Bill Gates will share his origin story in a new memoir.
Knopf will publish Gates’ Source Code: My Beginnings next year, the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist announced on his blog. “It’s a memoir about my early years, from childhood through my decision to leave college and start Microsoft with Paul Allen,” he wrote. “I write about the relationships, lessons, and experiences that laid the foundation for everything in my life that followed.”
Gates met Allen when the two were students at Seattle’s Lakeside School, and they bonded over a shared interest in computing. Gates studied at Harvard University for two years and co-founded Microsoft with Allen in 1976. The company became one of the largest technology companies in the world, known for its Windows operating systems.
Gates led the company until he stepped down from day-to-day operations in 2008. Since then, he has focused on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charitable organization he chairs.
“In the book, I share some of the tougher parts of my early life, including feeling like a misfit as a kid, butting heads with my parents as a rebellious teen, grappling with the sudden loss of someone close to me, and nearly getting kicked out of college,” Gates writes. “And I cover the challenges of dropping out of school to make a bet on an industry that didn’t really exist yet.”
Knopf says Gates’ book is “wise, warm, revealing” and “a fascinating portrait of an American life.”
Source Code is slated for publication on Feb. 4, 2025.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
