Bill Gates is the co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, the company that controls a large part of the world’s personal computer software. He owns property worth about $15,000,000,000. The decisions and statements that he makes have more longterm global influence than those of most politicians. Microsoft dominates the software market so much that the US Justice Department stopped it from taking over a rival company, Intuit, fearing that Microsoft was going to become a monopoly.
Gates describes his ideas about the future in his book: “The Road Ahead”. He predicts that the Internet will transform capitalism by eliminating distribution middleman. Anyone, no matter where they are, will be able to try running their own small specialized business from their homes and make contact with customers anywhere on the planet.
He also claims that people will become much better educated, as it will be easy to instantly access information of any kind. Wealth in the future will be based on education and information rather than on natural resources and heavy industries. Instead of having to commute of offices, people will be able to live in unpolluted, remote areas, working for a company in faraway city which is itself doing business on a global scale via satellite and fiber - obtic links. Gates admits that many employees will lose their jobs as computerization makes them unnecessary, but claims that people will gain the freedom to live and learn in new ways.