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Seeking inspiration,
and nearing the deadline, she powered up her laptop. The old Windows 95
operating system kicked in, leading her to the desktop, where the colorful
Microsoft Word 6.0 icon resided. It was one of many in a virtual garden
of icons, both weeds and flowers among them. Pointing, clicking and opening
up a new Word file—virgin territory on the cyber screen—she began to wonder
about the man behind it all. A man whose influence is so pervasive that
he has changed, and for the most part, improved, the way we go about even
the most basic, daily tasks. A man who, like it or not, has linked us
all together in a shared operating system that has us both more in touch,
and more detached, than ever.
Is he really
just a criminal, a convicted monopolist and control freak, demonized for
breaking the backs of his competition and dictating the future of computing?
Or is he more of a Promethean fire-bearer, bringing light to an ungrateful
humanity and alienating the gods in the process? Maybe he’s just a man,
the kind who puts his pants on one leg at a time, same as you or me—both
good and bad, genius and fool.
A
Textbook Scorpio
 William
H. Gates III was born on October 28, 1955, at 10:00 pm PST, in Seattle,
Washington. His Sun is in Scorpio, along with his Saturn and Venus.
He does tend to be perceived as a “textbook” Scorpio type—driven, intense,
poisonously competitive and highly acquisitive. Scorpios have a marked
talent for getting their hands on OPM—other people’s money. Their resourcefulness
in the realm of shared resources is the backbone of investment banking.
Certainly
Gates played the role of “Super-Scorpio” in the 80s and 90s, while the
planet Pluto rampaged through his sign. Pluto is considered to be the
modern ruler of the sign Scorpio, so it was quite at home from 1983-1995,
when its super-powered and compulsive influences spread throughout its
home sign, intensifying everything in its path. Those were the “Bill Gates
Years,” weren’t they? With transiting Pluto touching off so many important
points in his natal chart and aggrandizing his oligarchic Scorpio instincts,
Microsoft emerged, consolidated and controlling, to both define and dominate
an entire new industry.
Cancer
Sensitivity
But there’s
more to his chart, and more to the man. The sign Cancer is rising in the
east, on the Ascendant. Cancer, like Scorpio, is a water sign, and tends
to be more emotional and sensitive. Perhaps sensitivity isn’t the first
thing people pick up about Bill Gates, but it’s an important part of his
makeup. It can be more difficult for a man to express the flowing, feeling
nature of the water signs. Whereas women seem more naturally sympathetic
and impressionable, the same type of behavior in a man can be misinterpreted
as weakness. Often the water element in a man’s personality creates an
uncomfortable sense of vulnerability. He might try to overcompensate for
this insecurity with achievement or ambition, anything to build a protective
shell around their soft side.
Step back
for a moment and consider Gates’ vulnerability. It’s visible. It’s written
all over him, and the shell, the castle he has built to protect himself
is almost impenetrable. It seems like all we see is the castle these days,
overlooking the sensitive and brilliant creature protected within it.
A
Very Public Moon
To fully
understand Cancer, you must consider its ruler, the Moon, the Queen of
the Night. In Gates’ chart, the Moon is important because it rules his
Cancer Ascendant. Traditionally, the planet ruling the sign on the Ascendant
is considered the chart ruler, and acts as a prime mover within the personality.
Gates’ Moon is in Aries, very elevated and visible in his Tenth House.
It’s hard
to hide anything in the Tenth House. It measures the same part of the
sky that the Sun occupies at midday. It’s overhead, for all to see. It’s
the most public house, and is usually associated with career, status
or social position. With his fiery Aries Moon in the Tenth House, Gates
will always be a public figure. His very presence attracts curiosity and
public interest. He also has great leadership instincts. He seems to naturally
gravitate to higher positions, but it’s the pioneering, competitive spirit
of Aries that drives him to boldly go where no man has gone before, and
to take the rest of us with him.
Aries is
a real do-it-yourself kind of sign. No precedent is necessary. Aries has
absolutely no fear. Whatever darker paths his Scorpio obsessions have
led him down, for his pioneering spirit alone, Gates deserves your respect
and emulation. Don’t we have enough whiners and stone-throwers already?
Here’s a guy who’s not afraid to take a risk and who knows how to get
the job done. If he can do it, then we all can do it.
So who do
you see when you look at Bill Gates? Does he inspire your admiration or
incite your jealousy? Does he make you rankle with contempt or gush with
sympathy? Such a very public figure can serve as a type of magic mirror,
reflecting back more of ourselves than most of us would care to admit.
Gates has already served as a gateway, an opening to a brave new world
of personal computers. May he also inspire you to follow your own dreams,
and to see how far you can go.
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