Bill Gates on his journey from class clown to digital revolutionary
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- LEE JIAN
- [email protected]
![Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and chair of the Gates Foundation [DINALI WEERAMAN]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/fe73ddde-32a3-4eb3-9e6c-2e46c8d86896.jpg)
Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and chair of the Gates Foundation [DINALI WEERAMAN]
A fidgety, overenergetic child who wouldn't play by anyone else's rules. An intense reader who spent hours shut in his room. A belligerent son sent to therapy at a young age. One of the world's richest individuals, with a net worth well over $100 billion. Bill Gates, now hailed as the co-founder of Microsoft and pioneer of the digital revolution, has worn a number of hats throughout his 70 years.
In the years since earning his fortune, Gates has devoted himself full-time to pressing global issues, including climate change, clean energy, health care, education and poverty. He has also written several nonfiction books — and spent the last several months penning his past into the first book of his three-part autobiography, “Source Code: My Beginnings.”
“Source Code,” which is set for a Feb. 5 release in Korea under Penguin Random House, chronicles Gates’s first 25 years, from nerdy coder to Harvard dropout — and the very beginnings of Microsoft. At a small media roundtable in January, the pioneering billionaire, who turns 70 in October, fielded questions about the first few decades of his life, the people and privileges that led to his success, and other topics covered in his first memoir. He appeared to be in a rare retrospective mood.
“In general, I like to be forward-thinking, because there is so much great innovation going on,” Gates said. “But I ended up enjoying the process.”
Gates confessed to reporters numerous times that he'd been "lucky” growing up. Indeed, his childhood memories, which include matching family pajamas on Christmas and gunnysack races in summer vacations, are quite the wholesome reflection of the white-picket-fence American life.
Gates likewise acknowledged his privilege as a white male in the 1970s, growing up with supportive parents in an upper-class Seattle neighborhood, attending private school and later enrolling at Harvard.
![The cover of Bill Gates' first memoir ″Source Code: My Beginnings″ [PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/d78a7e50-84f2-42a9-a017-e2a7096740aa.jpg)
The cover of Bill Gates' first memoir ″Source Code: My Beginnings″ [PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE]
The part of the scene that doesn’t quite fit in, however, is the main man, Gates himself.
Much of the memoir is about those around the young Gates, who seemingly pulled him out of his white-picket world and into the “real” one. The self-made billionaire describes them as defining parts of who he was to become and “great people who helped create the success.”
They include strong female role models, including his “tiger mom” and card sharp grandmother, teachers who noticed his abilities early and friends who challenged him.
![Bill Gates in Lakeside School's directory photo for the 1971-72 school year [LAKESIDE SCHOOL]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/a6b448ac-b12a-4cff-ba2a-80d5794b9112.jpg)
Bill Gates in Lakeside School's directory photo for the 1971-72 school year [LAKESIDE SCHOOL]
Today, he still sees much of himself in the skinny, young computer geek.
“The idea that I am curious, and I like to learn and understand things, is the common thread that runs through my early years,” he said. “Whether it is figuring out how to play cards or writing a complex program, if you just think hard enough about it, there must be a way to make this better.”
Parents and rebellion
![A Gates family portrait taken in 1965 in Washington [GATES FAMILY]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/7878ec85-28b5-4632-b275-fdc30754df8d.jpg)
A Gates family portrait taken in 1965 in Washington [GATES FAMILY]
Gates had an ingenious mind, but it is evident through his memoir that he sees himself as a product of other people, and of circumstance.
At the core of that is his family, or what his father coined “Gatesland,” where, the billionaire writes, “we were bred and raised to win.”
Among his siblings, Gates admits that he was the most challenging child. He particularly clashed with his mother, Mary Gates, calling their relationship “intense.”
If Gates was antisocial and rule-bending growing up, his mother was the stark opposite.
She was people-savvy — the first to extend her hand to a stranger in a group and draw them out of their shell. As a mother, she demanded respect and discipline. It wasn’t such a big house, but Gates recalls that she installed an intercom connecting the children’s bedrooms with the kitchen to call orders effectively.
“She was always pushing me, and I’d push back on all the rules she was imposing,” Gates said.
His belligerent behavior led his parents to resort to therapy, where Gates was eventually convinced that his time was better spent “battling the world instead of his parents.”
“They clearly had values that affected me a lot,” said Gates. “They were very involved in the community they believed in education.
“I was very lucky with my parents and the approach they took.”
Neurodiversity
![Bill Gates pictured in Lakeside School's Numidian yearbook in 1973 [LAKESIDE SCHOOL]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/d5997c4e-b412-426b-9cac-812b3d7d7951.jpg)
Bill Gates pictured in Lakeside School's Numidian yearbook in 1973 [LAKESIDE SCHOOL]
Gates thinks his young self would “probably be diagnosed on the autism spectrum” today. He publicly associates himself with the diagnosis for the first time in “Source Code.”
The book describes his troubles in school, excelling at some points and underperforming at others. Wanting to fit in, he played the role of a class clown and refused to follow instructions. But when he was curious, he knew he could focus, like in a U.S. state report, where he turned in 200 pages about the state of Delaware while classmates turned in fewer than 10.
His teachers were confused; one said he should repeat a year, while another, around the same time, recommended he skip a grade.
His parents were concerned about his social skills, as Gates preferred to stay in his room and read rather than spend time with his peers. They signed him up for Boy Scouts, a string of sports and camps.
Autism was less understood in the 1960s than it is today, and Gates acknowledged that now, in some cases, therapy and medication would likely target his behaviors.
“I don't know whether that would have been better for me or not,” he said, adding that Microsoft and his coding skills are products of his hyperconcentration.
“But for any parent who has a kid who's a little unusual, the fact that it can, in the end, work out, hopefully, makes them feel hopeful, because my parents ended up doing a lot of things right even though there was no guideline for the situation.”
A nerdy coder to a billionaire
![Microsoft co-founders Paul Allen, front, and Bill Gates with a teletype machine from the Lakeside yearbook for the 1969-70 school year [LAKESIDE SCHOOL]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/cae05928-9d97-470c-84b2-b656136078c2.jpg)
Microsoft co-founders Paul Allen, front, and Bill Gates with a teletype machine from the Lakeside yearbook for the 1969-70 school year [LAKESIDE SCHOOL]
Though his parents were proponents of public education, Gates’s unique aptitude led them to send him to Lakeside, a private school in Seattle, around the age of 12. There, he met his future co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen.
But it wasn’t Allen who Gates was the closest with growing up; it was Kent Evans, another boy in the same friend group.
Evans is a figure of Gates’s childhood who has not been discussed very much in public, but the memoir recounts their friendship, one of joy and synergy, in meticulous detail. The two boys talked “nearly every day on the phone,” said Gates, and worked on coding projects together.
Evans died in 1972, at 17, while mountain climbing.
“Kent was my best friend,” Gates said, singling out Evans’ death as the most devastating moment of his first 25 years.
He remembered Evans as “an incredible forward thinker.”
“He got me reading Fortune Magazine, thinking about what we should become, from an army general to a scientist, CEO or an ambassador, and I was like, ‘We have to start thinking about that now?’”
While Allen and Gates would go on to greatness, their first collaboration, working on an automated payroll system as teenagers, was rocky. Gates recalls being frustrated, sensing Allen's waning interest, even back then. The memoir details a strained relationship that continued over the years, though the two reportedly made up before Allen's death in 2018.
“He was not as monomaniacal working on the company [Microsoft] as I was,” Gates told reporters. “There were periods where we worked super well together and periods we didn't.”
Should there be billionaires in government?
![Bill Gates poses for photos at the 10th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on April 13, 2024. [AFP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/6d6e66be-19f0-4f7d-9d79-c4d76316dca9.jpg)
Bill Gates poses for photos at the 10th Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on April 13, 2024. [AFP/YONHAP]
Nowadays, Gates is more closely associated with his wealth than with his coding skills.
In recent weeks, many of his fellow tech billionaires have not only curried favor with U.S. President Donald Trump, but also formed an oligarchic pact with him, wielding their private sector power in the public sphere.
Gates said he did join Trump in December for a three-hour dinner at Mar-a-Lago, during which the two discussed political engagement with AI and its potential in warfare and global health. He did not, however, express a desire to work in the U.S. government, like Tesla and X owner Elon Musk.
“There is a risk of taking it too far,” he said. “Tech leaders aren’t elected officials, so we’ll have to see what outcomes emerge.”
Gates also believes that the power and money of the ultrarich should be moderated. “I have long been an advocate for more progressive taxation,” he said. “My dad and I are lobbyists for maintaining the estate tax, because I think intergenerational wealth, in some ways, should be minimized to prevent excessive concentrations of power and encourage philanthropy.”
Then and now: What drives Bill Gates
![Bill Gates discusses improving the availability of vaccines for children at an event organized by the nongovernmental organization Save the Children in Berlin on Oct. 14, 2024. [AFP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/a295dd6b-792c-4269-a50a-90c87734fe65.jpg)
Bill Gates discusses improving the availability of vaccines for children at an event organized by the nongovernmental organization Save the Children in Berlin on Oct. 14, 2024. [AFP/YONHAP]
Gates’s memoir is also telling of his choices and actions today.
His efforts to address global issues with the immense capital of the Gates Foundation, one of the largest private charities in the world, makes some feel threatened and has even spurred titillating rumors that Gates is a villain attempting to control the world.
“Source Code,” however, suggests that Gates’s primary motivation isn't power or control, but rather curiosity and the determination to outthink everyone and everything.
His hunger for knowledge has persisted throughout his 25 years. Whether beating his grandmother in a card game, spending hours reading, sneaking into his school’s computer lab at night to practice programming, or even dabbling in college theater, Gates, in the memoir, seemingly lives to satiate his curiosity about the world.
To the reporters, he identified himself as an “enthusiastic student.”
“My career, whether it's the Microsoft work, the foundation or breakthrough energy, climate work, is all about the potential for innovation.”
![Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, CEO of Novo Nordisk Foundation, left, and Bill Gates, center, attend the Novo Nordisk Foundation Global Science Summit in Helsingoer on May 6, 2024. The Novo Nordisk Foundation, Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust each plan to invest around 700 million kroner ($95.9 million) in a three-year project to promote global health. [AP/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/36d91347-6da3-4c94-a614-7dba041cb0a8.jpg)
Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, CEO of Novo Nordisk Foundation, left, and Bill Gates, center, attend the Novo Nordisk Foundation Global Science Summit in Helsingoer on May 6, 2024. The Novo Nordisk Foundation, Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust each plan to invest around 700 million kroner ($95.9 million) in a three-year project to promote global health. [AP/YONHAP]
His determination has sometimes been criticized as naive, and Gates even referred to himself as such during the interview when describing points in his life. He did, for example, believe technology was “only an empowering idea and an unadulterated good thing, up until the rise of social media.”
But “Source Code” also indicates that his optimism is as significant a blessing as his brain.
He functions through strict math and logic, yet is simultaneously able to focus on the good and work toward the light. Having been nicknamed “Happy Boy” for constantly smiling as a child, at least a part of that visionary optimism can be deduced as innate.
![Bill Gates smiles during a summit on climate and growth at the Bercy Finance Ministry in Paris on Dec. 5, 2023. [REUTERS/YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/02/05/caaaea69-fcef-4b4c-b930-597fbcbf8584.jpg)
Bill Gates smiles during a summit on climate and growth at the Bercy Finance Ministry in Paris on Dec. 5, 2023. [REUTERS/YONHAP]
“I really believe that we'll finish the eradication of polio. I really believe we can cut childhood death in half again,” he said. “We're smarter today than ever.”
But the fact that humanity is smarter can't prevent us from making big mistakes.
“How do we shape and make sure that nuclear weapons don't get used? How do we make sure that our understanding of biology doesn't lead to bioterrorism? There will be pandemics in the future that can be naturally caused. Did we learn what we needed to so that if the next one is way more serious, in terms of the fatality rate, would we actually be ready for that and do the right thing?”
These are the questions that keep him up at night. Yet Gates is confident.
“Still, I say that this is the best time in the world to be born, and I do think that human ingenuity will help us overcome.”
“Source Code: My Beginnings” can be purchased through Amazon Books and local bookstores, including DB Books, Kyobo and Yes24 Books. It is available as an E-book as well.
BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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