Business Monopolies :: essays research papers

Business Monopolies This world is made up of many businesses and businessman. Some have prospered and some have lost everything. The term â€Å"monopoly† was the cause for the rise and fall. Very select few have managed to dominate a product or company to form a monopoly. Unfortunately, the government prohibits these types of businesses, yet people still continue to strive to achieve such stature. Two of the truest powerhouses of the past 300 years in the business world would most definitely be William Henry Gates 3rd and John Davison Rockefeller. Both of these business geniuses have unique stories about their rise to the top. They also share there experiences on how quickly they can fall and lose everything. William Gates was born on October 28, 1955. His family had a history of being great in business and politics. His father was a prominent lawyer and his grandfather a president of a bank. Bill was a naturally gifted child who excelled in every course. His parents decided to send him to a private school, which had an enormous effect on him. It was here where he was introduced to the computers. While attending this private school, he met Paul Allen. Allen, Gates, and a few other kids, started using computers to write programs but decided that they needed some way to practically use the machine in the real world. They got their first chance when Paul happened to see a magazine with a picture of a personal computer. He told Gates, who at the time was attending at Harvard. They both decided to call the company and tell them that they had written an operating system for the computer. This, however, was a lie because they did not even own one of these machines. They had one chance to test the program and it worked perfectly. Gates then dropped out of Harvard and he and Allen started a new company called Microsoft. In 1980, the two were approached about programming a program for a personal PC. This was the start of Ms-Dos. In 1987, he started pushing CD-ROMs, which turned out to be a good idea. The 1990s were crazy years for Microsoft. The company became a big time player and got bigger and bigger. As Microsoft became a larger and more powerful company, they became able to use Predatory pricing to their advantage. That meant that they were able to cut their price so low no one could compete.