Source Code - by Bill Gates (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age

"A surprisingly candid memoir of the Microsoft mogul's early years...Reading this book feels like watching someone take a well-known black-and-white sketch, fill in the details, and paint it in vivid color." --GeekWire

Everyone is programmed a little differently, and Bill Gates' unique insight led to business triumphs that are now widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that became an industry giant and changed the way the world works and lives; the billionaire many times over who turned his attention to philanthropic pursuits to address climate change, global health, and U.S. education.

Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It's the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It's the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world.

Bill Gates tells this, his own story, for the first time: wise, warm, revealing, it's a fascinating portrait of an American life.

Review Quotes

"A remarkably introspective and personally revealing tour through some of the key moments and experiences that shaped Gates the boy and teenage programming whiz, years before he became a business titan."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"An unexpectedly revealing account of the swirl of factors leading to the birth of Microsoft and the ascent of personal computing."
--The Wall Street Journal

"There is utility to be had ... but there is also joy: the joy at marveling at genius coming into focus -- confident, watchful, disciplined, exuberant, boyish and prickly -- and the joy at watching a door left ajar kicked open wide. Yet the book is more than just that. Subtly, searchingly, always trusting the reader, Gates explores the mysteries of why he of all people became the Bill Gates: not only the first of the world-conquering tech titans of our era but also, in his second act, likely the best of them."
--Bloomberg

"Illuminating.... Very much a bildungsroman.... A human story."
--Wired

"Surprisingly candid. . . . This is not the behind-the-scenes story of today's multi-trillion-dollar tech giant. It's not a tell-all about the past few years of Gates' life. But reading this book feels like watching someone take a well-known black-and-white sketch, fill in the details, and paint it in vivid color."
--GeekWire

"The voice in this book is upbeat, wryly self-deprecating and unflaggingly congenial."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Gates' new memoir explores how his childhood quirks, upbringing, friendships and experiences coalesced into shaping his internal operating system."
--Associated Press

"Arrives at an unusual moment, as the tech billionaires have been unleashed. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg - their success has given them power that they are enthusiastically, even gleefully, using in divisive ways. . . . He is a counterpoint to the moguls in the news. . . . Writing an autobiography is another way Gates is different from his peers, few of whom seem so introspective."
--The New York Times

"A highly readable account of his early life up to the creation of Microsoft, Source Code is unusually personal and laced with self-awareness. [Gates] doesn't hold back from admitting his own shortcomings [and] delivers a fast-paced account of the rise from programming prodigy to budding tech mogul, replete with cliffhanger moments and revealing new details."
--Financial Times

"Beguiling. . . . Gates provides a candid and charming look at his formative years."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"In contrast to the current crop of swaggering tech bros, the Microsoft founder comes across as wry and self-deprecating in this memoir of starting out. . . . There is a genuine gratitude for influential mentors, and a wry mood of self-deprecation throughout. . . . There is a sense of the writer, older and wiser, trying to redeem the past through understanding it better, a thing that no one has yet seen Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg attempt in public. That alone makes Bill Gates a more human tech titan than most of his rivals, past and present."
--The Guardian

"Gates' enlightening childhood memoir finds a fresh angle on his achievements as an IT pioneer. Source Code fills in key blanks of the tech guru's pre-Microsoft life, with Gates detailing his formative years in his own words, covering emotional topics. . . . More tender than you might expect."
--Apple Books Review

"Eminently readable ... deeply researched and richly told."
--New Scientist

About the Author

BILL GATES is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist. In 1975, he cofounded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen and today he is chair of the Gates Foundation. Bill is the founder of Breakthrough Energy, an effort to commercialize clean energy and other climate-related technologies, and TerraPower, a company investing in developing groundbreaking nuclear technologies. He has three children.