Structure Study Committee. He eats bacon with his fingers off a plastic tray at Burgermaster. For a guy who towers a head taller than everyone else, has an intellect that digests information more voraciously than a recycling truck, and also happens to be the father of the world's richest man, William H.
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