A Cup Of Cold Water Poured Out The Richest Man In The World.

"Splash" wake up son

Gates, 83, is the co chairman of the Bill Gate couple's charitable foundation, the father of the Second World War veterans, lawyers, nonprofit volunteers and 3 children.

In an interview with the Wall Street journal in April this year, old Gates first told the story of himself and his son for the first time.

Gates, a consistently low-key old man, has never boasted of his role in his son's road to success.

He said in a speech at a charitable leaders meeting in 2005: "as a father, I never thought that the kid who grew up in my house, ate my food, used my name and loves to talk back would become my boss someday.

But it did happen.

In fact, the old Gates is the one who has changed Gates's "troubled youth" life trajectory.

Old Gates and his wife Marie have 3 children: eldest daughter Christie, son Gates and little daughter Libi.

Gates has shown great interest and talent in learning since he was young. He read the Encyclopedia of the world at a very young age.

In order to encourage him to read, Mr. and Mrs. Gates are not stingy in this respect, so long as he wants to read the book, they will buy it all.

By the time he was 11 years old, Gates began to throw out strange problems to his parents and embarrass them.

In old Gates's view, "this is very interesting, quite good", but it brings trouble to mother Marie.

In addition, Gates, who was entering adolescence, tried to get rid of her mother's control, and demanded to keep the room neat, eat on time, and not to bite the pencil.

"He was very annoying at that time," recalls sister Libi.

Gates also admitted in his interview that Gates, who was 11 years old, had become a headache for parents.

Mother child conflict reached a climax on Gates's 12 year old day.

Gates yelled at his mother at the dinner table rudely, with sarcastic remarks.

The cry stopped.

Gates suddenly said to his father, "thank you for the shower."

Give independence

The Gates family has a deep memory of this "water splashing incident". It has not only become an important turning point in Gates's life, but also made "indignant" mature overnight, and changed the old Gates's views on his children's education.

In the eyes of children, Gates, a lawyer, is also strict and calm at home.

"He went home, sat down for a rest, and then had dinner.

There has never been a scene like "give me a hug" or something like that, "Christie recalls." but Gates's act of confronting his mother made him "lose control" seriously.

After this incident, the old couple and Gates took their son to receive psychological consultation.

Gates told psychologists: "I want to fight for control with my parents."

The doctor then suggested that old Gates and his son would win the war of independence, so the best thing to do was to let him be independent.

Mr. and Mrs. Gates finally accepted the doctor's advice.

Considering that private schools can give their children more freedom to develop, they have named Gates in a private secondary school.

It was in this school that Gates became acquainted with the important "companion" that changed his life -- the computer.

From the age of 13, Gates enjoyed the freedom that most of his peers could not enjoy.

His parents allowed him to go to University of Washington alone in the evenings to use computers, travel and work on holidays.

He served as a State Councils waiter in Olympia, capital of Washington state, and served as a congressional waiter in Washington D.C.

In high school, he also stopped studying for a while and ran to a power plant in southern Washington state as a computer programmer.

In this period of freedom growth,

In 1975, Gates, a third year student at Harvard University, decided to quit school and start a business together with Alan.

The decision of his son shocked Gates and his wife.

Old Gates and his wife finally reluctantly agreed with their son's choice and supported him to go to New Mexico to start a business.

full support

After the establishment of Microsoft, Gates decided to move the company back to Seattle. The main attraction is the full support of his parents.

He settled himself in a house not far from his parents' home.

Mother Marie hired a babysitter for Gates, who was busy with his career. He was responsible for cleaning the room for him to ensure that he could have a clean shirt when he was attending important meetings.

Old Gates gave his son the support of his career.

He used his social connections as a lawyer to sell Microsoft to Seattle businessmen, and his lawyer company became Microsoft's biggest customer at that time.

In 1980, he used his eloquence to persuade his son's college classmate, Steve Bulmer, to drop out of school to join Microsoft.

Ballmer is now chief executive of Microsoft.

Before Microsoft Corp was ready to go public, Gates feared that the listing would distract employees.

Old Gates appease his son's nervousness and relieve his worries.

Finally, Microsoft was successfully listed, and Gates became a billionaire overnight.

Persuaded son to "be good"

After his son became famous overnight, Mr. and Mrs. Gates faced another challenge: persuading Gates to use money for charity.

At that time, Gates wanted to concentrate on developing Microsoft's career instead of distracting energy for charity.

To this end, in old Gates's office, Gates and his mother Marie quarreled again after years of "water splashing".

In the end, Marie successfully persuaded his son to raise funds for the charity joint recruitment campaign within Microsoft.

After that, Gates joined his mother in joining the board of the joint recruitment Committee.

With the increasing wealth of Gates, the charitable organizations in Seattle have sent him help.

After Marie's funeral, old Gates, who was over 70 years old, proposed to his son to create a formal charitable organization. He was responsible for applying for examination and funding.

A week later, Gates took out $100 million as the starting capital to create the "Bill and Melinda Gates foundation", and old Gates was one of the original managers.

In the more than 10 years since the foundation of the charitable foundation, old Gates has appeared in the foundation office every day, meticulously managing his son's charitable cause.