Prologue 11

Tray 21, Chapter 1
Chapter 2, Viewridge 53
Chapter 3: Reasonable 77
Chapter 4: The Lucky Kid 105
Chapter 5 Lakeside 139
Chapter 6 Free Access Time 171
Chapter 7: Just Kids? 197
Chapter 8: The Real World 233
Chapter 9 One-Act Play: The Actor and Five Nine 269
Chapter 10: Precocious Idiot 297
Chapter 11 Wild Cards 335
Chapter 12: Perfection 363
Chapter 13: Microsoft 385
Chapter 14 Source Code 429

Epilogue 479

Acknowledgments 487
Photo copyright 499
Pictorial 501

The most influential and innovative of modern times
Business leader and philanthropist,
Bill Gates' first memoir

The Korean version of Bill Gates' memoir, Source Code, has been published by Open Books.
Bill Gates, the living legend of computer technology.
His business achievements are well known.
At the age of 20, he dropped out of Harvard University to found a software company that grew into an industry giant, changing the way people work and live around the world.
A successful businessman who became a billionaire at a young age, he has also been active as a philanthropist working to address climate change, global health, and education issues.


His memoir, Source Code, however, does not cover the already well-known stories of the founding of Microsoft or the Gates Foundation, or the future of technology.
This book follows the life of Bill Gates, a man who led change, development, and progress around the world, from his childhood to his adolescence, and tells a human and personal story about the passions and pursuits he displayed during that time.


In this book, which chronicles his early years, from sensing the untapped potential of software to founding Microsoft with his destined best friend, Paul Allen, he meticulously recounts the relationships, lessons, and experiences that laid the foundation for nearly everything he did in life.
Told for the first time in Bill Gates' own words, this wise, warm, and candid memoir is a captivating portrait of an American whose life has captured the world's attention.


“I’ve been in the public eye since my early 20s, but most of my life before that was unknown.
Over the years, I've often been asked about my upbringing, my time at Harvard, and co-founding a company.
Through those questions, I realized that people might be interested in my life journey and the factors that influenced it.

In this book, I share some of the most challenging experiences of my childhood: feeling like a misfit as a child, clashing with my parents as a rebellious teenager, grappling with the sudden loss of someone close to me, and almost getting kicked out of college.
And it also covers the difficult decision to drop out of school to bet on an industry that didn't exist yet.
Meanwhile, along the way, I also find stories of many people who believed in me, pushed me to grow, and helped me turn my uniqueness into an advantage.
And I also reflect on my good fortune, born into a good family during a time of historic technological change and optimism, and growing up at the dawn of the personal computer revolution.”
_Author's Note

A child who is lost in his own world and has built a wall between himself and the world.
Go beyond maladjustment and rebellion to achieve mental growth.

Source Code begins by introducing Bill Gates' childhood, influenced by his parents who had big dreams and his grandmother who was a woman of principles.
Born into the post-World War II era of prosperity and optimism, Bill spent his childhood in a social climate where the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States reached its peak and the civil rights movement began domestically.
Growing up in Beauridge, a newly white middle-class neighborhood in the rapidly growing Seattle area, he first witnessed the world of space science, technology, and computers while attending the Seattle World's Fair with his mother.
The message of the fair was clear.
Technology is progress, and in the right hands, it brings peace!

Bill's mother, a strong woman with liberal and progressive leanings, wanted her family to be a model family that went beyond personal wealth and contributed to the community and non-profit organizations.
Meanwhile, Bill's father, a lawyer, had developed a sense of justice as a lawyer while witnessing the McCarthyism that swept through America in the 1950s.
Bill grew up surrounded by an active and motivated mother, a calm and just father, and their friends—adults who were both financially successful and socially responsible.


But Bill's start was not smooth.
As a child, he showed intense passion for things he liked, but showed rebellion, irritation, and dissatisfaction in other things.
While he enjoyed immersing himself in his own world, he was indifferent to social interaction.
At school, he took on the role of a clown, both funny and clever.
The rebellion and fighting at home became increasingly severe, and his grades at school declined.
Bill's behavior gradually improved through communication with a counselor, which began in the fifth grade of elementary school.
Through his relationship with him, who had outstanding empathy and offered solutions, Bill gradually regained his social skills, and his parents continued to satisfy Bill's intellectual needs.


Meanwhile, he maintained a close relationship with his maternal grandmother, who often took care of him since childhood.
She was a person of fairness, honesty, generosity, and communication.
His maternal grandmother taught him card games from the time he was five, which helped him develop concentration, logic, and mathematical skills, and also helped him develop a reading habit.
After playing card games with his grandmother for several years, Bill gradually realized that if he used his brain and focused continuously, he could find the answer. One day, he beat her at a game and experienced a mental growth that he could eventually solve anything.
And Bill goes on to Lakeside School, a private high school.


A child who climbed over a wall in the middle of the night to find a computer,
Opening the Future of Microcomputer Software

At Lakeside School, Bill meets friends who will shape his future together.
He first meets his classmate Kent Evans.
A friend who was born with a disability but overcame it with strong determination.
One day, the two, who became best friends, come across a time-sharing system terminal at school that connects to the main computer via a phone line, and Bill becomes deeply fascinated by computer programming, which is a good fit for utilizing his logical thinking skills and high concentration.
And soon, Paul Allen, a senior student and destined colleague, recognizes Bill's abilities.
He constantly stimulates Bill's sense of challenge in programming, and another upperclassman, Rick, joins, forming a four-person group of Paul, Rick, Bill, and Kent.


They will receive free access to DEC computers through a venture started by the parents of Lakeside students.
Their task is to act as testers who discover and report system anomalies.
Bill, who started using computers in earnest, continued his routine of sneaking out of the house at night, going to the office to play with the computer, and returning home at dawn.
After Kent and Rick return home first, Bill stays up all night with Paul and immerses himself in the computer.
I learn little by little by looking over the shoulders of the office programmers, and I even dig through the computer papers that the engineers throw away in the trash to find source code.


Around that time, Bill also became absorbed in his studies.
Students are positively influenced by teachers who stimulate their sense of challenge and achieve high grades through high concentration.
Especially captivated by the allure of science, he develops a way of thinking that constantly questions what he believes to be true.
Together with Kent, they begin to dream of the future that computer programming will unfold for them.
Bill then receives an offer to develop a new program from a time-sharing computer company that has a new contract with the school, and he begins working on it with Paul, Rick, and Kent.
Although he experiences conflicts with Paul during this process, Bill is eventually recognized for his abilities and leads the project. His performance is recognized by the company and he is offered more work.


Bill, who was running towards the goal like that, encounters a tragic incident that turns his daily life upside down.
It was such a huge event for young Bill that he was lost in grief for a while, but at the end of his mourning, he found his way back to his path.
Then, he contacted Paul, who had just entered college, and the two began to seriously explore business models for computers and programming together.
Bill and Paul bought a microchip, a cutting-edge device at the time developed by Intel.
What paths lie ahead for these two people who have laid the groundwork for the future of microprocessors and, by extension, the future of Microsoft?
We invite you to witness for yourself the story of Bill Gates' struggles, exploration, friendship, and passion for success through the fascinating stories he tells in Source Code.


The Emperor of Software tells us
A memoir more entertaining than a novel

Bill Gates, a child who was lost in his own world and avoided communicating with the world.
Even with high expectations and support from his parents, the child who had been prone to rebellion and conflict grows by discovering and overcoming his own limitations through camping and hiking and exploring nature.
At school, you find your own path and run towards it with the help of your destined friends who know each other.
And in the midst of all this, he discovered the world of computers and software, which heralded the beginning of a new era, and he abandoned his stable background and conditions and devoted everything to that path.
It is surprising that these are stories told by people who are only thirteen, fourteen, nineteen, and twenty years old.


Meanwhile, readers can enjoy following the childhood of Bill, who would later grow into a giant in computer technology, and naturally retracing the technological developments of the 1960s and 1970s, when the computer industry was rapidly developing.
You can also witness the great growth of a child who finds his own path and maximizes his talents.
For the PC generation, who first encountered computers by inserting a pack and a floppy disk, it will bring back memories and nostalgia for the late 20th century, while for the mobile generation, who are more familiar with smartphones than PCs, it will bring back memories of the era that laid the foundation for the technological revolution, as well as dreams of a new era that they will create.