Person of the Decade

Gates later went on co-found Microsoft and create lasting and groundbreaking computer software that continues to be valuable to society as technology has become common in day to day life. Undoubtedly, Gate’s intellect, passion, and creativity led him to create an extraordinary product and established him as a modern genius.

Eastern Europe was considered a weak area with problems of economics and political instability. This was most true in the interwar period as western counties had divided along the ‘lines ' they believed, and with the powerful Germany and Russia on either side wanting the land back to their ‘empire '. "They [Russia and Germany] also capitalized on the abdication of the other Great powers and on the profound polticodemrgraphic and socioeconomic weakness and conflicts within the area."

Even as Reagan clashed Marxism in Central America but, the USSR was crumbling. In reaction to severe economic difficulties and rising political uproar in the Russia, the Premier ‘Mikhail Gorbachev’ took office in 1985 and then announced two strategies that redefined Russian’s association to the rest of the realm: ‘glasnost’ or political honesty, and ‘restructuring’ or economic development. Soviet impact in Eastern Europe diminished. In 1989 every former communist government in the county swapped its government with a non-communist any. In November of that year the “Berlin Wall” the utmost evident sign of the decades long Cold War was to end with demolished, just done two years after Reagan had defied the Russian premier in an address at Brandenburg

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” The Cold War placed most of the post-war world into a perpetual state of paranoia and dramatically rose tensions between both world powers and their respective ideologies; the Communist Soviet Union and Capitalist America. Both of these powers were in a race to have the advantage over one another, with accelerations in arms developments and eventually creating a standoff between the the Western and Eastern blocs. Two national leaders were very prevalent in bringing a significant amount of change to the European Region, the first leader being Harry Truman (1945-1953) who introduced the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan with the slogan “It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities and outside pressures” The second significant leader who exacted significant change in the European Region and subsequently culminated the Cold War was Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991) whose policies of Glasnost ‘Openness’ and Economic, Political and Social Perestroika ‘Restructuring’ followed his belief that “It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past. . .” Both leaders exacted changes that were crucial in shaping the European region during the Cold War.

The collapse of Communism, and the resulting attempts to institute Western-style democracy and markets, brought immense uncertainty to the former Soviet bloc (and non-aligned Yugoslavia). Though the end of communism was welcomed by the vast majority of people, the question of what comes next, and how what has come next is any better, has vexed the former communist countries of Eastern Europe. Each country has adapted to the transition with varying degrees of success. Slavenka Drakulic explores this transition, and the difficulties that have come with it, in A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism.

I would like to nominate Mikhail Gorbachev to be named “Person of the Decade”. Mikhail Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Russia on March 2, 1931. His mother and father were peasant farmers and his father taught Mikhail how to use a combine harvester. When he was a teenager he drove a tractor to help his family out financially. He excelled in school and actually enjoyed learning, so his father urged him to continue his education after high school. Mikhail was accepted at the Moscow University due to his excellent academic record. He graduated in 1955 with a law degree from Moscow University cum laude.

After World War II, Europe emerged as a continent torn between two very different political ideologies, Communism and Democracy. As the two major superpowers, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States, struggled to defend their respective governmental policies, the European Continent was caught in an intrinsic struggle to preserve the autonomy which had taken so long to achieve. During the Cold War, Eastern European nations struggled to achieve autonomy with the help of the West's dedication to break the Soviet sphere of influence. After the disintegration of the USSR, the struggle for autonomy among nations shifted from an intense, inward, nationalistic

Located between Russia and the West, East Central Europe is an area that has constantly been caught in turmoil, usually because of the two geographical areas that it lies between. It was born only after the creation of Western and Eastern Europe, its livelihood dependent upon both regions geopolitical boundaries, East Central Europe is thought to be a buffer for the two. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union this region has sought economic growth through democratization, market economies, and aligning with the West. However, this transition has been one with unique challenges given the fact that there is no detailed guide on how to bring about said transition. Looking back, East Central Europe’s unique history has sometimes seemed to

The transformation from state socialism to liberal democracy since 1989 was accompanied by fundamental shifts in the material conditions of society and daily life. Many Eastern European countries have been transformed into market economies and liberal democracies. They have been assimilated into NATO and the European Union. However, both the economy and the political transformations have been radical. This is because the changeover from socialism to capitalism in most Eastern European countries was without precedent (Swain, 2011).

By 1980, only five years in business, he was approached by IBM to build their operating system, catapulting him to success (Gates, B. 2012). Bill Gates has made many contributions to society. He is the founder of Microsoft Inc., which is the industry standard for business and academic software but his most important contribution to society is his philanthropic dedication. It is a well-known fact that Bill Gates is a very wealthy man but what he has done with his wealth is astonishing. He and his wife, Melinda has pledged 95% of their wealth through their philanthropic organization, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 95% of anyone’s income in staggering but 95% of the Gates is mind blowing. So far to date, the organization has made grants of $26 billion, of which $15 billion went to global health alone (Thorpe, 2012).

Bill Gates is a well-known leader in the business world. His company’s inventions impacted the business world and changed the market. Bill Gates had a vision of what other executives only dream about. His values and strategies have managed to keep Microsoft on the edge of technology. Still, many questions have risen about Bill’s strategies on whether or not his harsh marketing depicts a monopolistic nature or is simply a result of becoming the leader of the technology industry.

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational company based in Redmond Washington. The company manufactures computer products and offer computer services. The company also licenses and supports various types of computer products and services. Microsoft Corporation was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The company is the largest software manufacturer globally in terms of revenue. It is also the most valuable organization in the world. Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company to manufacture basic interpreters for Altair 8800 and sell them. The company was the leader in the personal computer operating market in mid 1980s with MS DOS. The development of the Microsoft windows operating system gave the organization a

Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The company was strictly based on microprocessors (a circuit used in computing) and software at the time. As their new “MS-DOS” OS (Operating System) gained popularity with several technology companies such as IBM, Gates and Allen moved their focus to new OS’s. 1985 was the start of the OS we all know and love, Windows. Windows was the first main stream OS to have a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that was easy to use with no prior knowledge of command line. After Microsoft sales skyrocketed they went on to create new products used every day by millions of people. These products vary from the Xbox to Bing with hundreds of products in-between.

Bill Gates, a man with a net worth of $76.4 billion dollars, and the founder of the corporation Microsoft revolutionized the way the modern economy works with his work on the computer. Microsoft would develop software that would be used around the world by billions of people, making Microsoft a cornerstone of the modern economy. However, this large control of the market would put Microsoft as a monopoly with its network effect.

What Bill Gates has is the capability to imagine and execute a business method that is just about unmatched. (The Economist Newspaper and the Economist Group, 1998)