Source Code

The first volume of Gates’s memoir, and deliberately the narrow one: childhood in Seattle, the Lakeside School teletype, the Traf-O-Data years with Paul Allen, and the decision to leave Harvard — ending roughly where most accounts of him begin. It is a book about the formation of a particular kind of obsessive rather than about the company he went on to build.

Why it’s on the list: Bold on @mastersinvest’s 2025 list, meaning the curator rated it very good rather than merely read.

Where I saw it: @mastersinvest’s “2025 Reading … so far” list, August 20, 2025, where it appears in bold. The full 46-title list is transcribed on 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet).

Connections

• 2025 Reading So Far… (tweet) — the list this came from.
• Bill Gates — the subject, covering the years before he is usually written about.
• Microsoft — the memoir stops at roughly the company’s founding.
• Paul Allen — the Lakeside and Traf-O-Data partnership is most of the narrative.