Source Code: My Beginnings Written by: Bill Gates Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins Release date: 2025-02-04 The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age The business triumphs of Bill Gates are widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that became an industry giant and changed the way the world works and lives; the billionaire many times over who turned his attention to philanthropic pursuits to address climate change, global health, and U.S. education. Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It’s the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It’s the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world. Bill Gates tells this, his own story, for the first time: wise, warm, revealing, it’s a fascinating portrait of an American life. Reviews "Upbeat, wryly self-deprecating and unflaggingly congenial. [Gates] roam[s] freely in the memory palace of his youth."—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review "Moving. [This] highly readable account of his early life... is unusually personal and laced with self-awareness."—Financial Times "Terrorizing classmates, spending a night in jail, tripping on LSD: This isn't the Bill Gates you know."—Steven Levy, WIRED "Refreshingly frank. [Source Code] is more than just a geek's inventory of early achievements. There is a genuine gratitude for influential mentors, and a wry mood of self-deprecation throughout."—Steven Poole, The Guardian