Source Code

Why it’s on the list: The first volume of Bill 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 — a book about the formation of a particular kind of obsessive rather than the company he went on to build.

Where I heard about it

• @mastersinvest — in bold on his “2025 Reading … so far” list, August 2025, meaning he rated it very good rather than merely read. Full list: 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.