An autobiography by Bill Gates, starting with his early childhood and covering the founding years of Microsoft. What’s unique about the book is the self reflecting nature, almost no focus at all on Microsoft itself. More of a personal memoir then the classic business autobiography.

To put it simply, it’s all about curiosity, passion, and willingness to put in the work again and again.

On the Neflix documentary, Inside Bill’s Brain, I think there are two complementary quotes to this autobiography, and can help understand some of the hinted behaviors:

A key advantage I had was being fanatical, that is taking all of my capabilities day and night and just focusing on, okay how do you write good software? I loved being fanatic. Eventually I reveled in it. I didn’t believe in weekends, I didn’t believe in vacation.

I love going into work and that work is my whole life

Bill Gates

Those two quotes catch a narrative about he was in the early Microsoft days.

Key Insights #

Focusing #

I was very deliberate about what I put energy into.

I could go days without speaking, emerging from my room only for meals and school.

I’d fall into a zone of total focus.

From all of Gates’ qualities that come out in this book, the one I’m most impressed with is his focus. Yes, he is brilliant. Yes, he can work very long until exhaustion. But he applies focus in two unique ways. The first, he sets his mind on a single task. Nothing else matters when the task his set. It can be school, book, or work. The second, is his ability to do it again and again.

Constraints are bliss #

Posing constraints on himself while coding gave his code an edge. Lot’s of time invention comes from constraints.

Computers back then had very little memory, which meant programs had to be lean, written using as little code as possible […] like the famous line I would’ve written a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time. It’s easier to write a program in sloppy code that goes on for pages than to write the same program on a single page.

Our two main goals are to grow in size and reputation, and to make money.

I worried, I worried, I worried #

Surprisingly, he was always worried about something. It seems like his mindset was that they are just one wrong step from losing everything.

At first, he worried about the commitments of others (even though he was a student at Harvard at the same time). After, he worries about the day to day of the company. He is not satisfied with the day-to-day management of expenses. So he set up a rule to have 1 year of operational capita in cash, so they can have resilience in case something goes wrong with contracts or customers. At the first days of Microsoft they were almost entirely reliant on MITS, which added friction and worries.

It was also said about Gates that he studied the competiotion, direct or indirect, in software or in hardware.

Somehow, it feels to me it has something to do about is fiercely competitive nature - he worried to loose. In a way, he always see the empty part of the cup.

Partners and mentorship #

While working with a more experienced developer:

He consistently returned my work with corrections that raised it to levels that I didn’t know existed. [He] opened a completely new level to me.

He also talks about always wanting a partner to match him in curiosity and intensity, which he found in Steve Balmer:

I could instantly recognize other people who my kind of excess energy. Steve Balmer had it beyond anyone that I’d ever known.