Bill Gates’ origin story describes a life of privilege, exposing the DNA of some of the tech industry’s problems
- Written by Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information, RMIT University
Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, is one of the world’s richest men. He is also a highly controversial figure.
On one hand, he contributes to social, medical and environmental causes through his foundation, making grants worth more than US$77 billion ($A123 billion) from its inception to the end of 2023. On the other, he has confirmed associations with Jeffrey Epstein and was the subject of spurious COVID conspiracy theories.
Even Gates’ Microsoft days were controversial. Under his leadership, Microsoft became the first tech giant, but Gates has been repeatedly described as ruthless, both personally and professionally.
Review: Source Code, My Beginnings – Bill Gates (Penguin)
He was accused by his late long-term friend and business partner Paul Allen, of canvassing ways to dilute Allen’s shares in Microsoft when the latter was undergoing treatment for lymphoma. Gates reportedly apologised to Allen, and they repaired their relationship, and were on good terms by the time Allen died.
Still, as a leader, his style has been characterised by some who worked with him in the 1980s and 1990s as bullying. (Gates’ spokesperson has denied he mistreated employees.)
Childhood
In Source Code, Gates sets out to tell his own story, and the story of the birth of the tech industry.
His parents were the children of hardworking strugglers. His father, Bill Senior, was educated as a lawyer on the GI bill; his mother, Mary, was, according to Gates, an innovative and engaged homemaker, who later shattered glass ceilings.
Born in 1955 Gates describes himself as the kind of kid his mother had to warn his preschool teachers about. He responded to not knowing how to fit in with other kids by becoming a class clown, and was pushed by his mother to relate to other adults.
Bill Gates, front row, on left, and Paul Allen, front row, on right, in 1978.
Microsoft/AAP
Gates describes the head of MITS, Ed Roberts, as loud and somewhat mercurial, an irony that is not lost as we read Gates’ letters to his friends and business partners, in whom he is frequently disappointed.
Eventually, the relationship with MITS broke down. MITS failed to meet the terms of its contract to promote and license Gates’s software.
The end of this contract left Gates free to sell his software to a range of companies, including Apple and Texas Instruments. A legal judgement confirmed MITS had not fulfilled its contract to Microsoft, and that Microsoft had full ownership of its software and the right to sell it. This judgement is probably the foundation of the for-profit software industry.
Bill Gates photographed by New Mexico police in 1977 after he got a speeding ticket and forgot his licence.
Wikimedia Commons
In early adulthood, Gates already showed little respect for other people and social norms. He describes subscribing to the ideology of the lone genius, being arrested for speeding (where the famous mugshot of him comes from), and even joyriding on parked bulldozers.
This section of the book is probably the least readable. It presents a limited account of an exciting time in computing. Steven Levy’s Hackers is a great alternative account.
The DNA of computer programs
The “source code” is the DNA of the computer programs we use. Gates’ book sets out the source code of Microsoft, as a company, and in many ways, of the tech industry as a business.
Gates created not just Microsoft, but arguably an entire industry: selling software. His book describes the unique set of personal characteristics that made him the right person for this (single minded focus, which Gates attributes to likely autism, and a willingness to ignore all other considerations to get the job done).
It also describes a lucky set of circumstances. Gates benefited from a legal education at his father’s knee, a family history of entrepreneurship, and early access to computers.
The book ends in the late 1970s just as this combination of circumstances is about to bear fruit and a full four years before the launch of Microsoft’s first operating system. It does not cover Microsoft’s heyday, nor Gates’ substantial philanthropic activities later in life.
It isn’t clear why Gates has written this book now. If it is to rehabilitate his image, he makes a poor job of it. He describes a life of consistent privilege and only acknowledges this privilege at the end of the book, which rings hollow.
Bill Gates, centre, at The Australian Open in 2023.
Lukas Coch/AAP
He displays a profound belief that he has been right in his interactions with others, going so far as to describe his relationship with Steve Jobs at Apple as “sometimes rivalrous, sometimes friendly”, even though Apple famously sued Microsoft over the rights to the windows style of user interface we are all used to today.
There is little acknowledgement in the book even of the regrets he has expressed elsewhere, for example over his treatment of Paul Allen. There is little to dilute the impression that Gates was ruthless, though perhaps a later memoir may document changes later in life.
A male-dominated industry
While Gates’ focus and drive were clearly fundamental to the growth of the tech industry, this book also exposes the DNA of some of the tech industry’s problems.
He describes his father as a feminist, but his mother’s social expectations were a source of irritation to him, and he barely mentions his two sisters. He got his first access to computers at an elite boys’ school – a school where, notably, his best friend protested the integration of the sister school for fear it would reduce academic standards.
This school, and later Harvard (then another male bastion), were the source of all early Microsoft employees, sowing the seeds of today’s male-dominated industry, with all its attendant problems.
Gates’ attitude to property underpins Microsoft’s aggressive business practices. He was clearly prepared to borrow what isn’t his (bulldozers, computer lab time), but he is incensed by the theft of his intellectual property. This attitude is evident in the long history of Microsoft litigation.
The company has been repeatedly prosecuted for antitrust behaviour and sued for copyright infringement. Conversely, it aggressively pursued those it believes to be infringing, including, famously, a 17-year-old entrepreneur, who was probably not unlike Gates himself.
Gates doesn’t draw these connections. He is largely uncritical of his own path, only occasionally admitting he treated someone poorly.
Ultimately, his book is a useful insight into the source code of the tech industry, but not always in the ways Gates likely anticipates.
Authors: Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information, RMIT University
Hashtag.net.au
