11/96Number of weeks Bill Gates served as a congressional page in 1972: 8
12/96Ratio of RAM needed to run the Space Shuttle’s onboard computers to that needed to run WordPerfect for Windows ‘95: 1:8
2/96Chances that the phrase “you will” appears on a page of Bill Gates’s new book, The Road Ahead: 1 in 5
3/96Number of high-resolution computer screens to be installed in Bill Gates’s new home: 40
10/97Seconds of booing elicited by Apple’s announcement of its deal with Microsoft at a trade show last August: 42
1/98Number of hours a Moscow hotel flew a Microsoft flag within view of Red Square last fall when Bill Gates visited: 36
Number of lunches Gates ate in Moscow that were not from McDonald’s: 0
10/98Amount Microsoft offers any computer-science professor who mentions its programs in an academic presentation: $200
5/98Number of former U.S. representatives who are now Microsoft lobbyists: 3
9/98Percentage change since 1991 in total Microsoft contributions to the Democratic and Republican parties: +460
Percentage change since then in Microsoft contributions to the Republican Party alone: +1,863
2/99Percentage of his wealth that Bill Gates has pledged to donate this year for children’s vaccines in poor countries: 0.0016
1/00Factor by which Microsoft’s average monthly campaign contribution in 1999 exceeded its monthly contribution in 1995: 8
2/00Percentage change in the stock price of Microsoft rival Red Hat in the five weeks after the antitrust ruling: +218
3/00Rank of Adam Sandler and Bill Gates among the most popular role models with male college freshmen: 1,2
11/02Percentage of U.S. college students who believe the “next Bill Gates” is among today’s generation of college students: 50
Percentage who say they are the next Bill Gates: 24
2/04Amount Bill Gates has pledged to fight malaria through 2008, expressed as a percentage of USAID spending since 1998: 86
11/05Rank of the FBI among ideal employers, according to U.S. undergraduates polled in spring 2004: 138
Rank of Microsoft in 2004 and 2005, respectively: 1, 8
3/05Ratio of the number of computer viruses targeting Microsoft Windows‒based computers to those that target Macs: 1,000:1
4/08Amount that Rudy Giuliani’s campaign spent to win a single Republican delegate: $48,000,000
Amount it would have cost him to win the nomination at this rate, expressed as a percentage of Bill Gates’s net worth: 97
4/08Rank that next year’s giving goal of Bill Gates’s foundation would hold on the Forbes 400 if it were a person: 91