Bill Gates Looks Back On His Early Years In New Memoir | The View

So Bill, this new memoir, which is first in a trilogy that you're writing covers your early years all the way up to the founding of Microsoft. Now you've spent most of your life focused on the future and the next great innovation. What was it like to have to stand still and look behind you and sort of go through who you were and who you got to be? Well, most of my life, as you say, has been pushing ahead as fast as I can. And even now there's incredible innovations for health and education that I love working on. But as I'm turning 70, which you're with me on that, maybe it's time to look back a little bit. And it was a fun process talking to my two sisters, thinking about how lucky I was to have the father I did, the mother I did, and how they dealt with my unusual characteristics, which weren't always easy for them, and really directed my energy in a way that ended up working out better than I deserved. Weren't always easy is a very generous way to capture a lot of your childhood. Because when you weren't the straight A student a lot of people would expect, including myself, you were the class clown and quite rebellious. I'm gonna run through a highlight reel real quickly here. Feel free to elaborate. So in fourth grade, you made a classmate faint and show and tell, never seen that done before. By 13, you were sneaking out of the house until 2 a.m. in high school. You passed out drunkenly in the teacher's lounge. One. Okay, sorry, just one. At 21, you talked your way into jail for a night. And at Harvard, a professor summed up your attitude in one word. What was that? Well, was it when he said I was precocious? That might be it. That's very charitable. That's charitable. Also charitable. And probably correct. Anything to add to the color of these stories, or do they stand alone? Well, I was a goof off until about ninth grade. And then I decided, okay, they actually think I'm dumb and I don't want them to think that. So I did get serious about school in high school, and then I was lucky enough to spend a few years at Harvard. It was weird because some teachers said I should be pushed ahead a grade or two. Some said I should be pushed behind, literally in the same year. And so that confused my parents a little bit. Well, you open up about your neurodiversity, saying you probably would have been, if you'd been diagnosed at the time, you probably would have been on the autism spectrum. And if you were growing up today, at what point did you realize this and how and when did you learn to channel it into a strength? Well, I knew my ability to concentrate was different than the other kids. I'd be in my room reading books and just digging into topics. I wrote a report on Delaware and I did 170 pages and the other kids did five pages. On Delaware, oh, yeah, hyper-focused, yeah. I must have misunderstood that one. And I didn't think about this diagnosis until I was an adult and somebody asked me and I was like, wow, that's interesting. I was late to develop socially, I rock a little bit and I challenged my parents quite a bit. So, no, I definitely think I would have been diagnosed that way. Interesting. Well, in middle school, you forged a connection with a classmate who would later go on to help you found Microsoft, two classmates, I believe. But one member of the group, your best friend Kent, died tragically in a mountain climbing accident when you were in high school. You write that you think he would have been the third founder of Microsoft. How did that loss affect you at such a young age? Well, I had such an idyllic childhood. There was, other than this close friend dying, nothing traumatic and he and I talked on the phone every night. So he went off to this mountain climbing thing, which is kind of strange that he did because he was no more coordinated than I was. And I got a call from the headmaster that weekend, which was very unusual. And he told me that not only had Kent been injured, but that he had died. And so, you just don't have a concept of somebody your age disappearing. The only thing that really got me back engaged was thinking of his parents and how much worse it was for them. They were so excited about his energy and possibilities, and that was taken away from them. And in fact, late in the book, I talked about running into Kent's father and talking about what would have happened if he had been part of it. My other friend, Paul Allen, was the co-founder and played a very key role in thinking up the idea of Microsoft. And he got to participate in seeing essentially our dreams come true. Well, you have some major milestones coming up, like your 70th birthday, which you mentioned, the 50th anniversary of Microsoft, the 25th anniversary of the Gates Foundation. When you reflect on all that you've achieved, what is your biggest regret and what's your proudest accomplishment? For my life overall, I'd say my kids are what's most amazing. I have two granddaughters who I was with this weekend, two, and that is one of them right there. In my work, I put the foundation work even a bit above the Microsoft work. The fact that there were so many things that weren't being worked on, including polio, malaria, that we've been able to come in and fund the great scientists and work with governments, including up till now the U.S. government. So, I'd put that of my professional achievements the highest, but for my 20 to 40, creating Microsoft and the empowerment that personal computing brought, I was so lucky to be one of the leaders there. It's really amazing when you think about it, people always think when you're a kid and you're different, they just don't know what to do. They don't know how to handle it, but look what happens. Support your kids who are different, it can work out. They can be Orbeez or Bill Gates, you guys. This is true. Bill Gates, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming to this table. Please come anytime, you're more than welcome here. No, it was fun, thank you. Oh good, the new memoir, Source Code, My Beginnings, is available right now. Scan the QR code on your screen to purchase it. And members of our audience, I bet you knew I was gonna say, you're taking home a copy of the book.