Source Code

Reviews

Praise for Source Code

“We cling to tidy success narratives—appealing stories that trace an outsize triumph to a single critical decision, a vital personality trait, a striking incident from childhood. Such stories make extraordinary success seem comprehensible, perhaps (we imagine) even attainable. Yet reality tends to be more complicated. At a certain level of achievement, success is unfathomably contingent, requiring a hefty amount of luck on top of remarkable ability and durable conviction. In Source Code, Bill Gates’s chronicle of his early years, we are treated to 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

“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

“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. . . . [This volume] is more than just a geek’s inventory of early achievements. 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

“Bill Gates’ personal journey, told in a somewhat unsparing first person. . . . Very much a bildungsroman…. a human story.”
—Wired

“The book has been in the works for at least a decade but 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

“Gates’ new memoir explores how his childhood quirks, upbringing, friendships and experiences coalesced into shaping his internal operating system.”
—Associated Press

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

“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. . . . Source Code pulls back the curtain on a global leader with thoughtful ruminations on the contributions of love, friendship, and family to his success.”
—Apple Books Review

“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. Through all of this, he looks back with detachment on the competitive intensity and intellectual ferocity that characterised his rise to the top.”
—Financial Times

“A beguiling memoir. . . . Gates provides a candid and charming look at his formative years.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“A surprisingly candid memoir of the Microsoft mogul’s early years. . . . 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 Expand reviews