Businessman, philanthropist, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates sits down with WIRED Editor-At-Large Steven Levy to discuss the inspiration behind his new book 'Source Code: My Beginnings'.
Director: Efrat Kashai
Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan
Editor: Alex Mechanik
Host: Steven Levy
Guest: Bill Gates
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Camera Operator: Eric Bugash
Sound Mixer: Todd Burger
Production Assistant: Rob Klein
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Rachel Kim
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Director: Efrat Kashai
Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan
Editor: Alex Mechanik
Host: Steven Levy
Guest: Bill Gates
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Camera Operator: Eric Bugash
Sound Mixer: Todd Burger
Production Assistant: Rob Klein
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Rachel Kim
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Category
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TechTranscript
00:00So I had like four times where I thought hey I'm pretty good at programming and then I was either
00:04given a hard task or got feedback and I said no there's another level here and so by the time I
00:10go to Harvard I've had thousands of hours of complex programming experience. I was so lucky
00:18in those things. Hi I'm Stephen Levy. Today we spoke with Bill Gates about privilege,
00:23his desire to succeed and how as a kid he drove his parents insane. This is The Big Interview.
00:30I know that you have been thinking about doing a first person book some sort of autobiography
00:40for many many years. I talked to you about it like 30 years ago maybe. Why do that now?
00:46I hired Rob Guth to help me dig out all the old facts you know get the report cards and
00:52go talk to all of my friends and colleagues from early days. So yes it's a project we've
00:58been working on for some time. It was only about 18 months ago that we decided taking this first
01:04phase of my life about 25 years right as I start Microsoft and doing a book you know where my
01:12parents my upbringing the luck of what I was exposed to that was the the whole story. Once
01:20that idea came up I got quite enthused about it because you know we weren't getting into
01:25the current stuff where there's still a lot not you know figured out. I mean the foundation's
01:30goals are ongoing even Microsoft although I play a modest role as an advisor the AI stuff is of
01:40course very very much ongoing and so it was really fun to take this period and try and explain how
01:47amazing my father was my mother my sisters just a huge variety of things that got me to be kind of
01:56forward-looking and by the time I'm 20 years old I found myself more enmeshed in programming and
02:03the magic of what programming could do than almost anyone. So you know I love the way it's come out
02:10that we just do this first 25 year period which we're calling source code and then another book
02:17can take the whole Microsoft story and then a different one can take the philanthropic work and
02:25contemplate that. Well by doing that by breaking that that out it becomes like way more personal
02:35than anything that we've seen from you. People like me have been pounding you asking you questions
02:41when can these self-reflectives and you know can and you've done it here. I know that you admire
02:46the Agassi book by J.R. Maringer. I don't know whether you considered him to be a co-writer
02:52you know that thought you might have? No we I mean we had our team pretty early on but that's
02:58a great book. But you in a way went on there and you held a mirror to yourself this is very much
03:03a Boulding's Roman you know like a coming-of-age story and sometimes the mirror didn't portray
03:10such a flattering image did it? I mean I had my ups and downs. I had conflicts with my parents.
03:17I had you know I was using Harvard computer time and they were confused about what I was doing.
03:23The first customer you had MITS we had a complex contract we ended up in a dispute surprisingly
03:30with them. You know my relationship with Paul is a very central piece of how Microsoft comes
03:36together and you know Paul and I are working together super well and then disagreeing so yes
03:42between my parents and Paul you know and I had a lot of uncertainty even though the software thing
03:48there were many experiences that made that just such a unique thing that wow why do I see this
03:54when other people don't see it but yeah it's you know hopefully a very human story it's not
04:00immaculate conception. Well it is a human story and I think one where it gets to very emotional
04:08ground. I remember I did a profile of you I think in 1999 and your father told me a little bit about
04:15some of the stuff in here and he said you your mother was traumatized by the situation you
04:20wouldn't talk for days on end you know you say yourself that you know the things that really
04:26interested you were reading and math and being inside your own head and in some ways you weren't
04:35kind to your parents and I think unrolling some instances like that you seem a little remorseful.
04:42Well I give both of my parents in each in their own way a lot of credit for how they shaped me.
04:49You know with my dad it was much more setting an example of always being serious about his work of
04:55sharing anecdotes with my mom it was far more intense that oh you didn't get up here as soon
05:01as I wanted or your table manners weren't as good as I wanted so yeah in the case of my mom I was
05:07often falling short you know she did get me to interact with the adults that were around that
05:12was a skill that became quite valuable for me so she helped complement my intense desire to study
05:21and understand things but yeah the tension between my mom and I was you know she was always pushing
05:27for me to do better and you know eventually proud of of what I achieved but that was that was a
05:34complex relationship very you know amazing I mean my mom was a phenomenal person not just her social
05:43skills or her ambition for herself her husband and me but just she was a special person.
05:50Clearly there was a lot of love but they were at their wits end to figure out what to do with you
05:55towards the end of the book you say something that you say if this were today you would have
06:01been diagnosed you said probably on the autism spectrum what led you to that conclusion when did
06:08you start thinking about that? Well I know when I was growing up this idea that they I would go and
06:12talk with therapists was actually quite an unusual thing and this guy Dr. Cressy who really got me
06:20thinking about okay what was I trying to achieve in this conflict with my parents did I really
06:25have some thought in mind or was I just trying to make trouble that was I think quite unusual but
06:32back then the idea that kids were very different and some kind of interventions you know that just
06:40wasn't commonplace at all I was clearly somewhat hyperactive I could concentrate a great deal
06:47you know I think the I the fact I did get to see that therapist was good who knows what it would
06:53have been like you know kids are much more looked over you know the thing where I was able to go off
06:59to the computer center or you know even spend all that time alone you know even going out on those
07:06hikes you know people are protective enough they might you know you describe these epic crazy hikes
07:13that you know you wouldn't think of sending a 12 year old or 13 year old today they were
07:19super dangerous yeah even though now you'd have a GPS tracker well has that realization sort of
07:24shaped you you you're a super curious person curiosity is something that runs through this
07:28book you know have you like pursued the curiosity about that in terms of understanding yourself well
07:35I do even at this age I love learning new things and I view all of my work as kind of being a
07:41student and you know super lucky not just the things I get to read but you know these days
07:46you can learn so easily and then I get access to experts I mean you know when I'm confused about AI
07:53you know Sam Altman gets 10 people together and you know we sit and talk you know I'm very lucky
07:59that my career my career path has meant that my deep curiosity I've been able to maintain it and
08:05I think it is part of my success is really wanting to understand things in a pretty deep way
08:12another thing which struck me reading the book is you know I knew you came from a well-off family
08:17and something again you referred to towards the end of the book how much privilege is part of
08:24your story you know you know you say no I was like a white male you know that's in a privileged
08:29position but your family was very well off at various parts your father sort of like swoops down
08:36you know and with like legal help and you're getting trouble at Harvard and he flies out
08:41across the country and it seems that just at other times teachers would come in even though you were
08:48inside your own head people had your back at every at every turn oh there were teachers who put
08:56such a high percentage of their time into me versus the other students I was so lucky in those
09:03things and if one funny thing is my parents were well off but compared to the kids at this private
09:11school is that we were I was below average I mean they had bigger houses and you know they had
09:17wealth my dad was well paid to be a lawyer but we weren't a family that had wealth so I managed to
09:23both have the benefit of being at that school and actually have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder
09:28that hey you guys are so much better off you you know your parents gave you a car and you didn't
09:33have to work in the summer but yes you could hardly design a better childhood you know including
09:42a time-sharing computer terminal showing up when I'm 13 years old and the high school scheduling
09:50which is this super interesting algorithmic problem where because I was good at math they
09:55asked me to solve it. Yeah you did this unbelievable scheduling thing for your for your school. Right
10:01and the first time they asked me I say no I don't know how to do that and then six months later when
10:06tragically the people are working on it or in a plane crash I've actually figured out how to do it
10:12so the first serious algorithm was actually you know deciding when the classes would meet and who
10:18would be in which classes which is a very kind of cool problem and so you know then to have that
10:24then to have TRW have this incredible project that was very state-of-the-art in terms of real
10:32time reliability and to have the great programmers there including Norton embrace me and say yeah you
10:40think you're good but you know this code is not very good. Right this was like a mentor you had
10:45when you were working on this project for TRW as a kid. Right so I had like four times where I thought
10:52hey I'm pretty good at programming and then I was either given a hard task or got feedback and I
10:57said no there's another level here so by the time I go to Harvard you know I've had thousands of
11:04hours of complex programming experience and then you know when I get there I get to do even more so
11:12yes the fact that parents encouraged me as a male the idea of doing all being weird like this was
11:18yeah it was kind of okay the school I went to and that's high school is a fantastic high school
11:25I had at least five or six teachers who kind of saw a spark in me and really engaged with me.
11:33Melton Gladwell in his book about outliers says that the ingredients are like 10,000 hours
11:39certainly you've topped that by a big number in terms of programming 10,000 hours of practice
11:45doing something I guess a degree of time timeliness you know which you just talked about.
11:51I still find that kind of unsatisfying what makes Bill Gates Bill Gates? Well certainly
11:57it's not just the circumstances but that's gigantic I mean that eliminates you know people
12:03born at a different time and you know many people who didn't get the educational opportunities yes
12:08there's still you know a few million kids who are in the same milieu as I am and then it's okay
12:18you know seeing my father you know understanding the common sense of business seeing a business
12:24like Visio Control you know that was up and down you know the early engagement with Digital
12:31Equipment Corporation which you know to me was this vaunted company you know that proved that
12:35it wasn't just mainframes and those people embraced me I mean I got to know them in many
12:41phases including once they offered me a job just because I wanted that that reinforcement so yes
12:48there's something about my desire to succeed and my skill set you know being forward-looking which
12:55you know my friend Kent Evans who's in the book helped really cement that you know Kent
13:00helped shape me as forward-looking amazing person and then Paul's more off reading about
13:07the chip stuff you know I didn't read Electronics Magazine well after Paul showed me it okay then I
13:14did but that's Paul and it's actually pretty unnatural because he's two years ahead of me
13:19the fact that he seeks me out and says you know Bill what does exponential improvement mean
13:25and I say are you kidding that is mine exponential improvement is a very very
13:34special thing that doesn't happen except in rare cases. Paul also
13:39uh clued you on to LSD which you talk about taking a couple times Steve Jobs would always
13:45say that was like the formative experience and helped open up the gaze of design in his mind
13:51I don't get that impression that you felt that to be you know a life-changing experience.
13:57I think the batch that he got must have really been good for product design
14:02and marketing I mean my god just think if I'd had that batch uh you know yeah I did some
14:10you know crazy things when I was young and you know Paul deserves some credit for that but
14:16yeah I we did that together a few times eventually we we gave it up by the time
14:22we get serious about work we're not not doing that anymore. You also mentioned the famous time
14:26you got busted for speeding and spent the night in jail I was hoping to learn more about that
14:32you know did that freak you out spending a night in jail? No it was just kind of a funny thing I mean
14:37they thought it was strange to have somebody so young that had a nice car and you had a Porsche
14:44you know what was the story with this kid you know was I a drug dealer or something that
14:50I clearly didn't fit their normal pattern and you know we kept enough cash around that Paul was
14:56able to come down and bail me out but you know it took him a few hours to get together so yeah
15:01there's that a famous mug shot of me in Albuquerque because I got pulled over and
15:07didn't have my license. At the end of the book you say that sometimes you look back
15:12and wish you were back again where you were when you were 13 years old and just like learning
15:18about everything and you describe yourself at that time as someone who just lived largely
15:25inside your your head talk about that are you with all your success and all the access to
15:32the world really that you have you look back and want to roll the tape back? Well I've been so lucky
15:41that I'm not saying I want to go back you know and change something but it was kind of amazing
15:49to live through that hey I'm just this kid and you know all of us are the same okay here's
15:55something I'm curious about here's some people to do it with me that having a dream you know
16:01computer on every desk in every home you know the importance of software to actually have it come
16:06completely true and get to work with you know in this phase of my life with Kent and with Paul
16:13and I'm just meeting Steve Ballmer right at Harvard but he hasn't come to I'm sure we'll hear
16:19a lot about that Microsoft book you know we're up in Seattle and I decide boy I can't run this
16:25thing myself I need my friend who really gets business and management and and people and and
16:32so he comes in so it was so magical and so incredible that I do kind of miss that wonderful
16:41thing where the whole thing was in doubt you know there were days when I thought oh we are so
16:46messed up and other people are ahead of us and you know who do we think we are to have these
16:51these wild dreams and yet step by step you know we build this incredible group of people.
16:59You know it's interesting the book again is you know a coming of age story but you know you
17:05talk about you know you look back and say how much we are shaped by who we are and we are like who we
17:10are you know you talk about saying boy I I think somewhat remorsefully saying you know I was like
17:17a smart aleck in school and you know and that wasn't a smart thing to do and you talk about
17:22being you know pushing back about everyone and maybe think really the way you behave
17:28in your deposition you know that being a smart aleck there you know and you think I was a smart
17:35aleck that lawyer now that's a smart aleck. Not recalling the specifics of the interview is
17:41that it's very unlikely I would make a statement like that without some common understanding
17:46between myself and the reporter what that term which out of context is incredibly ambiguous
17:55what it meant in the context of her series of questions. And just to be sure I understand it
18:00what you're saying is that you don't remember what the definition was and you don't even remember
18:09that there was a definition but you believe there must have been a definition or you wouldn't have
18:14been using these words is that fair there must have been a common understanding I wouldn't say
18:19a definition. There's a certain clever boy you know shortcut use of sarcasm that you know allows
18:28you to communicate efficiently it can be kind of funny and yes that whole kind of sparring
18:37that you know sitting at night at Harvard talking to each other that kind of dialogue doesn't work
18:43when you're managing people or even my skill of procrastination which at Harvard you know that was
18:49my personal position was I don't work on these class till later so yeah there's a lot of habits
18:54of being a young trying to be a cool maybe not succeeding but trying to be a cool student that I
19:01actually had to break those habits procrastination you know being super clever and kind of sarcastic
19:07tearing somebody's argument apart I mean yes the underlying skill is actually worthwhile but
19:13knowing not to deploy it as the you know kind of go-to approach which when I was a student
19:20you know was kind of my whole way of engaging with other people you know we have the one
19:25anecdote in there where I told this professor how wrong he was and I was just so so certain of myself
19:34you were wrong I and then five minutes after I attack him I realize oh god there's a reason why
19:42it actually comes back in his his thing was completely right and I was completely wrong
19:47that was a helpful experience because the guy was so nice about it and I was so out of line
19:54one final question do people really change no I think you moderate and you become wiser and you
20:00grow but the idea of am I still pretty much that same kind of hyperactive curious maybe I can
20:08figure something this out that other people can't figure out and if I do figure it out what am I
20:13going to do about it who do I work with on this I you know I'm still 95 percent that same person
20:20bill thanks so much for doing the big interview thank you