Q 01/05

What hit Gates in the face as he arrived for a meeting in Brussels in 1998?

A) A snowball

B) A cream pie

C) A shoe

D) A raw egg

Answer · why

B) A cream pie

A cream pie, thrown by the crew of Belgian prankster Noël Godin, who made a career of ambushing the powerful with pastry. Gates was his most famous ta...

Q 02/05

Gates was born in 1955 in which city?

A) Portland

B) San Francisco

C) Seattle

D) Albuquerque

Answer · why

C) Seattle

Seattle, where a rare tornado threw the carport over the Gates family home in 1962, a month before Bill turned seven.

Q 03/05

William Henry Gates III grew up answering to which family nickname?

A) Chip

B) Tripp

C) Skip

D) Trey

Answer · why

D) Trey

Trey, a card player's word for a three, marked him as William Henry Gates III. His father was William H. Gates II.

Q 04/05

Gates's parents originally wanted him to pursue which career?

A) Medicine

B) Banking

C) The ministry

D) Law

Answer · why

D) Law

Law: his father was a prominent attorney, and Gates entered Harvard in 1973 as a pre-law student before computing took over.

Q 05/05

At which private school did Gates meet his future co-founder and start programming?

A) Bush School

B) Phillips Exeter

C) Choate

D) Lakeside

Answer · why

D) Lakeside

Lakeside, where the Mothers' Club spent rummage-sale money on a Teletype terminal and computer time, and a 13-year-old Gates got hooked.