Source Code: My Beginnings Hardcover – February 4, 2025

Fascinating book which offered an engaging view of early life for this well-known impactful individual. It was very interesting seeing the family, school, and friendships which formed the background and provided the environment which nurtured a signature individual. Strangely we have an amazing number of similarities with both being born in 1955, having an only son born in 1999, marrying a wife born in 1964, working on Basic interpreters in the same year, and sometimes being quite out of step in our educational path.

The first of a planned trilogy, this book was very well-written and a fascinating story. I think what I admired the most was Gates's ability to capture the voices of his mother's "precocious brat" (approximately 7 years old), the socially insecure and very rebellious teenager, and the cocky but secretly unsure college student. The book ends with the founding of the startup Micro-Soft. More to come, the author promises, and I can hardly wait.In today's world, Gates would have been been instantly diagnosed as being "somewhere on the spectrum." But he was blessed with extraordinary parents and a therapist (a very interesting part of the book) who helped the family negotiate a peace, and let Gates become who he is. Lots of good life lessons in this one.

Source Code is a really nice autobiography on the formative years of Bill Gates. He focuses on his childhood and the characteristics of his family and takes the reader on the journey through his life as the world moving into the electronic age. One gets a picture of the world changing in real time and one of the most important innovators of that age through his own experiences. It comes across as honest and earnest and though I typically don't read autobiographies I am glad I read this to understand better the climate of the time in the early computer age.Bill Gates is obviously an icon of a monumental era and though he will inevitably have people who like and dislike him the perspective from his own words should be something of interest to a wide audience. The book does not focus on Microsoft in its later life nor anything regarding the company in the last 25 years but as the title suggests focuses on Bill Gates's personal story that led to the founding of Microsoft. One does see that he came from a hardworking and honest family that increased in its privilege through the fathers career progression as a lawyer, he was to benefit from having a father of such stature at times when Bill was under the microscope later. One gets an understanding of his fortune in having a school with early access to compute power and how he and his closest friends including Paul Allen took unique advantage of this to become experts in an immensely growing space by perseverance and passion. Bill tells his story as a kid who was talented with raw intelligence for whom maturity grew with time, but his drive in high school becomes very clear to the reader as his passion was not only for programming and computers but also for the commercial enterprise that was growing on the back of it.The book goes into how he and his close knit group were writing software for enterprises while still in high school and how their managing to get access to computer time was critical to their growth. He talks about his experience in high school and his access to great and supportive teachers that led to his acceptance to Harvard. One gets the first hand story of Harvard and why he eventually left which really brings the reader in to the way driven entrepreneurs saw the world at critical junctures. The whole book makes on sympathetic to the life choices of Bill Gates and brings him rightful admiration for being excellent and driven at a critical juncture. Many parts of Microsoft's story will be there on Wikipedia but the first hand account of how Bill met some critical early joiners, why they joined, what were their talents, how did the group get along, what drove each of their interests is all very helpful in making sense of the story of Microsoft.Having read two different biography type books recently of tech moguls, one a biography (of Jensen Huang and Nvidia) and this autobiography of Bill's formative years, I am glad I read both. It is enjoyable to read and brings Bill Gates down to earth and shows his honesty, early intelligence and brings the reader to sympathize with the path taken and experiences that drove the decision making. Definitely a nice book to check out if one has some spare time

This was a wonderful book. More than I expected. Easy read, but hit all emotions. I looked forward to reading every page. Plus, so much I didn’t know, even though much has been written about B. Gates (I’d never been a huge fan). The childhood he describes makes you yearn both for that magical time before adulthood and before the technological boom he was about to experience. So many experiences kids don’t have today. But, it goes beyond his childhood. This book makes you realize how deep childhood and young adult friendships can influence what you become. Written with humor, sensitivity, and insight learned from his past, he makes you feel the laughs, tears, and excitement. Excitement for a computer boom these young kids felt was coming, but really had no idea how big it would become. I highly recommend.

If you want to truly understand who Bill Gates is, you have to read this book. It moves beyond the standard story of Microsoft's rise to offer a captivating deep-dive into his origin story. The narrative is fast-paced yet rich with detail from early childhood to his formative years at Lakeside School and the key relationships that shaped him, including those with Kent Evans and Paul Allen.A refreshing and absolutely essential read!

I really enjoy reading this book .. Those anecdotes and history are very nice and interesting to read. I recommend it for sure..