The earnest, high-minded philanthropist Bill Gates donating billions to safeguard public health we see today has another side, revealed in his memoir, Source Code. It’s striking how engaging he – once the world’s richest man – can be. As in the first chapter, titled Trey, after his nickname. “It was a play on the fact that I was the family’s third living Bill Gates, after my dad and grandfather.” The chapter hooks the reader by beginning with a matter-of-fact aside about Microsoft’s importance followed immediately by a dramatic scene:
In time there would be a big company. And in time, there would be software programs millions of lines long at the core of billions of computers used around the world. There would be riches and rivals and constant worry about how to stay at the forefront of a technological revolution.
Before all of that, there was a pack of cards and a single goal: beat my grandmother.
As you wonder what the author is getting at – why the cards and why he wanted to beat his grandmother – Bill Gates draws you into his family history: his Gami, his maternal grandmother, Adelle Thompson, a “household legend”, supremely gifted at cards, and his parents, whose second child was he – the son born between two daughters, Kristi and Libby. He shares how his parents got married. Gates Senior, a six-foot-seven “gentle giant of a man” enrolled at the University of Washington on the GI Bill as a Second World War veteran in 1946, asked his friend, Mary Maxwell, a sorority leader, for dance partners. However, she could not provide any until one day, walking together, when he asked for a dance partner, she replied, “I have one in mind. Me.” “Mary, you’re too short,” he told the five-foot-seven Mary. And, then, writes Bill Gates, “My mom sidled up next to him, stood on her tiptoes, put her hand atop her head, and retorted, “I’m not! I’m tall.” “’By golly,’ he said, ‘Let’s have a date.’” Two years later, they were married.”
Gates Senior, an attorney, and Mary Gates nee Maxwell, a private banker and civic leader, could give their children a comfortable, privileged life which nurtured Bill Gates’ talents, as he freely admits.
He was a student at the wealthy Lakeside School in Seattle, which had access to computers, a rarity in those days. That’s how he got his start in programming at 13.
Bill Gates’ ‘source code’
His intimate memoir is notable for its focus on the “source code” of his character, the underlying programming of his personality.
He describes the environment that nurtured his inquisitive mind, emphasising the profound impact of his family. His grandmother, a woman of firm principles, and his ambitious, supportive parents, emerge as vital influences on his life.
He paints a vivid picture of a childhood marked by both intellectual precocity and social awkwardness, a bright young mind grappling with the complexities of fitting into society.
Gates’ narrative skillfully transports the reader to the dawn of the personal computer revolution. He recounts his early fascination with coding and the heady excitement of those days.
Gates writes about his collaboration with Paul Allen, his childhood friend and Microsoft cofounder. He recalls dropping out of Harvard to devote all his time to building up Microsoft. It was an uphill struggle fraught with litigation with erstwhile partners that Microsoft ultimately won.
Microsoft’s early days
Looking back, Gates writes with candour and intimacy about those years, providing colourful portraits of early computer buffs such as Silicon Valley’s Homebrew Club members who included Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Gates writes appreciatively of him and his partner, Steve Jobs. He remembers meeting Jobs at the first West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco in 1977:
On the first day, I was talking to a crowd of people about Extended BASIC when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a handsome guy around my age with long black hair, a tightly cropped beard, and a three-piece suit. Even from a distance, I could tell he had a certain aura about him. I said to myself, “Who is that guy?” That was the day I met Steve Jobs.
What truly sets Source Code apart is its candid and introspective tone. Gates doesn’t hesiate to admit his shortcomings or express gratitude to his mentors.
Source Code is not a comprehensive history of Microsoft. Instead, it’s a deeply personal reminiscence on Gates’ formative years before he became a tech titan, and, for a time, the richest man in the world, This engaging memoir humanises him. It’s a compelling read and a worthy beginning to what is planned to be a trilogy of memoirs.
Epilogue
As Gates writes in the Epilogue:
I’m not prone to nostalgia, but there are days when I’d like to be thirteen again, making that bargain with the world that if you just go forward, learn more, understand better, you can make something truly useful and new…
Often success stories reduce people to stock characters: the boy wonder, the genius engineer,the iconoclastic designer, the paradoxical tycoon. In my case, I’m struck by the set of unique circumstances—mostly out of my control-that shaped both my character and my career. It’s impossible to overstate the unearned privilege I enjoyed: to be born in the rich United States is a big part of a winning birth lottery ticket, as is being born white and male in a society that advantages white men…
By the time I started programming at age thirteen, chips were storing data inside the large computers to which we had uncommon access…
Curiosity can’t be satisfied in a vacuum, of course. It requires nurturing, resources, guidance, support. When Dr. Cressey told me I was a lucky kid, I’ve no doubt that he was primarily thinking of my good fortune in being born to Bill and Mary Gates-parents who struggled with their complicated son but ultimately seemed to intuitively understand how to guide him.
This is how Gates concludes his memoir:
For most of my life, I’ve been focused on what’s ahead. Even now, most days I’m working on hoped-for breakthroughs that may not happen for years, if they happen at all. As I grow older, though, I find myself looking back more and more. Piecing together memories helps me better understand myself, it turns out. It’s a marvel of adulthood to realize that when you strip away all the years and all the learning, much of who you are was there from the start. In many ways I’m still that eight-year-old sitting at Gami’s dining room table as she deals the cards. I feel the same sense of anticipation, a kid alert and wanting to make sense of it all.
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