Question
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you and describe that influence. This person is Bill Gates, describe his influence it could have on me as an entrepreneur and how his success could influence me as i am trying to be a candidate in a business administrations course at a university
Answer
Name of Student
Name of Professor
Admission Essay
24 February 2015.
The one person who has had a significant influence on me is Bill Gates. Gates is the founder of Microsoft, the largest software company in the world. I admire Bill Gates because he worked very hard to achieve the entrepreneurial success that he enjoys today. The way he identified an opportunity and turned it into a multi-billion business empire inspires me to explore the world of entrepreneurship with passion. I find it amazing when an individual like Gates identifies a business opportunity and uses it to bring about amazing developments in the world of computer technology while at the same time generating billions of dollars in revenue. The best part of Bill Gates’ story is that a significant portion of his personal fortune goes to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the non-governmental organization that he co-founded with his wife as a platform for offering assistance to the community through charitable causes (McCoy et al. 1645).
The world of technology has provided many entrepreneurial opportunities to innovative minds. It continues to do so today and this trend is expected to continue in future. Bill Gates is among the pioneering entrepreneurs who laid down the technological framework for the present information age. I appreciate the role that he played because the information age has brought with it even more entrepreneurial opportunities. In fact, I believe that the most promising business opportunities today are in the world of information technology. Whenever this thought crosses my head, I think of Bill Gates and how I can draw inspiration from his business model and philosophy to achieve similar entrepreneurial success. In other words, he is my model in the world of entrepreneurship.
My aspiration to become an entrepreneur akin to Gates is that this global icon did not pursue entrepreneurship simply to earn money. Rather, he did it by simply using his creative abilities and passion to acquire the requisite computer programming skills as well as to exploit emerging business opportunities. Similarly, I am passionate about acquiring academic skills relating to business administration and thereafter using my innovative and creative abilities to become a successful entrepreneur.
There is no other situation where the dichotomy between being a wealthy person and a business entrepreneur is clearer than the case study of Bill Gates. There are many people who inherit enormous wealth but simply cannot bring themselves to take any risk in a business venture. Gates is no such kind person; he abandoned the comfort of his well-off, prominent banking family to pursue his entrepreneurial ambition. Even after achieving initial corporate success in the early 1980s, he sought to use his massive income to lead market developments rather than simply becoming a follower. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit inspires me to avoid the comfort zone that accompanies initial success and instead pursuing entrepreneurship as a lifelong process.
I feel that if Bill Gates brought about so much change in the contemporary world through entrepreneurship without even completing college, I can do even more than him by attaining a university degree before venturing into entrepreneurship as a fully-fledged professional. The course that I intend to pursue is business administration. The pursuit of this course is in line with Bill Gates views about changing the world. Gates is on record for saying that a person should endeavor to create systems bigger than himself or herself in order to be resourceful and to change the world. I believe that the best way for me to create such systems is first and foremost pursuing a university degree. Upon graduating, I will utilize the knowledge that I will have acquired to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities with the aim of promoting resourcefulness and impacting positively on the world.
Works Cited
McCoy, David., Kembhavi, Gayatri., Patel, Jinesh and Luintel, Akish. “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s grant-making program for global health.” The Lancet, 373.9675 (2009): 1645-1653.
