Bill Gates vs Warren Buffett

1. Two lives, two kinds of success

William Henry Gates III was born on 28 October 1955 in Seattle, Washington, the son of a lawyer and a teacher. He was a precocious programmer who, with his school friend Paul Allen, founded Microsoft in 1975, at the age of 19, on the belief that there would one day be a computer on every desk and in every home. Microsoft's operating system, Windows, became the standard for personal computers, and Gates became, in the public mind, the face of the personal-computer revolution. He was, for much of his career, a controversial figure: Microsoft was accused of monopolistic practices, and the United States government brought an antitrust case against it in the late 1990s. Gates left day-to-day management of Microsoft in 2008 to devote himself to philanthropy, and he has since become, in the public mind, a different figure: the co-chair of a foundation that works on the health and the lives of the world's poorest people.

Warren Edward Buffett was born on 30 August 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a stockbroker who later became a congressman. He was a precocious investor who bought his first shares at the age of 11 and who, as a student, studied under Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, at Columbia University. In 1965 he took control of Berkshire Hathaway, then a struggling textile company, and over the next six decades he built it into a holding company with businesses in insurance, energy, railroads, manufacturing and consumer goods, and with large holdings in other companies. He became known as the Oracle of Omaha, for his record as an investor and for his annual letters to shareholders, which are read around the world as a guide to investing and to business. He lived, famously, in the same house in Omaha that he bought in 1958, and he cultivated an image of frugality and of common sense that became part of his legend.

The two men met in 1991, at a gathering in Washington state, and became friends, playing bridge, talking about business and, increasingly, about philanthropy. Their friendship is one of the most documented in American business, and it is the basis of their partnership in giving: Buffett's annual gifts to the Gates Foundation, which began in 2006, were the largest single contribution to the foundation's work, and the Giving Pledge, which they created together in 2010, was a joint project. The friendship matters because it shows that two very different philosophies of giving can coexist, and can even reinforce each other, when they are held by people who respect each other.

2. Gates: the operating foundation

Gates's philosophy of giving is, above all, a philosophy of action. The Gates Foundation, which he created with his then wife Melinda French Gates in 2000, is an operating foundation: it does not only make grants, it designs programmes, it measures results, and it works, day by day, on the problems it has chosen. Its focus is global health — vaccines, malaria, polio, tuberculosis, HIV — and, in the United States, education. Its approach is data-driven and technological: it asks what interventions save the most lives for the resources available, it invests in research and in delivery, and it measures its work against clear targets. Gates himself is deeply involved in the foundation's work, reading papers, visiting projects and writing about what he has learned, and his annual letters, in the early years, were a public record of that learning.

The foundation's philosophy reflects Gates's background in technology. He believes in scale, in systems and in the power of innovation to solve problems that have resisted other approaches. He has argued, for example, that vaccines are one of the most effective investments in human health, that the eradication of polio is achievable, and that agricultural innovation can transform the lives of small farmers in Africa and South Asia. His approach is impatient: he wants results in his lifetime, and he wants the foundation's work to be measured, not merely intended. His critics argue that the foundation's scale gives it too much influence over global health, that its focus on technology undervalues other approaches, and that its decisions are made by a small group of people without democratic accountability. Those criticisms are serious, and they are debated by public-health experts; the foundation's defenders argue that its results — in vaccination, in the reduction of childhood deaths, in the fight against polio — speak for themselves.

In 2025 Gates announced a decision that captures his philosophy: the foundation would spend its resources over the next twenty years and close at the end of 2045, rather than continuing indefinitely. The decision reflects his belief that the foundation should solve problems in his lifetime, that it should not become a permanent institution, and that the resources it holds should be used, not preserved. It is a striking contrast with the traditional model of philanthropy, in which a foundation is created to last forever, and it is a measure of how seriously Gates takes the idea that giving should be active, urgent and finite. The announcement was widely discussed, and it has become a central part of the debate about how philanthropy should work.

3. Buffett: the pledge and the patient giver

Buffett's philosophy of giving is, above all, a philosophy of patience and of trust. He has said, in his letters and in interviews, that he believes in compounding — in the idea that resources grow over time, and that the best time to give is when the resources are largest — and that he believes in giving through institutions that he trusts, rather than in running a foundation himself. His approach has two parts: annual gifts, made during his lifetime, to the Gates Foundation and to four family foundations, and a will that directs the bulk of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to be given away after his death. He has described his Berkshire shares as, in effect, claim checks on the future output of American business, and he has said that he wants those claim checks to be used for the benefit of others, not for his family. His children have said that they support the plan, and that they were raised to expect to make their own way.

Buffett's philosophy also reflects his background in investing. He believes in finding good people and good institutions and then leaving them alone: he has said that his job, as a giver, is to choose the right recipients and then to trust them to do the work. His annual gifts to the Gates Foundation were made on that principle: he trusted Gates and Melinda French Gates to use the resources well, and he did not seek to control how they were used. His approach is, in that sense, the opposite of Gates's: where Gates is hands-on, Buffett is hands-off; where Gates measures and manages, Buffett delegates and trusts. His critics argue that his approach is too passive, that it leaves too much to others, and that his public commitment to give has been slower in its execution than Gates's active foundation. His defenders argue that his approach is honest about what a giver can and cannot do, and that his example — a public, written commitment to give away the overwhelming majority of what he owns — has influenced more people than any single foundation could.

Buffett's letters to shareholders are the best record of his philosophy, and they are worth reading as a literature of giving as well as of investing. In them he has written about his luck — about being born in America, in the twentieth century, with the talents he has — and about his belief that those who have been lucky have an obligation to give back. He has written about his frugality, about his house, his car and his habits, not as a pose but as a statement: that a life of giving does not require a life of display, and that the resources that are not spent on oneself can be spent on others. His philosophy is, in the end, a philosophy of modesty: of not claiming to know more than he does, of not pretending to be able to solve problems he does not understand, and of trusting others to do the work that he cannot.

4. The Giving Pledge: a joint creation

The Giving Pledge, created in 2010 by Gates, Melinda French Gates and Buffett, is the most visible product of their friendship and the clearest expression of their shared philosophy. It is a commitment, not a contract: signatories promise to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy, during their lifetimes or in their wills, and they write a public letter explaining why they are giving and what they hope to achieve. More than two hundred people have signed it, from many countries and many industries, and the letters, which are published on the Pledge's website, are a remarkable record of how wealthy people think about giving. The Pledge has no enforcement mechanism: it relies on public commitment, on peer influence and on the moral force of the promise itself.

The Pledge reflects both men's philosophies and neither man's alone. From Gates comes the idea of active, public giving, of using one's name and one's example to encourage others; from Buffett comes the idea of a simple, clear commitment, of a pledge that is easy to understand and to make. The Pledge has been criticised: some have argued that it is a public-relations exercise, that the signatories have not given enough, or that the Pledge does not address the structures that create inequality. Those criticisms are serious, and they are debated by scholars of philanthropy. The Pledge's defenders argue that it has changed the conversation about giving, that it has made public commitment normal among the wealthy, and that it has encouraged a generation of givers to think about philanthropy as an obligation rather than as an option. The truth is probably that the Pledge is both: a genuine moral commitment and an incomplete answer to a larger question.

The Pledge also illustrates the difference between the two men's approaches. Gates has used the Pledge as a platform for active advocacy, travelling, speaking and writing about giving; Buffett has used it as a statement of principle, a public record of a decision he had already made. Both approaches are visible in the Pledge's history, and both have been necessary to its success. The Pledge is, in that sense, a partnership: a project that neither man could have created alone, and that reflects the strengths of both.

5. Business: the platform and the portfolio

Gates's business philosophy and Buffett's business philosophy are as different as their philosophies of giving, and the difference helps to explain the difference in their giving. Gates built Microsoft as a platform: a company that created a standard — the Windows operating system — and that grew by making that standard indispensable to others. His approach was technological and aggressive: he believed in scale, in network effects, and in the power of software to transform industries. He was, in his business career, a competitor who played to win, and Microsoft's dominance in personal computing was the result of that competitiveness. His critics in business argued that Microsoft's dominance was monopolistic, and the antitrust case against the company was the most serious challenge of his career. His defenders argued that Microsoft's success was the result of better products and better execution, and that the personal-computer revolution would not have happened as it did without it.

Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway as a portfolio: a holding company that owns whole businesses — insurance, energy, railroads, manufacturing, consumer goods — and that holds shares in other companies, and that grows by acquiring good businesses at fair prices and then leaving them alone. His approach was patient and decentralised: he believed in finding good managers, in giving them autonomy, and in holding businesses for the long term. He was, in his business career, a buyer who waited for the right price, and Berkshire's growth was the result of that patience. His annual letters, in which he explained his decisions and his mistakes, became a guide to investing that is read around the world, and his shareholder meetings, in Omaha, became an annual event that drew tens of thousands of people. His critics in business argued that Berkshire's success was the result of a favourable era and of a single man's judgement, and that it could not be replicated. His defenders argued that his record, over six decades, speaks for itself.

The two business philosophies are, in a sense, opposites: Gates built a company that changed the world by creating a new technology, Buffett built a company that grew by buying old ones and running them well. Gates's business was about invention, Buffett's about allocation. Gates's business was centralised, Buffett's decentralised. And yet both businesses succeeded, and both men, in their different ways, became symbols of American business. The comparison between them is a reminder that there is no single way to build a successful company, and that different temperaments can produce different kinds of success.

6. Succession and the future

The question of succession has been central to both men's stories, and it was resolved, for Buffett, in 2025 and 2026. In May 2025 Buffett announced that he would step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of that year, after sixty years in the role, and that Greg Abel, who had long led Berkshire's non-insurance businesses, would succeed him. Abel became chief executive on 1 January 2026, and Buffett remained chairman. The transition had been planned for years: Abel had been named as Buffett's successor in 2021, and the company's investment duties were divided between two portfolio managers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who had worked alongside Buffett for more than a decade. The transition was, by all accounts, orderly, and it was presented as a continuation rather than a break: Berkshire's culture, its decentralised structure and its long-term approach were to remain. Buffett's decision to step down was widely discussed, and it was seen as the end of an era in American business — the end of the era in which a single man, through his judgement and his letters, defined a company.

Gates's succession, in contrast, is a matter of the foundation rather than of a company. He left day-to-day management of Microsoft in 2008, and his work since then has been the foundation. The foundation's future, after his announcement that it would close in 2045, is now a matter of planning: of spending its resources, of completing its programmes, and of ensuring that the work it has started — in vaccines, in polio, in malaria — is carried on by others. The foundation's leadership has changed over the years, and Melinda French Gates left the foundation in 2024, after the couple's divorce, to pursue her own philanthropy. The foundation's work continues, and its plan to close is a deliberate choice, not a failure: it is a decision to use resources while they can do the most good, rather than to preserve an institution for its own sake.

The two successions illustrate the two philosophies. Buffett's succession is a handover to a trusted successor, a continuation of a culture; Gates's is a planned ending, a decision to finish the work and to close the doors. Both are serious answers to the question of what happens after a founder leaves, and both reflect the temperaments of the men who made them.

7. Two philosophies, one lesson

The comparison between Gates and Buffett is, in the end, a comparison between two ways of thinking about giving, and the lesson is that both ways are necessary. Gates's way — active, institutional, data-driven, impatient — is the way of the builder, who believes that problems can be solved and that the solver should be involved in the solving. Buffett's way — patient, trusting, pledged, largely posthumous — is the way of the allocator, who believes that resources should be given to those who can use them best and that the giver's job is to choose well and then to step back. Neither way is sufficient alone: the world needs operating foundations that do the work, and it needs pledges and gifts that fund them; it needs builders and it needs allocators; it needs people who run institutions and people who trust them.

What the two men share is more important than what divides them. Both believe that those who have been fortunate have an obligation to give back. Both believe that giving should be public, not private, so that others are encouraged to give. Both believe that giving should be serious, not casual, and that it should be directed at problems that matter. And both have, through their friendship and their partnership, shown that giving is not only a matter of resources but of example: that the most important thing a giver can do is to show others that giving is possible, and that it is worth doing. The Giving Pledge, which they created together, is the clearest expression of that belief, and it will, in all likelihood, outlast both of them. The biography pages for both men on this site give the verified facts of their lives; their letters, their foundation's work and the Pledge's public letters are the best places to follow their philosophies as they continue to develop.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Bill Gates
• Forbes — Warren Buffett
• The Giving Pledge — About the Pledge
• Gates Foundation — About Us

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• Who Is Wasim Akram? — Wasim Akram is Pakistan's greatest fast bowler, the first to 500 ODI wickets and hero of the 1992 World Cup final, famed as the master of swing.
• Who Is Xi Jinping? — Xi Jinping has led China since 2012 as general secretary of the Communist Party and since 2013 as president, shaping its policies and vision.
• Who Is Zinedine Zidane? — Zinedine Zidane won the World Cup as a player and three Champions Leagues as a manager, and in July 2026 was appointed head coach of France.
• Who Was A. P. J. Abdul Kalam? — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam rose from a poor boyhood in Rameswaram to lead India's space and missile programmes, then served as the country's 11th president.
• Who Was Abdul Sattar Edhi? — Abdul Sattar Edhi built Pakistan's largest welfare network from a single free dispensary. This explains his life, his foundation and his legacy.
• Who Was Abdus Salam? — Abdus Salam won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for unifying two forces of nature. This explains his science, his institutions and his contested legacy.
• Who Was Abraham Lincoln? — Abraham Lincoln preserved the Union through the Civil War and ended slavery. This explains his rise, his presidency and his contested legacy.
• Who Was Ada Lovelace? — Ada Lovelace published the first program for a programmable machine in 1843. This explains her notes, her vision of computing and the debate over her role.
• Who Was Adolf Hitler? — Adolf Hitler led the Nazi Party and ruled Germany as dictator from 1933 to 1945, started the Second World War in Europe and was central to the Holocaust.
• Who Was Alan Turing? — Alan Turing defined modern computing, broke German naval Enigma and proposed the Turing test. This explains his science, his war work and his tragic end.
• Who Was Albert Einstein? — Albert Einstein rewrote physics with relativity and won the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect. This explains his ideas, his life and his legacy.
• Who Was Alexander Graham Bell? — Alexander Graham Bell patented the first practical telephone in 1876. This explains his work with the deaf, the patent fight and his wider inventions.
• Who Was Alexander the Great? — Alexander the Great built one of history's largest empires before dying at 32. This explains his conquests, his cities and the debate over his legacy.
• Who Was Alfred Nobel? — Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, held 355 patents and founded the Nobel Prizes. This explains his explosives empire, his will and the prizes' legacy.
• Who Was Allama Iqbal? — Allama Iqbal was Pakistan's national poet, whose ideas shaped the case for Pakistan. This explains his poetry, his philosophy and his legacy.
• Who Was Benazir Bhutto? — Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country, serving as prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-90 and 1993-96.
• Who Was Bob Marley? — Bob Marley took reggae from Jamaica to the world and became a symbol of peace, resistance and unity. This explains his life, his music and his legacy.
• Who Was Bruce Lee? — Bruce Lee was the martial artist and actor who carried Hong Kong action cinema to the world and founded Jeet Kune Do, leaving a lasting influence.
• Who Was Charles Darwin? — Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, published in On the Origin of Species in 1859, became the foundation of modern biology.
• Who Was Charles Dickens? — Charles Dickens was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, whose serialised novels mixed comedy, social criticism and unforgettable characters.
• Who Was Charlie Chaplin? — Charlie Chaplin created the Little Tramp, the most famous screen character of the silent era, and directed classics City Lights and The Great Dictator.
• Who Was Cleopatra? — Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, a multilingual stateswoman who kept her kingdom independent for 21 years before Rome annexed it.
• Who Was Diego Maradona? — Diego Maradona was an Argentine footballer who captained Argentina to the 1986 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Jesus Christ? — Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. This explains his life in the Gospels, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope — Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope, led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 with an emphasis on mercy and the poor.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.