$ cat ./records/gates-buys-out-a-hawaiian-islands-hotel-rooms-and-helicopters-to--1994.txt
Gates Buys Out a Hawaiian Island's Hotel Rooms and Helicopters to Shield His 1994 Wedding
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For his New Year's Day 1994 wedding to Melinda French on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, Bill Gates went to extraordinary lengths to guard his privacy: he reportedly booked all the rooms of the island's main hotel so journalists could not stay nearby, and hired all the helicopters on neighboring Maui to stop photographers from flying overhead. The measures worked — the ceremony, attended only by family and close friends (Warren Buffett among them), stayed almost entirely shielded from the press, an early sign of the lengths the Gateses would go to control their public exposure.
Source: https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19940102&slug=1887658
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Related Accomplishments
1990s
Gates keeps a collection of rare and classic cars
Despite his reputation for frugality in some areas, Bill Gates has long indulged a passion for cars, assembling a collection that has included several Porsches — among them the 911 he has owned for decades and the storied 959 — as well as other classics. His automotive tastes, and the saga of importing the then-illegal 959, are among the more colorful footnotes of his personal life.
1990s
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For years Bill Gates retreated twice a year to a secluded cabin for a solitary 'Think Week,' during which he read stacks of papers, books, and employee proposals with no interruptions, emerging with strategic memos that shaped Microsoft's direction. The ritual became famous as a model of deep, focused thinking by a busy executive, and was credited with helping spark major pivots — including Microsoft's embrace of the internet. Gates carried the habit of voracious, deliberate reading into his philanthropy.
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