SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Bill Gates has written a lot of books, but they've all stuck to a few similar themes. They've mostly been about the future, technological changes coming in society, things like that. And true to his reputation in the world of computing and global health, they've all been pretty wonky. His new book is different.
BILL GATES: So it was only as I was turning 70 this year, Microsoft turning 50, that I decided, OK, maybe it is time to look back a little bit.
DETROW: It's a memoir called "Source Code," that takes Gates' story from birth to the moment he realized this company he'd started with some friends - a company called Microsoft - wasn't just something to work on in between his college classes at Harvard. It describes in detail the adolescence and early adult life of one of America's most successful and influential entrepreneurs - how Gates snuck out in the middle of the night to code at the computer lab, his middle and high school friendship with Paul Allen that led to Microsoft, and the mindset they shared about computers and a brand-new industry that led the two of them and their friends to outmaneuver big established business giants like IBM. Something else that Gates grapples with in the book is that the kind of kid who could do all of that was also a kid who could be really difficult for parents and teachers to figure out.
GATES: Yeah, I mean, I blush thinking of how I could be abrasive or - you know, things like where I told my professor when he was wrong, and it turned out I was completely wrong. You know, I wanted to get that off my chest because I've always felt bad about it.
DETROW: Yeah.
GATES: And he was very gracious when I spoke to him recently.
DETROW: The thing that I was thinking about reading this is, I'm wondering what you think about the idea - like, how much of this path to success is replicable in 2025? - because on one hand, you have this industry being created around you in the moment. You're in the right place at the right time. The industry is exponentially expanding. But on the other hand, there's, like, this level of freedom that a teenager can have to go sneak out your window and code at 2 in the morning and then to, like - to ride the bus to another city and code sensitive infrastructure. Like, it feels like a Ferris Bueller movie-type thing where just, like, clearly no teen would be able to do that today. Like, is any of this replicable these days?
GATES: There's no doubt that kids are more subject to restrictions, even the hiking that I did where my parents didn't know where we were. It's not how I raised children. We were a lot tighter. And there is some pushback on that because you don't mature in quite the same way. You don't get to make the same mistakes.
You know, I still think there will be unbelievable entrepreneurs. But I was lucky that Paul Allen and I saw personal computing and the role of software, and almost nobody else did. Even the big companies, particularly IBM, didn't see what we saw. So you always - when you have lots of companies, you have to find a flaw in their thinking.
DETROW: Yeah.
GATES: And so it'd be tougher today.
DETROW: I want to back up a little bit in the story that you tell in this book and ask you to tell us about your best friend from high school, Kent Evans.
GATES: So when the computer shows up, there's really four of us who, a few months later, are still there obsessed. And my best friend, by far, Kent Evans, who I talked to every night - he was a great student, more diligent than I was. He influenced me. He was more outward looking. Really amazing person.
DETROW: He was like, showing up to school in a briefcase - or with a briefcase, right?
GATES: Yeah. He had all these magazines. Very serious - he followed the politics of the time when I wasn't doing that.And so he and I had always thought, OK, we're going to go off and pursue some computer-related dream. And so it's when I'm a junior in high school - I'm 16, he's 17 - that this mountain-climbing course - that it was surprising he chose to sign up for 'cause he was even less naturally coordinated than I was. And tragically, you know, I talked to him Friday night. He goes off, falls down the mountain over the weekend, and the headmaster calls me that Sunday and says that Kent isn't just hurt. He's died. And that was such a shock to me. You know, my childhood was really idyllic in a lot of ways.
DETROW: Yeah.
GATES: It's the only traumatic thing and, you know, pretty hard to process because, you know, I would have, you know, partnered with him in some way. I reach out, at that time, to Paul, and he comes back and helps me out, and that sort of gets us spending lots of time together...
DETROW: Yeah.
GATES: ...That leads to us founding Microsoft.
DETROW: Given that, how much time have you spent thinking about how different your life is if he doesn't die? - because you write in the book, and you said here, that you would have kept working - him in one way or another for sure, but at the same time, that's the event that causes you to really dig in with Paul working on these programs that become the business.
GATES: You know, when I saw Kent's father not long ago, we talked about that, you know, we probably, because we were so close, would have gone to the same school. You know, Kent and I were the most action-oriented of that foursome. He would have been great helping get the business going since Paul's conceptual thinking was super necessary. But he counted on me for the more mundane parts of doing things. So it would have been different with Kent, but, you know, we would have had a partnership and done our best.
DETROW: Do you remember the moment when you and the other kids at the computer lab realized, like, OK, in the next 20 years, everyone's gonna have a computer? Like, do you remember when that clicked into place, like, this is going to happen?
GATES: Yeah, when I helped Paul get a job in Boston, and he moved out my sophomore year, we were already writing that there'd be a computer on every desk and in every home. And that became sort of the founding slogan of Microsoft. Actually, we added the words, running Microsoft software, which was kind of the self-centered piece. And I was going to professors and saying, look, computing is going to become free because of this exponential improvement, and, you know, let's get involved in thinking that through.
And people just didn't see it. That kind of surprised us, but it's what gave us the edge. You know, Paul wanted to do personal computers. I said, no, no, let's just do the software piece. And then when the first kit computer comes out, that's when I know, to be in on the ground floor of the revolution we'd been waiting for, that I had to drop out.
DETROW: Why do you think it was a bunch of kids who saw that so clearly and professors and big companies and all of the existing infrastructure didn't quite see it the same way that you did?
GATES: Well, once you get your mindset that computers are these rare expensive things, and you've been spending your time thinking about how you make them a little more efficient and a little less expensive, when somebody who's young and hasn't been around can say, wait a minute, exponential improvement - you know, that's the chip industry off in California Intel. And the computer industry, both IBM and the minicomputer companies that are mostly up in the Boston area - they're not really tracking that.
I mean, Paul and I - the minute the 8080 chip was announced in 1973, Paul says to me, is this one good enough? And I say, Paul, this thing is better than the most popular minicomputer, which was a $20,000 machine. And so we were like, wow, how come everybody's not - their mind isn't blown? You know, when we show up and actually call the company with that kit computer, you know, they were amazed.
DETROW: Bill Gates, among many other titles, author of the new book "Source Code," thank you so much for coming in.
GATES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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