Source Code: My Beginnings Review

My review of Bill Gates' memoir.

I grew up using - tinkering - Windows-based PCs and have long been a big fan of Bill Gates before becoming a fan of Steve Jobs.

So as soon as Bill Gates’ memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, was available on Audible I bought it.

This was the very first book written by Bill Gates that I read - listened to - so I didn’t really have much of an idea of what it was going to be like.

The start was a bit slow (and for the Audible version, the reader felt like he was also just warming up and wasn’t in the groove yet). I vaguely remember anything from it. Which means, it wasn’t interesting to me. But, I know there are others who enjoy this extra bit of detail of Bill Gates’ earlier life, which no doubt had an impact on the later events.

For those struggling with the first chapter or two, I recommend you hang in there. Once you get past the first couple of chapters. Things start getting interesting.

We learn about some of the early feats that Bill achieves in programming at a young age of 13.

The relationship struggles he went through, in particular with his parents. Parents, or people, in general were not as liberal back then as they are today in how they viewed what a career should be.

And it wouldn’t be right or complete if Bill didn’t mention his time with Kent Evans. And the impact of Kent’s passing on him.

The meat and potatoes of the book, and undeniably, the most interesting parts were the events that surrounded the inception and early days of Microsoft.

We learn that Microsoft was a long time vision/dream of Bill Gates since his high school years. And if you have read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, you’ll see quite a bit of parallels between the two.

Their behaviour during their uni days were very similar. They both went to classes that were not part of their studies, but had a outsized influence on their respective companies later on.

For Steve Jobs, it was the design-related classes; while for Bill Gates, it was the business-related classes.

Without these business-related classes, I don’t think Microsoft would have succeeded. As Bill Gates highlighted in his memoir, people didn’t see a need to pay for software and majority used pirated copies of Basic.

Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates is certainly not as colourful a read as Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. But as it is more or less the founding story of Microsoft, arguably one of, if not the most influential company during the personal computer revolution. That changed the whole landscape of personal computing forever.

It is a worthwhile read (or listen). Especially for entrepreneurs or anyone with any desires to start their own business. As it highlights the key aspects needed to create a successful business.

Listen to the sample preview of Source Code: My Beginnings audiobook on Audible.