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In 2024, Bill Gates can count Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett<\/a> and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> among his friends. However, in his formative years, the Microsoft co-founder struggled to fit in with peers, as well as clashed with his parents before ultimately dropping out of Harvard University.<\/p>\n Gates, now 68<\/a>, also revealed he almost got kicked out of college and will share more of the \u201ctougher parts\u201d of his early life in a new memoir that will be released next year.<\/p>\n Gates announced the autobiography, \u2018Source Code,\u2019 on his blog this week, and it will be available on February 4, 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been in the public eye since my early twenties, but much of my life before then isn\u2019t well known,\u201d Gates wrote on the announcement post<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cOver the years, I\u2019ve often been asked about my upbringing, my time at Harvard, and co-founding the company. Those questions made me realize that people might be interested in my journey and the factors that influenced it.\u201d<\/p>\n The book, he adds, will cover his \u201cmisfit\u201d early years as a child, his \u201crebellious\u201d teenage phase when he \u201cbutted heads\u201d with his parents and \u201cthe sudden loss of someone close to me.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThroughout it, you\u2019ll also find the stories of the many people who believed in me, pushed me to grow, and helped me turn my quirks into strengths<\/a>,\u201d Gates continued. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd I reflect on the luck I had<\/a> to be born to a great family in a time of historic technological change and optimism, and to come of age just as the personal computer revolution was taking off.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Gates doesn\u2019t expand on who the individual he lost at a young age is, the father of three has previously spoken about the death of his best friend in an accident at the age of 17. <\/p>\n Kent Evans was Gates\u2019s first business partner when the duo were in the 8th grade. The pair began working out of a school computer lab to program the payroll for a local company.<\/p>\n In Netflix<\/a> special \u2018Inside Bill\u2019s Brain\u2019<\/em> released in 2019, Gates revealed he still knows Evans\u2019s phone number by heart. <\/p>\n It was Kent who first \u201cgot\u201d Gates reading Fortune<\/em> magazine, the man worth $152 billion recalled<\/a>, adding: \u201cIf you went into the civil service, what did you make? Should we be CEOs? What kind of impact could you have? Should we be generals? Should we go be ambassadors?\u201d<\/p>\n Gates adds that Evans was the \u201cbest student in the class\u201d and that they would have kept working together and attended college together if Evans hadn\u2019t died in a mountain climbing accident.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so unexpected, so unusual. People didn\u2019t know what to say to me or to Kent\u2019s parents,\u201d Gates continues. \u201cI sorta thought, OK, now I\u2019m going to do these things that Kent and I talked about, but I\u2019ll do it without Kent.\u201d<\/p>\n While the synopsis of the memoir on pre-sale sites promises the book will detail \u201cthe story of [Gates\u2019s] principled grandmother and ambitious parents\u201d it also pledges to tell the story of how Gates<\/a> went from \u201cmidnight escapades\u201d in a computer lab to founding Microsoft<\/a>. <\/p>\n Yet there is a well-known tether between the two, tying Gates\u2019s childhood successes with the Big Tech giant he went on to build. Microsoft\u2019s co-founder, Paul Allen. <\/p>\n Allen, though a couple of years older than Gates, formed a firm friendship with the entrepreneur while at Lakeside School in Seattle. <\/p>\n Having worked with Gates and Evans on the payment system algorithm, Allen later worked with Gates on digitizing the timetable system at their school.<\/p>\n A year ago, writing on LinkedIn<\/a>, Gates gave some insight\u2014which will surely be expanded on in the book\u2014about what the school meant to him. <\/p>\n In 2023 he wrote:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m thankful to the school and its teachers for everything they gave me\u2014including the opportunity to learn about computers and programming at a young age.<\/p>\n \u201cLooking back, it\u2019s incredible just how much my experience there shaped my future<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nBill\u2019s best friend<\/h2>\n
Lakeside days<\/h2>\n