📚🎧 Source Code 👍👍
I finished the audiobook version of Source Code today after powering through it over the last week. Wil Wheaton does an excellent job and actually does some impressive additional voices when the situation warrants it. There's one time he does a Kennedy quote, and it was spot-on. It's really pretty cool how much he adds to an already entertaining story.
The book itself is really solid; it humanized Bill Gates and made him a lot more sympathetic in my mind. It's funny how he's gone from basically being the devil to Apple fans to a much more human and generally likable guy to me. A big portion of that is him leaving Microsoft to focus on the work of the Gates Foundation. That and the fact that Microsoft expanded into widely supporting multiple operating systems and working with everything. They're not perfect, but they make good products, and they've left their obsession with Windows lock-in behind.
I was familiar with the general story of Bill Gates and Paul Allen collaborating on the first version of Basic for the Altair (the first personal computer) and dropping out of school to found Microsoft, but I didn't know all the details. It's been really enjoyable to get Bill's perspective on the whole process. I'm already looking forward to the next couple of books in what I understand will essentially be a trilogy. The second book will be about Microsoft, and the third the Gates Foundation.
I'm very curious to see what Bill's take on his time at Microsoft will be like because there's a lot of documentation of how difficult he was to work with during this time. I think he has mellowed a bit with age, at least outwardly with what he displays to the public, but he's definitely still a flawed and complicated character. His divorce and the information about the apparent extramarital pursuits of at least a few Microsoft employees is not a great look. I'm curious if that's something he'll mostly ignore when the time comes or if it's something he'll be open about.
In Source Code he's been fairly critical of his younger self, but paints a pretty sympathetic picture as well. I'd be curious to know Paul Allen's perspective on their relationship, which clearly had its ups and downs over the years. I will say that it seems like from afar that Paul Allen got weirder and more socially awkward as he got older. He seemed relatively cool for a nerd as a high schooler and undergrad with his guitar playing and music knowledge. But maybe that's just younger Bill's perspective of his older friend, and outsiders would have felt like Allen was still pretty awkward.
It's been really interesting to learn about Bill's parents and more about his mom in particular. I knew that there was a Mary Gates Center at UW, but I didn't fully understand what an absolute pillar in the Seattle Community she was during her life. It makes complete sense that Bill would pivot away from being a programmer at the start of his company to actually building and leading Microsoft into the dominant position it holds in the world today. He was always interested in business itself and the bigger picture from a young age.
The last couple of chapters also clearly demonstrate how beneficial it was for Bill to have a father who was an excellent lawyer. Bill Gates Sr. offered invaluable counsel to his son when he got into trouble in school and Harvard, and later business when Microsoft was getting shafted on their first major contract with the Altair manufacturer. It's quite amazing all the serendipitous pieces that combined together to allow Bill Gates to cement his role in the personal computer revolution, and I was surprised how moving some parts of his story were.