Source Code Audiobook By Bill Gates cover art

Source Code

My Beginnings

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Source Code

By: Bill Gates
Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
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About this listen

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age

“A surprisingly candid memoir of the Microsoft mogul’s early years…Reading this book feels like watching someone take a well-known black-and-white sketch, fill in the details, and paint it in vivid color.”—GeekWire

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.

©2025 Bill Gates (P)2025 Random House Audio
Business Science & Technology Inspiring Software Development Software

Critic reviews

“We cling to tidy success narratives—appealing stories that trace an outsize triumph to a single critical decision, a vital personality trait, a striking incident from childhood. Such stories make extraordinary success seem comprehensible, perhaps (we imagine) even attainable. Yet reality tends to be more complicated. At a certain level of achievement, success is unfathomably contingent, requiring a hefty amount of luck on top of remarkable ability and durable conviction. In Source Code, Bill Gates’s chronicle of his early years, we are treated to an unexpectedly revealing account of the swirl of factors leading to the birth of Microsoft and the ascent of personal computing.”—The Wall Street Journal

“A remarkably introspective and personally revealing tour through some of the key moments and experiences that shaped Gates the boy and teenage programming whiz, years before he became a business titan.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“In contrast to the current crop of swaggering tech bros, the Microsoft founder comes across as wry and self-deprecating in this memoir of starting out. . . . [This volume] 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. . . . There is a sense of the writer, older and wiser, trying to redeem the past through understanding it better, a thing that no one has yet seen Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg attempt in public. That alone makes Bill Gates a more human tech titan than most of his rivals, past and present.”—The Guardian

What listeners say about Source Code

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Story is great .. narrator annoying

I listed for the story not to hear a show. Very annoying . Gates story was good wish he narrated it .

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2 people found this helpful

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Engaging from start to finish

Wow, I did not expect the level of details and personal insights shared by Bill Gates. The book grabbed me from the start and had me reluctant to put it down all the way through the epilogue. To me, this was one of the top ten books I have ever read … and the most enjoyable. I highly recommend this book!

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Great Narration, But Not the Microsoft Story I Expected

I had been eagerly waiting for Source Code for months after preordering, especially since I had previously read Idea Man and wanted to hear the story from the other side. However, this book is primarily about Bill Gates’ youth rather than a deep dive into Microsoft’s history. While there is a chapter on Microsoft, it plays a relatively minor role in the overall narrative.

The title Source Code is excellent, and in hindsight, the cover featuring a young Bill should have made it clear what the focus would be.

One standout aspect is the narration—Wil Wheaton brings an incredible level of dramatization, which I’ve rarely heard in non-fiction audiobooks. At times, it feels a bit over the top, considering the book is in Bill’s own words, and he isn’t known for being particularly charismatic.

Overall, if you’re looking for insight into Gates’ early life and mindset, this is a great listen. But if you’re hoping for an in-depth Microsoft story or a look at his later life, this isn’t it. Hopefully, Bill has at least two more books in him—one focused entirely on Microsoft and another covering his post-Microsoft journey. I’d pre-order both immediately!

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So interesting

The whole story of Microsoft is fascinating, but I particularly liked
getting to know his parents.

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Just starting but need to comment on narrator

I am just beginning this audiobook..a few chapters in...but can already concur with others that Wil Wheaton's style of dropping the volume of the last word of some sentences is very distracting. It sounds as if I am about to have my Phone (which I listen with) is about to interrupt with a call or some other audible notification. I cannot hear that last word, or it's not very clear...and my mind jumps to see if there's a call coming in.

Another thing is Mr Wheaton's overdone enthusiastic narration style. Needs to dial it back a notch as it too is distracting and nothing like the way Mr. Gates speaks.

Fortunately, this doesn't happen so often that I will stop listening. And I am enjoying this.

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I love this biography!

I am about the same age as Bill, and stumbled into computers around 1977, as a medical research assistant as my first job. My professor introduced me to programming, and my life changed forever. When I read, or rather listen to, Bill's story I can totally feel the excitement he describes. It is an awesome book and I recommend everyone interested in the beginning of Microsoft to read it. Thank you Bill for sharing the early stories of your life.

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Complements Paul Allen’s memoir

It complements the story in Paul Allen’s memoir. Both Bill and Paul’s narrations are highly self-centered, each one considered themselves smarter than the other. In reality Without Allen’s processor emulators or Bill’s business drive “Micro Soft” wouldn’t have existed. Probably a 50/50 split would have been fair for Allen at least symbolically, though in reality both made massive wealth. Interesting book.

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Glimpse Into Home Computer's Birth

I learned so much about the details of how Microsoft came to be. The personal story of Bill Gates's growing up days was so interesting that it caused me to remember what I was doing when he was doing it. . . I loved the excitement of getting a craft computer in the mid-1970s and felt Bill's drive and determination during those times. It was also eye-opening to learn the role his father, mother, and sister played in his success. If I had only not sold the stock that many years ago . . .
Unfortunately, I found the reader to be distracting -- his sing/song delivery was annoying to me and often he would drop his voice so that I could not hear what he was saying. I would have to replay sections to try to catch the words.

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Amazing and inspiring story

Loved the story from beginning to end. Particularly enjoyed the sections narrated by Bill himself. I wish he would have narrated the entire book. As others have mentioned, the narration by Wil Wheaton is simply not good. Doesn’t sound natural and tries too hard to convey emotion. Having said that, the story is so good that even with the poor narration performance, it’s impossible to stop listening.

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Loved this story

I suspect that I am the prime target for this kind of book given that I spent my life programming computers and am only 4 years younger than Bill Gates. So much of what he talked about in the computer industry were things I also went through or was involved in at a company other than Microsoft. I am looking forward to the rest of the story though I spent my career trying hard to avoid having anything to do with Microsoft and their products! Still, there were plenty of times I could not avoid them as they were everywhere.

The narration was awful. The attempts by the narrator to channel laughter or excitement fell flat and were just annoying. The narrator had a terrible habit of nearly dropping off into silence on the last word or syllable of many sentences leaving you trying to figure out what he just said. A book this great deserves better.

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3 people found this helpful