Napoleon Bonaparte CORBIS-BETTMAN

Role Model Having read about Napoleon's military strategies in junior high, Gates devised a computer version of Risk, a favorite board game in which the goal is world domination. Gates on what he would do if not in the software business. Audio courtesy of CNN: Larry King Live, August 21, 1995

Anti-Hero The photo of Henry Ford in Gates' office serves to remind the Microsoft magnate about the dangers of success. As Gates sees it, Ford slipped up by allowing Alfred Sloan's GM to seize leadership of the auto industry in 1927. Henry Ford and his quadricycle in Detroit, 1896 HENRY FORD MUSEUM-REUTERS

Fictional Picks His all-time favorite novels are the schoolboy standards: The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby and A Separate Peace.

Oldies but Goodies Gates prefers music from the forties and fifties, Frank Sinatra in particular. Frank Sinatra CORBIS-BETTMAN