Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher (born January 25, 1963) is an American technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal and an author and commentator on the Internet. She created and wrote Boom Town, a column which appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and online, and subsequently appeared on All Things Digital, which she founded and served as the co-executive editor with Walt Mossberg. On January 1, 2014, Swisher and Mossberg struck out on their own, with a new site, Re/code, based in San Francisco, California.

Early life

Swisher graduated from Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service with a B.S. degree in 1984. She wrote for The Hoya, Georgetown's school newspaper. In 1985, she received her M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.

Career

Swisher worked at an alternative newspaper in Washington, D.C. and The Washington Post, where she started as an intern and was later hired full-time. She joined The Wall Street Journal in 2003 and launched the AllThingsD conference and later expanded it into a website.

Kim Kardashian

Kimberly "Kim" Kardashian West (born Kimberly Noel Kardashian; October 21, 1980) is an American television and social media personality, actress, socialite, and model. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Kardashian first gained media attention through her friendship with Paris Hilton, but she received wider notice after a 2003 sex tape with her former boyfriend Ray J was leaked in 2007. Later that year, she and her family began to appear in the reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Its success has led to the creation of spin-offs including Kourtney and Kim Take New York and Kourtney and Kim Take Miami. In 2010, Kardashian was reported to be the highest-paid reality television personality, with estimated earnings of US$6 million. In 2015, it was reported her total earnings were US$53 million.

Life and career

1980–2007: Early life

Kardashian was born on October 21, 1980 in Los Angeles, California, to parents Robert and Kris (née Houghton). She has an older sister Kourtney, a younger sister Khloé, and a younger brother Rob. Their mother is of Dutch, English, Irish and Scottish ancestry, while their father was a third-generation Armenian American. After their parents divorced in 1991, her mother married again that year, to Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce), the 1976 Summer Olympics decathlon winner. Through their marriage, Kardashian gained step-brothers Burton "Burt", Brandon, and Brody; step-sister Casey; and half-sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner.

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (/ˈdʒɒbz/; February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American information technology entrepreneur and inventor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc.; CEO and largest shareholder of Pixar Animation Studios; a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT Inc. Jobs is widely recognized as a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Shortly after his death, Jobs's official biographer, Walter Isaacson, described him as the "creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing."

Adopted at birth in San Francisco, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1960s, Jobs's countercultural lifestyle was a product of his time. As a senior at Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, his two closest friends were the older engineering student (and Homestead High alumnus) Wozniak and his countercultural girlfriend, the artistically inclined Homestead High junior Chrisann Brennan. Jobs briefly attended Reed College in 1972 before dropping out, deciding to travel through India in 1974 and study Buddhism.

Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, and computer programmer. In 1975, Gates and Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft, which became the world's largest PC software company. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, CEO and chief software architect, and was the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. Gates has authored and co-authored several books.

Starting in 1987, Gates was included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest from 1995 to 2007, again in 2009, and has been since 2014. Between 2009 and 2014, his wealth doubled from US$40 billion to more than US$82 billion. Between 2013 and 2014, his wealth increased by US$15 billion. Gates is currently the richest person in the world.

Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by numerous court rulings. Later in his career Gates pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.