In so many ways, Bill Gates did his most significant work outside of Microsoft, the company he co-founded with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975.
In his 20s, Gates saw the future in copyrighting software before the majority of the tech industry. When IBM
came to him to ask if he had an operating system for its first line of
personal computers, he said yes. Then, he purchased an operating system
from small software outfit in Seattle, modifying the software program
and called it MS-DOS. He licensed it to IBM for $50,000, retaining the
copyright.
As PCs became ever-popular, MS-DOS became the reigning operating
system. What followed were more benchmarks in innovation. Gates went on
to announce the revolutionary Windows in 1985, which became the most
widely used operating system; by 1987, the year after Microsoft went
public, the 31-year-old Gates became the world’s youngest billionaire at
that time.
Two years later, he founded Corbis,
the largest visual archive of art and photography, and in 1995, when
the Internet was still budding, Microsoft released the browser Internet Explorer. The same year, Gates became the world’s richest man.
However, it wasn’t until after his mother Mary Maxwell Gates passed
away in 1994 that Gates developed a visible stake outside of Microsoft,
which was largely due to his mother. Mary was a formidable woman in her
own right who served on several boards, including First Interstate Bank
in Seattle (which was founded by her grandfather), as well as for the
United Way national board where she served as its first female chair.
Close as they were, Mary and Gates butted heads often. At the age of
11, Gates seemed to gain precocious intellect overnight, his father
recalled to The Wall Street Journal.
The young Gates pushed back against his mother’s rules and
expectations, and their fights got explosive. Ultimately, she took him
to see a therapist, whom Gates informed, “I'm at war with my parents over who is in control."
The therapist, in turn, counseled Mary and her husband to ease
up. Ease up they did, enrolling him in a private school at the age of 13
where he’d have more academic freedom to pursue his interests -- and
where he discovered his love for computers.
However, his mother never stopped offering counsel and guidance.
Years later, when Gates took Microsoft public and became a billionaire, a
Microsoft employee recounts how the two quarreled after Mary pressured her son to use his wealth for philanthropy.
Gates responded by yelling, “I’m trying to run my company!"
However, the tech billionaire was convinced to create a fundraising
arm at Microsoft and donate to his mother’s preferred charity: The
United Way. Eventually, he joined its board. But, it was a letter that
his mother gave his bride-to-be at the time in 1994 that lead to his
work in philanthropy on a purposeful scale.
Her letter read: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected.”
Six months later, she died. Gates never forgot her words. He tasked
his father, Bill Gates Sr., with $100 million to start the William H.
Gates Foundation in 1994 to give grants to worthy causes. It eventually
became part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (founded in
2000).
In 2011, Gates and his wife, along with his good friend Warren Buffett, devised The Giving Pledge, a campaign to convince the world’s wealthiest to give away the majority of their fortunes during their lifetimes.
From advocating for and funding Common Core initiatives in education
to providing vaccines to combating infectious disease in the world’s
poorest communities -- and more recently, focusing $80 million on gender
gap research -- the Seattle titan worth $87.4 billion is one of the true radicals and visionaries of our time.
He sets a high bar for the rest of his ilk -- both and his wife have given away more than $29 billion so far.
Here are five more lessons we can learn from his remarkable life.
Monday 12 September 2016
Monday 1 February 2016
Bill Gates to launch clean energy project on sidelines of Paris climate talks
Microsoft co-founder will announce multi-billion-dollar Initiative Cleantech on opening day of two-week climate summit alongside Barack Obama
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a multi-billion-dollar clean energy research and development initiative on Monday, the opening day of the United Nations climate change summit in Paris, it was reported on Friday.
Gates and a group of developing and developed countries will agree to double their research and development budgets to boost clean energy deployment and work collaboratively, according to GreenWire, an energy and climate trade publication which cited government and business officials familiar with the agreement.
Gates will join Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, US president Barack Obama and French president François Hollande to announce Initiative Cleantech at a side event on the opening day of the two-week climate summit, according to a summit agenda released by the French government on Friday.
For India, the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, access to clean energy technology is at the core of its national strategy to combat climate change.
India has argued that developed countries need to help poorer countries gain access to renewable energy or zero emission technologies by helping reduce incremental costs and removing barriers such as intellectual property rights.
On the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York in September, Gates attended a bilateral meeting focused on climate change between Hollande and Modi.
“With people like him [Gates] getting involved, there is a real possibility of there being private-sector partnerships on the technology side,” a Modi spokesman said after the meeting.
Gates has pledged $2bn of his personal wealth over the next five years to “bend the curve” on climate change, he said this summer.
In a blogpost in July, Gates said more breakthrough technologies are needed to combat climate change and that current technologies can only reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a “beyond astronomical” cost.
He said accelerating government funding for clean energy research and development is crucial to attracting private investment to the field.
Gates will join Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, US president Barack Obama and French president François Hollande to announce Initiative Cleantech. Photograph: Jean-Pierre Clatot/AFP/Getty Images
Gates and a group of developing and developed countries will agree to double their research and development budgets to boost clean energy deployment and work collaboratively, according to GreenWire, an energy and climate trade publication which cited government and business officials familiar with the agreement.
Access to clean energy technology will play a key role in a global agreement to combat climate change. More than 190 countries will negotiate a new pact in Paris from 30 November to 11 December.
Gates will join Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, US president Barack Obama and French president François Hollande to announce Initiative Cleantech at a side event on the opening day of the two-week climate summit, according to a summit agenda released by the French government on Friday.
For India, the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, access to clean energy technology is at the core of its national strategy to combat climate change.
India has argued that developed countries need to help poorer countries gain access to renewable energy or zero emission technologies by helping reduce incremental costs and removing barriers such as intellectual property rights.
On the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York in September, Gates attended a bilateral meeting focused on climate change between Hollande and Modi.
“With people like him [Gates] getting involved, there is a real possibility of there being private-sector partnerships on the technology side,” a Modi spokesman said after the meeting.
Gates has pledged $2bn of his personal wealth over the next five years to “bend the curve” on climate change, he said this summer.
In a blogpost in July, Gates said more breakthrough technologies are needed to combat climate change and that current technologies can only reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a “beyond astronomical” cost.
He said accelerating government funding for clean energy research and development is crucial to attracting private investment to the field.
Tuesday 19 January 2016
Biography of Bill Gates
William Henry Gates was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington. As the principal founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is one of the most influential and richest people on the planet. Recent estimates of his wealth put it at $56 billion, this is the equivalent of the combined GDP of several African economies. In recent years he has retired from working full time at Microsoft, and has instead has concentrated on working with his charitable foundation “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”
Bill Gates foundation of Microsoft
Bill Gates – Windows
In 1990 Microsoft released its first version of Windows. This was a break through in operating software as it replaced text interfaces with graphical interfaces. It soon became a best seller and was able to capture the majority of the operating system market share. In 1995 Windows 95 was released, setting new standards and features for operating systems. This version of windows has been the backbone of all future releases from Windows 2000 to the latest XP and Vista.
Throughout his time in office Bill Gates has been keen to diversify the business of Microsoft. For example Microsoft’s Internet Explorer became the dominant web browser, although this is mainly because it comes pre installed on most new computers, and in recent years has seen its market share slip.
One area where Microsoft has never been as successful is in the area of search engines. MSN live search has struggled to gain more than 5 % of market share. In this respect Microsoft has been dwarfed by Google. Nevertheless the success of Microsoft in cornering various aspects of the software market has led to several anti trust cases. In 1998 US v Microsoft, Microsoft came close to being broken up into three smaller firms. However on appeal Microsoft were able to survive as a single firm.
Philanthropic Activities – Bill Gates
Bill Gates is married to Melinda French (married in 1992). They have three children Jennifer (1996), Rory (1999) and Phoebe (2002). With his wife Bill Gates formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates says much of the inspiration came from the example of David Rockefeller. Like Rockefeller, Gates has sought to focus on global issues ignored by the government; he also expressed an interest in improving the standards of public school education in the US. He has appeared with Oprah Winfrey to promote this objective. In respect to charitable, philanthropic activities Gates has also received encouragement from investor Warren Buffet, who has given away $17 billion, through the Gates Foundation.
From 2008 Gates has worked full time on his philanthropic interests. It is estimated Gates and his wife Melinda have given away $28 billion via their charitable foundation – including $8 billion to improve global health.
Gates has said that he has no use for money, and will only leave a small percentage of his wealth to his children. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Gates states:
Bill Gates foundation of Microsoft
Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1976 when he formed a contract with MITTS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) to develop a basic operating system for their new microcomputers. In the early days Bill Gates would review every line of code. He was also involved in several aspects of Microsoft’s business such as packing and sending off orders.
The big break for Microsoft came in 1980 when IBM approached them for a new BASIC operating system for its new computers. In the early 1980s IBM was by far the leading PC manufacture. However, increasingly, there developed many IBM PC clones; (PCs developed by other companies compatible with IBM’s). Microsoft worked hard to sell its operating system to these other companies. Thus Microsoft was able to gain the dominant position of software manufacture just as the personal computer market started to boom. Since its early dominance, no other company has come close to displacing Microsoft as the dominant provider of computer operating software.
The big break for Microsoft came in 1980 when IBM approached them for a new BASIC operating system for its new computers. In the early 1980s IBM was by far the leading PC manufacture. However, increasingly, there developed many IBM PC clones; (PCs developed by other companies compatible with IBM’s). Microsoft worked hard to sell its operating system to these other companies. Thus Microsoft was able to gain the dominant position of software manufacture just as the personal computer market started to boom. Since its early dominance, no other company has come close to displacing Microsoft as the dominant provider of computer operating software.
Bill Gates – Windows
In 1990 Microsoft released its first version of Windows. This was a break through in operating software as it replaced text interfaces with graphical interfaces. It soon became a best seller and was able to capture the majority of the operating system market share. In 1995 Windows 95 was released, setting new standards and features for operating systems. This version of windows has been the backbone of all future releases from Windows 2000 to the latest XP and Vista.
Throughout his time in office Bill Gates has been keen to diversify the business of Microsoft. For example Microsoft’s Internet Explorer became the dominant web browser, although this is mainly because it comes pre installed on most new computers, and in recent years has seen its market share slip.
One area where Microsoft has never been as successful is in the area of search engines. MSN live search has struggled to gain more than 5 % of market share. In this respect Microsoft has been dwarfed by Google. Nevertheless the success of Microsoft in cornering various aspects of the software market has led to several anti trust cases. In 1998 US v Microsoft, Microsoft came close to being broken up into three smaller firms. However on appeal Microsoft were able to survive as a single firm.
Philanthropic Activities – Bill Gates
Bill Gates is married to Melinda French (married in 1992). They have three children Jennifer (1996), Rory (1999) and Phoebe (2002). With his wife Bill Gates formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates says much of the inspiration came from the example of David Rockefeller. Like Rockefeller, Gates has sought to focus on global issues ignored by the government; he also expressed an interest in improving the standards of public school education in the US. He has appeared with Oprah Winfrey to promote this objective. In respect to charitable, philanthropic activities Gates has also received encouragement from investor Warren Buffet, who has given away $17 billion, through the Gates Foundation.
From 2008 Gates has worked full time on his philanthropic interests. It is estimated Gates and his wife Melinda have given away $28 billion via their charitable foundation – including $8 billion to improve global health.
Gates has said that he has no use for money, and will only leave a small percentage of his wealth to his children. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Gates states:
“I’m certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes,” he says, redundantly. “Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organisation and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world.”
His main areas of interest in philanthropy have been improving health, and in particularly helping to reduce diseases, such as polio which affect young children. He has also given more focus to environmental issues. In 2015, he gave $1 billion to a clean energy project, as he sees supporting new ‘greener’ technologies as a way to help deal with global warming.
His main areas of interest in philanthropy have been improving health, and in particularly helping to reduce diseases, such as polio which affect young children. He has also given more focus to environmental issues. In 2015, he gave $1 billion to a clean energy project, as he sees supporting new ‘greener’ technologies as a way to help deal with global warming.
10 Books That Bill Gates Wants You to Read to Become as Successful as Him
Ever heard the quote “learners are earners”? Bill Gates certainly has. He strives to read a book a week. No one is questioning his ability to earn! Luckily, you can follow his lead by following his blog, Gates Notes. He posts his thoughts on the books he reads so anyone can get into his mind and understand his views on success. Read on. Lead on.
1. Business Adventures by John Brooks
To have great success, it is important to understand why businesses are successful and why they fail. This book dives into the deep inner workings of why on both sides.
What the publisher says about it: “From Wall Street to Main Street, John Brooks, longtime contributor to the New Yorker, brings to life in vivid fashion twelve classic and timeless tales of corporate and financial life in America.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“Today, more than two decades after Warren lent it to me–and more than four decades after it was first published–Business Adventures remains the best business book I’ve ever read. John Brooks is still my favorite business writer.”
Actually, this book was so important to Bill Gates that he made a short video about it. In it, he interviews Warren Buffet and other high-profile business leaders. Read Gates’ review and watch the video here.
5. Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
Being successful requires a certain amount of innovation. This buzzword does not spark a strong visual for many people. Where Good Ideas Come From defines what makes fertile ground for successful innovation.
What the publisher says about the book: “The printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery–these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson’s answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“Especially for people in business or education, it’s a worthwhile book. It talks about the institutional structures that facilitate good ideas–how you get lots of people thinking about cutting edge problems, how you put people together in a space where different skill sets and influences can come together, how you make the right kinds of materials available but don’t force a conclusion.”
6. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
You can’t be successful if you are known as forgetful. This book can teach you how to memorize obscure facts and useful ones. Great for those of us who are bad with names.
What the publisher says about it: “Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer’s yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top ‘mental athletes.’ He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human memory.”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“Like most people, I’m fascinated by how the mind works, and memory is a big element of that. Part of the beauty of this book is that it makes clear how memory and understanding are not two different things. Building up the ability to reason and the ability to retain information go hand in hand.”
7. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa
This book outright says what we have all suspected: our college education may not have emphasized learning as much as we believed. This book can make you successful for two reasons:
1. You can put your college education in a mental box and give yourself permission to learn in the real world.
2. If you are an educator, there is a real need for successful innovation.
What the publisher says about this book: “In spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor’s degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they’re born.”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“The dismal results presented in Academically Adrift are based on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test in which students are asked to make a practical decision–such as, what kind of airplane a company should buy–and explain their choice based on a set of goals and facts about different options. I’m optimistic about the potential of innovation to help solve many of the problems with our post-secondary system. But we need more and better information.”
8. That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas L. Freidman and Michael Mandelbaum
Thinking that the US is going to hell in a handbasket creates a dismal picture of the world. Dismal pictures dampen a person’s ability to be successful. Some aspects are true: America is not growing as fast as other countries; we are falling behind in math and science and sometimes even business. It’s not actually horrifying; we have just been really amazing at inspiring other countries to be like us. And now it’s time for the US to take the next step and lead the world.
What the publisher says about the book: “In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyze the four major challenges we face as a country–globalization, the revolution in information technology, chronic deficits, and our pattern of energy consumption–and spell out what we need to do now to preserve American power in the world.”
What Bill Gates wrote about the book:
“That Used to Be Us is a fantastic book, and I really encourage people to read it.
The basic message is that other countries, the ones that are now competing with us and kind of scaring us, are not doing anything different from what we did in our past. We have a difficult time responding to them, however, because they’re copying the way we used to be, and meanwhile, we’ve changed. As our society has gotten richer, we’ve become more careful about protecting people’s rights and not harming the environment, for example.”
9. Deng Xiaoping by Ezra F Vogel
Being successful requires taking a tough situation and transforming it into a beautiful piece of art. That’s what Deng Xiaoping did with the most populous country in the world. Before he came into power, China was in poverty and was unable to pull itself out. Deng transformed China’s business practices and and improved the country’s economy.
What the publisher says about it: “No one in the twentieth century had a greater impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist–the pragmatic, disciplined force behind China’s radical economic, technological, and social transformation.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“China in 1979 was one of the poorest countries in the world, far poorer than India. They were barely scratching out a living and their population density made it difficult for them to feed their population. There was very little to build on other than the fact that the party had incredible authority.
With this authority, Deng set in motion a series of critical changes early on in his leadership to achieve cultural stability and significant economic growth. To have done this essentially in one generation is an unbelievable accomplishment and is unique in the history of the world.”
10. The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen
At first glance, it looks like this book is about railroads and engines. That’s plenty cool if you’re into that kind of stuff. The real meaning is about why these machines were so successful. What was the idea that made railroads so capable of changing the world?
Here’s what the publisher said about it: “Hardly a week passes without some high-profile court case that features intellectual property at its center. But how did the belief that one could own an idea come about? And how did that belief change the way humankind lives and works?”
What Bill Gates wrote about the book:
“The book’s premise is that the Anglophone world–England, Scotland, Wales and America–was the epicenter of the Industrial Revolution because it ‘democratized the nature of invention.’ Rosen makes a compelling argument that the steam engine is the quintessential example of that democratization at work.
Rosen’s view fits my own view of the power of measurement to advance the work of our foundation. (I focused my 2013 Annual Letter from the foundation on measurement and the amazing things you can accomplish in global health, education and other areas if you set clear goals and can measure your progress toward them.)”
1. Business Adventures by John Brooks
To have great success, it is important to understand why businesses are successful and why they fail. This book dives into the deep inner workings of why on both sides.
What the publisher says about it: “From Wall Street to Main Street, John Brooks, longtime contributor to the New Yorker, brings to life in vivid fashion twelve classic and timeless tales of corporate and financial life in America.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“Today, more than two decades after Warren lent it to me–and more than four decades after it was first published–Business Adventures remains the best business book I’ve ever read. John Brooks is still my favorite business writer.”
Actually, this book was so important to Bill Gates that he made a short video about it. In it, he interviews Warren Buffet and other high-profile business leaders. Read Gates’ review and watch the video here.
2. Tap Dancing to Work by Carol Loomis
It’s no secret that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have a strong relationship. This book is a compilation of Buffett’s articles interwoven by his colleague and close friend, Carol Loomis. If you want to learn about the unfolding of great success, this one is for you.
What the publisher says about it: “Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into something remarkable–and Fortune journalist Carol Loomis had a front-row seat for it all.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“I think anyone who reads it cover to cover will come away with two reactions: First, how Warren’s been incredibly consistent in applying his vision and investment principles over the duration of his career; and, secondly, that his analysis and understanding of business and markets remains unparalleled.”
3. Life is What You Make It by Peter Buffett
Peter Buffett has been successful in his life too, although not completely because of his wealthy, successful father. This book tells the story of a hard-working wealthy child, and what his father instilled in him to become successful in music and philanthropy. Bill Gates said he will be reading it with his older children. You don’t have to be the child of a wealthy man to get this wisdom and enjoy your path.
What the publisher says about it: “From composer, musician, and philanthropist Peter Buffett comes a warm, wise, and inspirational book that asks, Which will you choose: the path of least resistance or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction?”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“Contrary to what many people might assume, Peter won’t inherit great wealth from his father. Instead, he was encouraged by his parents to find his own path. The book is a chronicle of that journey–and the wisdom and perceptions he has developed along the way.”
It’s no secret that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have a strong relationship. This book is a compilation of Buffett’s articles interwoven by his colleague and close friend, Carol Loomis. If you want to learn about the unfolding of great success, this one is for you.
What the publisher says about it: “Warren Buffett built Berkshire Hathaway into something remarkable–and Fortune journalist Carol Loomis had a front-row seat for it all.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“I think anyone who reads it cover to cover will come away with two reactions: First, how Warren’s been incredibly consistent in applying his vision and investment principles over the duration of his career; and, secondly, that his analysis and understanding of business and markets remains unparalleled.”
3. Life is What You Make It by Peter Buffett
Peter Buffett has been successful in his life too, although not completely because of his wealthy, successful father. This book tells the story of a hard-working wealthy child, and what his father instilled in him to become successful in music and philanthropy. Bill Gates said he will be reading it with his older children. You don’t have to be the child of a wealthy man to get this wisdom and enjoy your path.
What the publisher says about it: “From composer, musician, and philanthropist Peter Buffett comes a warm, wise, and inspirational book that asks, Which will you choose: the path of least resistance or the path of potentially greatest satisfaction?”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“Contrary to what many people might assume, Peter won’t inherit great wealth from his father. Instead, he was encouraged by his parents to find his own path. The book is a chronicle of that journey–and the wisdom and perceptions he has developed along the way.”
4. Awakening Joy by James Baraz
Why do you want to be successful? Joy may be a reason. This book teaches you how to have joy while you are becoming successful.
What the publisher says about it: “Awakening Joy is more than just another book about happiness. More than simply offering suggested strategies to change our behavior, it uses time-tested practices to train the mind to learn new ways of thinking.
The principles of the course are universal, although much of the material includes Buddhist philosophy drawn from the author’s thirty years as a Buddhist meditation teacher and spiritual counselor.”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“Joy is not for just the lucky few–it’s a choice anyone can make. In this groundbreaking book, based on his popular course, James Baraz helps you discover a path to the happiness that’s right in front of you, offering a step-by-step program that will reorient your mind away from dissatisfaction and distraction and toward the contentment and delight that is abundantly available in our everyday lives.”
Why do you want to be successful? Joy may be a reason. This book teaches you how to have joy while you are becoming successful.
What the publisher says about it: “Awakening Joy is more than just another book about happiness. More than simply offering suggested strategies to change our behavior, it uses time-tested practices to train the mind to learn new ways of thinking.
The principles of the course are universal, although much of the material includes Buddhist philosophy drawn from the author’s thirty years as a Buddhist meditation teacher and spiritual counselor.”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“Joy is not for just the lucky few–it’s a choice anyone can make. In this groundbreaking book, based on his popular course, James Baraz helps you discover a path to the happiness that’s right in front of you, offering a step-by-step program that will reorient your mind away from dissatisfaction and distraction and toward the contentment and delight that is abundantly available in our everyday lives.”
5. Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson
Being successful requires a certain amount of innovation. This buzzword does not spark a strong visual for many people. Where Good Ideas Come From defines what makes fertile ground for successful innovation.
What the publisher says about the book: “The printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery–these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson’s answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“Especially for people in business or education, it’s a worthwhile book. It talks about the institutional structures that facilitate good ideas–how you get lots of people thinking about cutting edge problems, how you put people together in a space where different skill sets and influences can come together, how you make the right kinds of materials available but don’t force a conclusion.”
6. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
You can’t be successful if you are known as forgetful. This book can teach you how to memorize obscure facts and useful ones. Great for those of us who are bad with names.
What the publisher says about it: “Moonwalking with Einstein recounts Joshua Foer’s yearlong quest to improve his memory under the tutelage of top ‘mental athletes.’ He draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of remembering, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human memory.”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“Like most people, I’m fascinated by how the mind works, and memory is a big element of that. Part of the beauty of this book is that it makes clear how memory and understanding are not two different things. Building up the ability to reason and the ability to retain information go hand in hand.”
7. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa
This book outright says what we have all suspected: our college education may not have emphasized learning as much as we believed. This book can make you successful for two reasons:
1. You can put your college education in a mental box and give yourself permission to learn in the real world.
2. If you are an educator, there is a real need for successful innovation.
What the publisher says about this book: “In spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor’s degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they’re born.”
What Bill Gates says about it:
“The dismal results presented in Academically Adrift are based on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test in which students are asked to make a practical decision–such as, what kind of airplane a company should buy–and explain their choice based on a set of goals and facts about different options. I’m optimistic about the potential of innovation to help solve many of the problems with our post-secondary system. But we need more and better information.”
8. That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas L. Freidman and Michael Mandelbaum
Thinking that the US is going to hell in a handbasket creates a dismal picture of the world. Dismal pictures dampen a person’s ability to be successful. Some aspects are true: America is not growing as fast as other countries; we are falling behind in math and science and sometimes even business. It’s not actually horrifying; we have just been really amazing at inspiring other countries to be like us. And now it’s time for the US to take the next step and lead the world.
What the publisher says about the book: “In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyze the four major challenges we face as a country–globalization, the revolution in information technology, chronic deficits, and our pattern of energy consumption–and spell out what we need to do now to preserve American power in the world.”
What Bill Gates wrote about the book:
“That Used to Be Us is a fantastic book, and I really encourage people to read it.
The basic message is that other countries, the ones that are now competing with us and kind of scaring us, are not doing anything different from what we did in our past. We have a difficult time responding to them, however, because they’re copying the way we used to be, and meanwhile, we’ve changed. As our society has gotten richer, we’ve become more careful about protecting people’s rights and not harming the environment, for example.”
9. Deng Xiaoping by Ezra F Vogel
Being successful requires taking a tough situation and transforming it into a beautiful piece of art. That’s what Deng Xiaoping did with the most populous country in the world. Before he came into power, China was in poverty and was unable to pull itself out. Deng transformed China’s business practices and and improved the country’s economy.
What the publisher says about it: “No one in the twentieth century had a greater impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist–the pragmatic, disciplined force behind China’s radical economic, technological, and social transformation.”
What Bill Gates wrote about it:
“China in 1979 was one of the poorest countries in the world, far poorer than India. They were barely scratching out a living and their population density made it difficult for them to feed their population. There was very little to build on other than the fact that the party had incredible authority.
With this authority, Deng set in motion a series of critical changes early on in his leadership to achieve cultural stability and significant economic growth. To have done this essentially in one generation is an unbelievable accomplishment and is unique in the history of the world.”
10. The Most Powerful Idea in the World by William Rosen
At first glance, it looks like this book is about railroads and engines. That’s plenty cool if you’re into that kind of stuff. The real meaning is about why these machines were so successful. What was the idea that made railroads so capable of changing the world?
Here’s what the publisher said about it: “Hardly a week passes without some high-profile court case that features intellectual property at its center. But how did the belief that one could own an idea come about? And how did that belief change the way humankind lives and works?”
What Bill Gates wrote about the book:
“The book’s premise is that the Anglophone world–England, Scotland, Wales and America–was the epicenter of the Industrial Revolution because it ‘democratized the nature of invention.’ Rosen makes a compelling argument that the steam engine is the quintessential example of that democratization at work.
Rosen’s view fits my own view of the power of measurement to advance the work of our foundation. (I focused my 2013 Annual Letter from the foundation on measurement and the amazing things you can accomplish in global health, education and other areas if you set clear goals and can measure your progress toward them.)”
17 Books From Bill Gates's Reading List
While Bill Gates has a schedule that's planned down to the minute, the entrepreneur-turned-billionaire-humanitarian still gobbles up about a book a week.
Aside from a handful of novels, they're mostly nonfiction books covering his and his foundation's broad range of interests. A lot of them are about transforming systems: how nations can intelligently develop, how to lead an organization, and how social change can fruitfully happen.
We went through the past five years of his book criticism to find the ones that he gave glowing reviews and that changed his perspective.
Aside from a handful of novels, they're mostly nonfiction books covering his and his foundation's broad range of interests. A lot of them are about transforming systems: how nations can intelligently develop, how to lead an organization, and how social change can fruitfully happen.
We went through the past five years of his book criticism to find the ones that he gave glowing reviews and that changed his perspective.
1. Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2012, by Carol Loomis
Warren Buffett and Gates have a famously epic bromance, what with their recommending books to each other and spearheading philanthropic campaigns together.
So it's no surprise that Gates enjoyed Tap Dancing to Work, a collection of articles and essays about and by Buffett, compiled by Fortune magazine journalist Carol Loomis.
Gates says that anyone who reads the book cover-to-cover will walk away with two main impressions:
First, how Warren's been incredibly consistent in applying his vision and investment principles over the duration of his career;
Second, that his analysis and understanding of business and markets remains unparalleled. I wrote in 1996 that I'd never met anyone who thought about business in such a clear way. That is certainly still the case.
Getting into the mind of Buffett is "an extremely worthwhile use of time," Gates concludes.
2. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization, by Vaclav Smil
Gates says his favorite author is Vaclav Smil, an environmental sciences professor who writes big histories of things like energy and innovation.
His latest is Making the Modern World. It got Gates thinking.
"It might seem mundane, but the issue of materials--how much we use and how much we need--is key to helping the world's poorest people improve their lives," he writes. "Think of the amazing increase in quality of life that we saw in the United States and other rich countries in the past 100 years. We want most of that miracle to take place for all of humanity over the next 50 years."
To know where we're going, Gates says, we need to know where we've been--and Smil is one of his favorite sources for learning that.
3. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert
It can be easy to forget that our present day is a part of world history. Gates says thatNew Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert's new book, The Sixth Extinction, helps correct that.
"Humans are putting down massive amounts of pavement, moving species around the planet, over-fishing and acidifying the oceans, changing the chemical composition of rivers, and more," Gates writes, echoing a concern that he voices in many of his reviews.
"Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth's history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs)," he continues, "and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth."
To get a hint of Kolbert's reporting, check out the series of stories that preceded the book's publication.
4. Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, by Tim Geithner
Gates stood at the center of an enormously complex system as CEO of Microsoft. Timothy Geithner did much the same as U.S. Treasury secretary, and saw the structure fall down around him during the financial crisis.
"Geithner paints a compelling human portrait of what it was like to be fighting a global financial meltdown while at the same time fighting critics inside and outside the Administration as well as his own severe guilt over his near-total absence from his family," Gates says. "The politics of fighting financial crises will always be ugly. But it helps if the public knows a little more about the subject."
Stress Test provides that knowledge.
5. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker
In Better Angels, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker branches out into the history of the most contentious of subjects: violence.
Gates says it's one of the most important books he's ever read.
"Pinker presents a tremendous amount of evidence that humans have gradually become much less violent and much more humane," he says, in a trend that started thousands of years ago and has continued until this day.
This isn't just ivory-tower theory. Gates says the book has affected his humanitarian work.
"As I'm someone who's fairly optimistic in general," he says, "the book struck a chord with me and got me to thinking about some of our foundation's strategies."
6. The Man Who Fed the World, by Leon Hesser
Even though Gates can get a meeting with almost anyone, he can't land a sit-down with Norman Borlaug, the late biologist and humanitarian who led the "Green Revolution," a series of innovations that kept a huge chunk of humanity from starving.
"Although a lot of people have never heard of Borlaug, he probably saved more lives than anyone else in history," Gates says. "It's estimated that his new seed varieties saved a billion people from starvation," many of whom were in India and Pakistan.
Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal for his efforts--and is one of only seven people to receive that honor.
For Gates, Borlaug is a model in getting important work done in the world.
"Borlaug was one-of-a-kind," he says, "equally skilled in the laboratory, mentoring young scientists, and cajoling reluctant bureaucrats and government officials."
Hesser's The Man Who Fed the World lets you peer into the personality that saved a billion lives.
7. Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales From the World of Wall Street, by John Brooks
Back in 1991, Gates asked Buffett what his favorite book was. In reply, Buffett sent the Microsoft founder his personal copy of Business Adventures, a collection of New Yorker stories by John Brooks.
Though the anecdotes are from half a century ago, the book remains Gates's favorite.
Gates says that the book serves as a reminder that the principles for building a winning business stay constant. He writes:
For one thing, there's an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn't matter if you have a perfect product, production plan and marketing pitch; you'll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.
Learning of the affections that Gates and Buffett have for this title, the business press has fallen similarly in love with the book.Slate quipped that Business Adventures is "catnip for billionaires."
8. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Like us, Gates is fascinated by the way Theodore Roosevelt was able to affect his society: busting trusts, setting up a park system, and the like.
For this reason, Gates appreciates how Goodwin's biography uses the presidency as a lens for understanding the shift of society.
"How does social change happen?" Gates asks in his review. "Can it be driven by a single inspirational leader, or do other factors have to lay the groundwork first?"
He says that TR shows how many stakeholders need to be involved.
"Although he tried to push through a number of political reforms earlier in his career," Gates says, Roosevelt "wasn't really successful until journalists at McClure's and other publications had rallied public support for change."
9. The Rosie Project: A Novel, by Graeme Simsion
Gates doesn't review a lot of fiction, but The Rosie Project, which came on the recommendation of his wife, Melinda, is an oddly perfect fit.
"Anyone who occasionally gets overly logical will identify with the hero, a genetics professor with Asperger's Syndrome who goes looking for a wife," he writes. "Melinda thought I would appreciate the parts where he's a little too obsessed with optimizing his schedule. She was right.)"
The book is funny, clever, and moving, Gates says, to the point that he read it in one sitting.
10. On Immunity, by Eula Biss
Even though the science all says that vaccines are among the most important inventions in human history, there's still a debate about whether they're a good idea.
In On Immunity, essayist Eula Biss pulls apart that argument.
She "uses the tools of literary analysis, philosophy, and science to examine the speedy, inaccurate rumors about childhood vaccines that have proliferated among well-meaning American parents," Gates writes. "Biss took up this topic not for academic reasons but because of her new role as a mom."
11. How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell
Joe Studwell is a business journalist whose central mission is understanding "development."
The Financial Times said that How Asia Works is "the first book to offer an Asia-wide deconstruction of success and failure in economic development."
Gates says that the book's thesis goes like this:
All the countries that become development success stories 1) create conditions for small farmers to thrive, 2) use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports, and 3) nurture both these sectors with financial institutions closely controlled by the government.
12. How to Lie With Statistics, by Darrell Huff
Published in 1954, How to Lie With Statistics is an introduction to statistics and a primer on how they can be manipulated.
It's "more relevant than ever," Gates says.
"One chapter shows you how visuals can be used to exaggerate trends and give distorted comparisons," he says. "It's a timely reminder, given how often infographics show up in your Facebook and Twitter feeds these days."
13. Epic Measures, by Jeremy Smith
Reading this biography was especially meaningful for Gates because he's known its subject, a doctor named Chris Murray, for more than a decade.
According to Gates, the book is a "highly readable account for anyone who wants to know more about Chris's work and why it matters."
That work involves creating the Global Burden of Disease, a public website that gathers data on the causes of human illness and death from researchers around the world. The idea is that we can't begin finding cures for health issues if we don't even know what those issues are.
Writes Gates: "As Epic Measures shows, the more we make sure reliable information gets out there, the better decisions we all can make, and the more impact we all can have."
14. Stuff Matters, by Mark Miodownik
If you're like most people, you use steel razors, glass cups, and paper notepads every day without thinking much about the materials they're made of.
In Stuff Matters, Miodownik, a materials scientist, aims to show you why the science behind those materials is so fascinating.
That premise might sound similar to Making the Modern World, a book by Gates's favorite author Vaclav Smil, which Gates also recommends. But Gates says the two works are "completely different." While Smil is a "facts-and-numbers guy," Miodownik is "heavy on romance and very light on numbers," potentially makingStuff Matters an easier read.
Gates claims his favorite chapter is the one on carbon, "which offers insights into one atom's massive past, present, and future role in human life."
15. Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh
It might be hard to imagine Gates curled up with a book of comic drawings. ButHyperbole and a Half, based on the blog by the same name, is more moving and profound than it is silly.
The stories and drawings in the book are based on scenes from auth Allie Brosh's life, as well as her imagined misadventures.
"It's funny and smart as hell," Gates writes, adding that "Brosh's stories feel incredibly--and sometimes brutally--real."
Gates was especially moved by the parts of the book that touch on Brosh's struggles with severe depression, including a series of images about her attempts to leave an appropriate suicide note.
It's a rare book that can simultaneously make you laugh, cry, and think existential thoughts--but this one seems to do it.
16. What If? by Randall Munroe
Another book based on a blog, What If? is a collection of cartoon-illustrated answers to hypothetical scientific questions.
Those questions range from the dystopian ("What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool?") to the philosophical ("What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?"). Each question was posed by a different reader, and author Randall Munroe, a former roboticist for NASA, goes to the greatest lengths to answer it accurately through research and interviews.
Gates writes:
The reason Munroe's approach is a great way to learn about science is that he takes ideas that everybody understands in a general way and then explores what happens when you take those ideas to their limits. For example, we all know pretty much what gravity is. But what if Earth's gravity were twice as strong as it is? What if it were three times as strong, or a hundred? Looking at the question in that way makes you start to think about gravity a little differently.
For anyone who's ever wished there were someone to indulge and investigate their secret scientific fantasies, this book comes in handy.
17. Should We Eat Meat? by Vaclav Smil
Gates isn't shy about proclaiming Vaclav Smil, a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, his favorite author. In fact, he's recommended several of Smil's books before.
As usual, Gates writes, Smil attacks the issue of whether humans should consume meat from every possible angle. First he tries to define meat, and then he looks at its role in human evolution, as well as how much meat each country consumes, the health and environmental risks, and the ethicality of raising animals for slaughter.
Gates, who was a vegetarian for a year during his 20s, is especially impressed by how Smil uses science to debunk common misconceptions, like the idea that raising meat for food involves a tremendous amount of water.
In fact, Gates writes:
Smil shows you how the picture is more complicated. It turns out that not all water is created equal. Nearly 90 percent of the water needed for livestock production is what's called green water, used to grow grass and such. In most places, all but a tiny fraction of green water comes from rain, and because most green water eventually evaporates back into the atmosphere, it's not really consumed.
Overall, the book left Gates feeling that evventually, "the world can meet its need for meat."
Warren Buffett and Gates have a famously epic bromance, what with their recommending books to each other and spearheading philanthropic campaigns together.
So it's no surprise that Gates enjoyed Tap Dancing to Work, a collection of articles and essays about and by Buffett, compiled by Fortune magazine journalist Carol Loomis.
Gates says that anyone who reads the book cover-to-cover will walk away with two main impressions:
First, how Warren's been incredibly consistent in applying his vision and investment principles over the duration of his career;
Second, that his analysis and understanding of business and markets remains unparalleled. I wrote in 1996 that I'd never met anyone who thought about business in such a clear way. That is certainly still the case.
Getting into the mind of Buffett is "an extremely worthwhile use of time," Gates concludes.
2. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization, by Vaclav Smil
Gates says his favorite author is Vaclav Smil, an environmental sciences professor who writes big histories of things like energy and innovation.
His latest is Making the Modern World. It got Gates thinking.
"It might seem mundane, but the issue of materials--how much we use and how much we need--is key to helping the world's poorest people improve their lives," he writes. "Think of the amazing increase in quality of life that we saw in the United States and other rich countries in the past 100 years. We want most of that miracle to take place for all of humanity over the next 50 years."
To know where we're going, Gates says, we need to know where we've been--and Smil is one of his favorite sources for learning that.
3. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert
It can be easy to forget that our present day is a part of world history. Gates says thatNew Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert's new book, The Sixth Extinction, helps correct that.
"Humans are putting down massive amounts of pavement, moving species around the planet, over-fishing and acidifying the oceans, changing the chemical composition of rivers, and more," Gates writes, echoing a concern that he voices in many of his reviews.
"Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth's history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs)," he continues, "and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth."
To get a hint of Kolbert's reporting, check out the series of stories that preceded the book's publication.
4. Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises, by Tim Geithner
Gates stood at the center of an enormously complex system as CEO of Microsoft. Timothy Geithner did much the same as U.S. Treasury secretary, and saw the structure fall down around him during the financial crisis.
"Geithner paints a compelling human portrait of what it was like to be fighting a global financial meltdown while at the same time fighting critics inside and outside the Administration as well as his own severe guilt over his near-total absence from his family," Gates says. "The politics of fighting financial crises will always be ugly. But it helps if the public knows a little more about the subject."
Stress Test provides that knowledge.
5. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker
In Better Angels, Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker branches out into the history of the most contentious of subjects: violence.
Gates says it's one of the most important books he's ever read.
"Pinker presents a tremendous amount of evidence that humans have gradually become much less violent and much more humane," he says, in a trend that started thousands of years ago and has continued until this day.
This isn't just ivory-tower theory. Gates says the book has affected his humanitarian work.
"As I'm someone who's fairly optimistic in general," he says, "the book struck a chord with me and got me to thinking about some of our foundation's strategies."
6. The Man Who Fed the World, by Leon Hesser
Even though Gates can get a meeting with almost anyone, he can't land a sit-down with Norman Borlaug, the late biologist and humanitarian who led the "Green Revolution," a series of innovations that kept a huge chunk of humanity from starving.
"Although a lot of people have never heard of Borlaug, he probably saved more lives than anyone else in history," Gates says. "It's estimated that his new seed varieties saved a billion people from starvation," many of whom were in India and Pakistan.
Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal for his efforts--and is one of only seven people to receive that honor.
For Gates, Borlaug is a model in getting important work done in the world.
"Borlaug was one-of-a-kind," he says, "equally skilled in the laboratory, mentoring young scientists, and cajoling reluctant bureaucrats and government officials."
Hesser's The Man Who Fed the World lets you peer into the personality that saved a billion lives.
7. Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales From the World of Wall Street, by John Brooks
Back in 1991, Gates asked Buffett what his favorite book was. In reply, Buffett sent the Microsoft founder his personal copy of Business Adventures, a collection of New Yorker stories by John Brooks.
Though the anecdotes are from half a century ago, the book remains Gates's favorite.
Gates says that the book serves as a reminder that the principles for building a winning business stay constant. He writes:
For one thing, there's an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn't matter if you have a perfect product, production plan and marketing pitch; you'll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.
Learning of the affections that Gates and Buffett have for this title, the business press has fallen similarly in love with the book.Slate quipped that Business Adventures is "catnip for billionaires."
8. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Like us, Gates is fascinated by the way Theodore Roosevelt was able to affect his society: busting trusts, setting up a park system, and the like.
For this reason, Gates appreciates how Goodwin's biography uses the presidency as a lens for understanding the shift of society.
"How does social change happen?" Gates asks in his review. "Can it be driven by a single inspirational leader, or do other factors have to lay the groundwork first?"
He says that TR shows how many stakeholders need to be involved.
"Although he tried to push through a number of political reforms earlier in his career," Gates says, Roosevelt "wasn't really successful until journalists at McClure's and other publications had rallied public support for change."
9. The Rosie Project: A Novel, by Graeme Simsion
Gates doesn't review a lot of fiction, but The Rosie Project, which came on the recommendation of his wife, Melinda, is an oddly perfect fit.
"Anyone who occasionally gets overly logical will identify with the hero, a genetics professor with Asperger's Syndrome who goes looking for a wife," he writes. "Melinda thought I would appreciate the parts where he's a little too obsessed with optimizing his schedule. She was right.)"
The book is funny, clever, and moving, Gates says, to the point that he read it in one sitting.
10. On Immunity, by Eula Biss
Even though the science all says that vaccines are among the most important inventions in human history, there's still a debate about whether they're a good idea.
In On Immunity, essayist Eula Biss pulls apart that argument.
She "uses the tools of literary analysis, philosophy, and science to examine the speedy, inaccurate rumors about childhood vaccines that have proliferated among well-meaning American parents," Gates writes. "Biss took up this topic not for academic reasons but because of her new role as a mom."
11. How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell
Joe Studwell is a business journalist whose central mission is understanding "development."
The Financial Times said that How Asia Works is "the first book to offer an Asia-wide deconstruction of success and failure in economic development."
Gates says that the book's thesis goes like this:
All the countries that become development success stories 1) create conditions for small farmers to thrive, 2) use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports, and 3) nurture both these sectors with financial institutions closely controlled by the government.
12. How to Lie With Statistics, by Darrell Huff
Published in 1954, How to Lie With Statistics is an introduction to statistics and a primer on how they can be manipulated.
It's "more relevant than ever," Gates says.
"One chapter shows you how visuals can be used to exaggerate trends and give distorted comparisons," he says. "It's a timely reminder, given how often infographics show up in your Facebook and Twitter feeds these days."
13. Epic Measures, by Jeremy Smith
Reading this biography was especially meaningful for Gates because he's known its subject, a doctor named Chris Murray, for more than a decade.
According to Gates, the book is a "highly readable account for anyone who wants to know more about Chris's work and why it matters."
That work involves creating the Global Burden of Disease, a public website that gathers data on the causes of human illness and death from researchers around the world. The idea is that we can't begin finding cures for health issues if we don't even know what those issues are.
Writes Gates: "As Epic Measures shows, the more we make sure reliable information gets out there, the better decisions we all can make, and the more impact we all can have."
14. Stuff Matters, by Mark Miodownik
If you're like most people, you use steel razors, glass cups, and paper notepads every day without thinking much about the materials they're made of.
In Stuff Matters, Miodownik, a materials scientist, aims to show you why the science behind those materials is so fascinating.
That premise might sound similar to Making the Modern World, a book by Gates's favorite author Vaclav Smil, which Gates also recommends. But Gates says the two works are "completely different." While Smil is a "facts-and-numbers guy," Miodownik is "heavy on romance and very light on numbers," potentially makingStuff Matters an easier read.
Gates claims his favorite chapter is the one on carbon, "which offers insights into one atom's massive past, present, and future role in human life."
15. Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh
It might be hard to imagine Gates curled up with a book of comic drawings. ButHyperbole and a Half, based on the blog by the same name, is more moving and profound than it is silly.
The stories and drawings in the book are based on scenes from auth Allie Brosh's life, as well as her imagined misadventures.
"It's funny and smart as hell," Gates writes, adding that "Brosh's stories feel incredibly--and sometimes brutally--real."
Gates was especially moved by the parts of the book that touch on Brosh's struggles with severe depression, including a series of images about her attempts to leave an appropriate suicide note.
It's a rare book that can simultaneously make you laugh, cry, and think existential thoughts--but this one seems to do it.
16. What If? by Randall Munroe
Another book based on a blog, What If? is a collection of cartoon-illustrated answers to hypothetical scientific questions.
Those questions range from the dystopian ("What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool?") to the philosophical ("What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?"). Each question was posed by a different reader, and author Randall Munroe, a former roboticist for NASA, goes to the greatest lengths to answer it accurately through research and interviews.
Gates writes:
The reason Munroe's approach is a great way to learn about science is that he takes ideas that everybody understands in a general way and then explores what happens when you take those ideas to their limits. For example, we all know pretty much what gravity is. But what if Earth's gravity were twice as strong as it is? What if it were three times as strong, or a hundred? Looking at the question in that way makes you start to think about gravity a little differently.
For anyone who's ever wished there were someone to indulge and investigate their secret scientific fantasies, this book comes in handy.
17. Should We Eat Meat? by Vaclav Smil
Gates isn't shy about proclaiming Vaclav Smil, a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba, his favorite author. In fact, he's recommended several of Smil's books before.
As usual, Gates writes, Smil attacks the issue of whether humans should consume meat from every possible angle. First he tries to define meat, and then he looks at its role in human evolution, as well as how much meat each country consumes, the health and environmental risks, and the ethicality of raising animals for slaughter.
Gates, who was a vegetarian for a year during his 20s, is especially impressed by how Smil uses science to debunk common misconceptions, like the idea that raising meat for food involves a tremendous amount of water.
In fact, Gates writes:
Smil shows you how the picture is more complicated. It turns out that not all water is created equal. Nearly 90 percent of the water needed for livestock production is what's called green water, used to grow grass and such. In most places, all but a tiny fraction of green water comes from rain, and because most green water eventually evaporates back into the atmosphere, it's not really consumed.
Overall, the book left Gates feeling that evventually, "the world can meet its need for meat."
The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates
The saga of the computing industry is rich with outsize characters and surprising plot turns, but there's one story that has risen over time to mythic proportions. It's the tale of how software pioneer Gary Kildall missed out on the opportunity to supply IBM (IBM) with the operating system for its first PC -- essentially handing the chance of a lifetime, and control of tech's future, to rival Bill Gates and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). In the process, he may have missed out on becoming the world's richest man.
The legend goes like this: One fateful day in the summer of 1980, three buttoned-down IBMers called on a band of hippie programmers at Digital Research Inc. located in Pacific Grove, Calif. They hoped to discuss licensing DRI's industry-leading operating system, CP/M. Instead, DRI founder Gary Kildall blew off IBM to gallivant around in his airplane, and the frustrated IBMers turned to Gates for their operating system. This anecdote has been told so often that techies need only be reminded of "the day Gary Kildall went flying" to recall the rest. While he's revered for his technical innovations, many believe Kildall made one of the biggest mistakes in the history of commerce.
But what if that's not what happened? What if IBM and Microsoft deprived Kildall not only of untold riches but also of the credit for a seminal role in the PC revolution? That's the thesis of a chapter about Kildall in They Made America, a serious coffee table history book by renowned author and former newspaper editor Harold Evans. The book, published by Little Brown on Oct. 12, profiles 70 American innovators and is the inspiration for an upcoming PBS series. And while other tech authors have debunked the gallivanting story before, Evans bases his Kildall chapter on a 226-page, never-published memoir written by Kildall just before his death in 1994. Early on, Kildall seemed to represent the best hopes of the nascent computer industry. But by the time he died at age 52, after falling in a tavern, he had become embittered and struggled with alcohol.
They Made America is certain to elicit cries of protest. That's because it attacks the reputations of some of the key players of the early PC era -- Gates, IBM, and Tim Paterson, the Seattle programmer who wrote an operating system, QDOS, based partly on CP/M that became Microsoft's DOS. Evans asserts that Paterson copied parts of CP/M and that IBM tricked Kildall. Because Gates rather than the more innovative Kildall prevailed, according to the book, the world's PC users endured "more than a decade of crashes with incalculable economic cost in lost data and lost opportunities." David G. Lefer, one of Evans' two collaborators, says: "We're trying to set the record straight. Gates didn't invent the PC operating system, and any history that says he did is wrong."
There's no doubt that Kildall was one of the pioneers of the industry. He invented the first operating system for microcomputers in the early 1970s, making it possible for hobbyists and companies to build the first personal computers. Legalities aside, Microsoft's original DOS was based in part on Kildall's CP/M. His insight was that by creating an operating system separate from the hardware, applications could run on computers that were made by different manufacturers. "What really drove Gary was inventing things," says friend and former DRI executive Tom Rolander in an interview with BusinessWeek.
Still, Evans' book falls short of clarifying exactly how Kildall lost out to Gates. He relies primarily on Kildall's memoir, his family, and his friends. Evans says he requested an interview with Gates, which he says Microsoft denied. He didn't make contact with IBM or Paterson, but tapped previously published accounts for that side of the story. IBM would not talk to BusinessWeek for this article, but former IBMers take issue with Kildall's version of events. Microsoft calls the book "one-sided and inaccurate," and says the company is proud of the "foundational role" it played in the industry. Paterson denies he stole Kildall's intellectual property. He says he's stunned that the authors failed to get in touch with him. "You'd think they might have asked. I'm not hard to find," he says.
HAZY MEMORIES
What's hard to find is the truth. A dozen interviews by BusinessWeek with people on all sides paint a blurry picture of those crucial days in the summer of 1980. While Kildall claims in his memoir that he met with IBM that first day and reached a handshake agreement, DRI's own lawyer at the time, Gerry Davis, says there was no deal. One of the IBMers who visited DRI that day insists he didn't talk to Kildall, but another, Jack Sams, now retired, says it's possible he was introduced to Kildall, although he doesn't remember it. Sams says faulty memories and self-serving accounts make it nearly impossible to tell exactly what happened during those chaotic weeks. "Back in those days, there was a lot of misinformation that was deliberate," he says, pointing out that IBM originally claimed it had made the PC all by itself. "We spun it, Kildall spun it, and Microsoft spun it."
The story begins unambiguously. A group of IBMers, working on a secret project to build a personal computer, flew to Seattle in August, 1980, to see if Gates could supply them with an operating system. He couldn't -- and referred them to Kildall. When they showed up at DRI's offices the next day, Kildall's then-wife, Dorothy McEwen, the company's business manager, refused to sign their nondisclosure agreement. She is now ill with brain cancer and can't remember the events, according to daughter Kristin Kildall. But Rolander, who flew with Kildall on a business trip that morning, tells BusinessWeek they returned in the afternoon and Kildall did meet with IBM.
If Kildall struck a handshake deal that day, it didn't stick. Sams says he did get together with Kildall in Pacific Grove a short time later, but they couldn't reach an agreement. At around the same time, he saw Gates again. He and Gates both knew of the operating system Paterson had built at Seattle Computer Co. As Sams recounts, "Gates said: 'Do you want to get [QDOS], or do you want me to?' I said: 'By all means, you get it."' Gates bought Paterson's program, called QDOS, for $50,000, renamed it DOS, improved it, and licensed it to IBM for a low per-copy royalty fee.
THE SHOUTING
It wasn't until nearly a year later that Kildall discovered that Gates, a longtime friend, had plucked the plum software deal out of his grasp. IBM sent test versions of its PC out shortly before it was announced in August, 1981, and a consultant working for DRI noticed the operating system was remarkably similar to CP/M. The consultant, Andy Johnson-Laird, remembers that Kildall looked at the screen and was stunned. "There were some shallow changes, but it was essentially the same program," says Johnson-Laird in an interview with BusinessWeek.
Kildall was furious. He and DRI's vice-president for marketing, John Katsaros, met with Gates in a Seattle restaurant to hash things out. "It was one of those meetings where everybody was nice to each other, then everyone shouted at each other, then everyone was nice to each other, then everyone shouted at each other," recalls Katsaros in a BusinessWeek interview. Nothing was resolved. Kildall also confronted IBM. But his problem was that software copyright had just become law three years earlier, and it wasn't clear what constituted infringement. Davis, the DRI lawyer, believes that based on the number of similarities DRI's forensic consultants found between the original DOS and CP/M, "in today's world, you could take it to court and get an infringement." But not in 1981. So rather than sue, Kildall agreed to license CP/M to Big Blue. He was floored when the PC was released and IBM charged $240 per copy for CP/M and just $40 for DOS. Kildall's conclusion, according to his memoir: "I believe the entire scenario was contrived by IBM to garner the existing standard at almost no cost."
Within a couple of years, the IBM PC was the undisputed champ, and Microsoft was the leading operating system provider and on its way toward PC industry domination. CP/M gradually faded into irrelevance. Kildall ultimately sold his company to Novell Inc. (NOVL) in 1991 for $120 million. He went on to create some pioneering multimedia technology, but never again was an industry player. Friends say that, for years, he cringed when people brought up the "flying when IBM visited" story.
The last straw was when the University of Washington in 1992 invited Kildall to attend the 25th anniversary of its computer science program. He was one of its earliest and most distinguished graduates, earning a PhD, yet they had picked as keynote speaker Gates, a Harvard dropout. Kildall says it was this dig that prompted him to write his memoir. "Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine, not his," Kildall wrote.
Kildall's resentment is understandable, but even his friends agree that he was partly to blame. For all his technical brilliance, he was a poor businessman. One big mistake was not moving ahead fast enough with a more advanced version of CP/M. He was slow to deliver a 16-bit operating system. It was that delay that created an opening for Paterson to design a 16-bit alternative, and because DRI didn't have its own version ready in the summer of 1980 IBM decided to deal with Gates, says Sams. Once IBM agreed to market his software, Kildall demanded a relatively high royalty -- contributing to its being priced so high, say former DRI execs.
Would history have taken a different path if Kildall triumphed in those early days? "I'm convinced," says John Wharton, a tech consultant and Kildall pal. He believes the industry would have been more collegial and innovative if Kildall rather than Gates sat at the crossroads of computing. But others say Kildall didn't have what it took to lead an industry. "Bill succeeded because he was a tenacious businessman," says lawyer Davis. "Gary was not tenacious."
As for Kildall's family, they're grateful his story is finally being told. "The truth is different for everybody," says daughter Kristin. "I think everybody believes they're presenting the truth. Obviously, they're different. I don't know why. I'm just glad my truth is out there." History may typically be written by the victors. But in this case, Gary Kildall has secured -- and deserves -- more than just a footnote.
The legend goes like this: One fateful day in the summer of 1980, three buttoned-down IBMers called on a band of hippie programmers at Digital Research Inc. located in Pacific Grove, Calif. They hoped to discuss licensing DRI's industry-leading operating system, CP/M. Instead, DRI founder Gary Kildall blew off IBM to gallivant around in his airplane, and the frustrated IBMers turned to Gates for their operating system. This anecdote has been told so often that techies need only be reminded of "the day Gary Kildall went flying" to recall the rest. While he's revered for his technical innovations, many believe Kildall made one of the biggest mistakes in the history of commerce.
But what if that's not what happened? What if IBM and Microsoft deprived Kildall not only of untold riches but also of the credit for a seminal role in the PC revolution? That's the thesis of a chapter about Kildall in They Made America, a serious coffee table history book by renowned author and former newspaper editor Harold Evans. The book, published by Little Brown on Oct. 12, profiles 70 American innovators and is the inspiration for an upcoming PBS series. And while other tech authors have debunked the gallivanting story before, Evans bases his Kildall chapter on a 226-page, never-published memoir written by Kildall just before his death in 1994. Early on, Kildall seemed to represent the best hopes of the nascent computer industry. But by the time he died at age 52, after falling in a tavern, he had become embittered and struggled with alcohol.
They Made America is certain to elicit cries of protest. That's because it attacks the reputations of some of the key players of the early PC era -- Gates, IBM, and Tim Paterson, the Seattle programmer who wrote an operating system, QDOS, based partly on CP/M that became Microsoft's DOS. Evans asserts that Paterson copied parts of CP/M and that IBM tricked Kildall. Because Gates rather than the more innovative Kildall prevailed, according to the book, the world's PC users endured "more than a decade of crashes with incalculable economic cost in lost data and lost opportunities." David G. Lefer, one of Evans' two collaborators, says: "We're trying to set the record straight. Gates didn't invent the PC operating system, and any history that says he did is wrong."
There's no doubt that Kildall was one of the pioneers of the industry. He invented the first operating system for microcomputers in the early 1970s, making it possible for hobbyists and companies to build the first personal computers. Legalities aside, Microsoft's original DOS was based in part on Kildall's CP/M. His insight was that by creating an operating system separate from the hardware, applications could run on computers that were made by different manufacturers. "What really drove Gary was inventing things," says friend and former DRI executive Tom Rolander in an interview with BusinessWeek.
Still, Evans' book falls short of clarifying exactly how Kildall lost out to Gates. He relies primarily on Kildall's memoir, his family, and his friends. Evans says he requested an interview with Gates, which he says Microsoft denied. He didn't make contact with IBM or Paterson, but tapped previously published accounts for that side of the story. IBM would not talk to BusinessWeek for this article, but former IBMers take issue with Kildall's version of events. Microsoft calls the book "one-sided and inaccurate," and says the company is proud of the "foundational role" it played in the industry. Paterson denies he stole Kildall's intellectual property. He says he's stunned that the authors failed to get in touch with him. "You'd think they might have asked. I'm not hard to find," he says.
HAZY MEMORIES
What's hard to find is the truth. A dozen interviews by BusinessWeek with people on all sides paint a blurry picture of those crucial days in the summer of 1980. While Kildall claims in his memoir that he met with IBM that first day and reached a handshake agreement, DRI's own lawyer at the time, Gerry Davis, says there was no deal. One of the IBMers who visited DRI that day insists he didn't talk to Kildall, but another, Jack Sams, now retired, says it's possible he was introduced to Kildall, although he doesn't remember it. Sams says faulty memories and self-serving accounts make it nearly impossible to tell exactly what happened during those chaotic weeks. "Back in those days, there was a lot of misinformation that was deliberate," he says, pointing out that IBM originally claimed it had made the PC all by itself. "We spun it, Kildall spun it, and Microsoft spun it."
The story begins unambiguously. A group of IBMers, working on a secret project to build a personal computer, flew to Seattle in August, 1980, to see if Gates could supply them with an operating system. He couldn't -- and referred them to Kildall. When they showed up at DRI's offices the next day, Kildall's then-wife, Dorothy McEwen, the company's business manager, refused to sign their nondisclosure agreement. She is now ill with brain cancer and can't remember the events, according to daughter Kristin Kildall. But Rolander, who flew with Kildall on a business trip that morning, tells BusinessWeek they returned in the afternoon and Kildall did meet with IBM.
If Kildall struck a handshake deal that day, it didn't stick. Sams says he did get together with Kildall in Pacific Grove a short time later, but they couldn't reach an agreement. At around the same time, he saw Gates again. He and Gates both knew of the operating system Paterson had built at Seattle Computer Co. As Sams recounts, "Gates said: 'Do you want to get [QDOS], or do you want me to?' I said: 'By all means, you get it."' Gates bought Paterson's program, called QDOS, for $50,000, renamed it DOS, improved it, and licensed it to IBM for a low per-copy royalty fee.
THE SHOUTING
It wasn't until nearly a year later that Kildall discovered that Gates, a longtime friend, had plucked the plum software deal out of his grasp. IBM sent test versions of its PC out shortly before it was announced in August, 1981, and a consultant working for DRI noticed the operating system was remarkably similar to CP/M. The consultant, Andy Johnson-Laird, remembers that Kildall looked at the screen and was stunned. "There were some shallow changes, but it was essentially the same program," says Johnson-Laird in an interview with BusinessWeek.
Kildall was furious. He and DRI's vice-president for marketing, John Katsaros, met with Gates in a Seattle restaurant to hash things out. "It was one of those meetings where everybody was nice to each other, then everyone shouted at each other, then everyone was nice to each other, then everyone shouted at each other," recalls Katsaros in a BusinessWeek interview. Nothing was resolved. Kildall also confronted IBM. But his problem was that software copyright had just become law three years earlier, and it wasn't clear what constituted infringement. Davis, the DRI lawyer, believes that based on the number of similarities DRI's forensic consultants found between the original DOS and CP/M, "in today's world, you could take it to court and get an infringement." But not in 1981. So rather than sue, Kildall agreed to license CP/M to Big Blue. He was floored when the PC was released and IBM charged $240 per copy for CP/M and just $40 for DOS. Kildall's conclusion, according to his memoir: "I believe the entire scenario was contrived by IBM to garner the existing standard at almost no cost."
Within a couple of years, the IBM PC was the undisputed champ, and Microsoft was the leading operating system provider and on its way toward PC industry domination. CP/M gradually faded into irrelevance. Kildall ultimately sold his company to Novell Inc. (NOVL) in 1991 for $120 million. He went on to create some pioneering multimedia technology, but never again was an industry player. Friends say that, for years, he cringed when people brought up the "flying when IBM visited" story.
The last straw was when the University of Washington in 1992 invited Kildall to attend the 25th anniversary of its computer science program. He was one of its earliest and most distinguished graduates, earning a PhD, yet they had picked as keynote speaker Gates, a Harvard dropout. Kildall says it was this dig that prompted him to write his memoir. "Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine, not his," Kildall wrote.
Kildall's resentment is understandable, but even his friends agree that he was partly to blame. For all his technical brilliance, he was a poor businessman. One big mistake was not moving ahead fast enough with a more advanced version of CP/M. He was slow to deliver a 16-bit operating system. It was that delay that created an opening for Paterson to design a 16-bit alternative, and because DRI didn't have its own version ready in the summer of 1980 IBM decided to deal with Gates, says Sams. Once IBM agreed to market his software, Kildall demanded a relatively high royalty -- contributing to its being priced so high, say former DRI execs.
Would history have taken a different path if Kildall triumphed in those early days? "I'm convinced," says John Wharton, a tech consultant and Kildall pal. He believes the industry would have been more collegial and innovative if Kildall rather than Gates sat at the crossroads of computing. But others say Kildall didn't have what it took to lead an industry. "Bill succeeded because he was a tenacious businessman," says lawyer Davis. "Gary was not tenacious."
As for Kildall's family, they're grateful his story is finally being told. "The truth is different for everybody," says daughter Kristin. "I think everybody believes they're presenting the truth. Obviously, they're different. I don't know why. I'm just glad my truth is out there." History may typically be written by the victors. But in this case, Gary Kildall has secured -- and deserves -- more than just a footnote.
Did Bill Gates Steal the Heart of DOS?
Editor’s Note: Upon publication, this article failed to properly disclose the connection between its author, Bob Zeidman, and Microsoft Corp., a key subject of the story. Mr. Zeidman is currently retained by Microsoft as an expert witness in Motorola Mobility v. Microsoft. IEEE Spectrum regrets the omission.
The history of the computer industry is filled with fascinating tales of riches that appear to practically fall from the sky.
Along with stories of riches won, there are stories of opportunities missed. Take that of Ronald Wayne, who cofounded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs but sold his shares for just US $2300. And John Atanasoff, who proudly showed his digital computer design to John Mauchly—who later codesigned the Eniac, often defined as the first electronic computer, without credit to Atanasoff.
But by far the most famous story of missed fame and fortune is that of Gary Kildall. A pioneer in computer operating systems, Kildall wrote Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M), the operating system used on many of the early hobbyist personal computers, such as the MITS Altair 8800, the IMSAI 8080, and the Osborne 1, before IBM introduced its own machine, the PC. Kildall could have virtually owned the personal computer operating system business, had he sold that system to IBM. He didn’t. Why is a matter of speculation, mundane gossip, and urban legend. We’ll get to that.
Bill Gates at Microsoft, however, did sell an operating system to IBM—and reaped then-unimaginable rewards. A cloud of speculation has hung over that part of the story as well. The big question: Was the operating system Gates sold to IBM his to sell? Or was a key part of it stolen from Kildall?
Microsoft has stated that its hands were clean. Kildall maintained that QDOS, and subsequently MS-DOS, had been directly copied from CP/M and thus infringed on his copyright. But until now there’s been no way to conduct a reliable examination of the software itself, to look inside MS-DOS for the fingerprints of CP/M, and settle the issue once and for all.
My company’s CodeSuite forensic software lets us look inside operating systems and other software for fingerprints of other programs. And I applied it to finally answer the question: Did Bill Gates steal the heart of DOS?
But first, here is the sequence of events, part known, part only speculated. IBM in 1980 started a skunkworks project in Boca Raton, Fla., to create the IBM PC. The company decided that rather than developing software in-house, as was typical at IBM, it would instead partner with one of the small companies already producing code for microcomputers. IBM’s first stop was then-small Microsoft in Bellevue, Wash., known for its version of the BASIC programming language. There, the young Gates told IBM that Microsoft didn’t have an operating system, but that the company should contact Kildall at his company, Digital Research Inc. (DRI) in Pacific Grove, Calif., because Kildall did have an operating system—CP/M.
Here’s where the story varies, depending on who’s telling it. In one version, the IBM executives flew down to meet Kildall who, as a member of the personal computer counterculture, didn’t trust “Big Brother” IBM. Rather than meet with the buttoned-down IBM executives, Kildall took off in his plane for a joyride. When the IBM execs showed up, they were met by Kildall’s wife and business partner, Dorothy McEwen, who refused to sign IBM’s nondisclosure agreement, or NDA, a standard business document that would have kept the discussion secret and would have not allowed DRI to make use of confidential information presented by IBM. After several hours of haggling over the NDA, the IBM executives got frustrated and left.
In another version of the story, Kildall and DRI employee Tom Rolander went off in the plane to deliver software to a customer and left the license negotiations with McEwen, who normally handled those matters. McEwen felt the NDA was too restrictive and talked to their attorney, Gerry Davis, who advised her to wait for Kildall to return. Kildall returned later that day. Accounts again differ on whether he signed the NDA or even participated in discussions with IBM.
In any case, it’s a fact that no deal was signed. Kildall later said that he met IBM negotiator Jack Sams on a flight to Florida that evening, negotiated a deal on the flight, and shook hands on it. Sams denied ever meeting Kildall. In fact, the IBM negotiators, still in need of an operating system, flew to Seattle again that day—not Florida—and met with Bill Gates.
Since Gates’s first meeting with IBM, he had conveniently gotten his hands on a microcomputer operating system similar to Kildall’s, from nearby Seattle Computer Products. SCP, which sold microcomputer boards, needed an operating system that ran on the new Intel 8086 processor. Because DRI was late in porting its system to that processor, SCP hired programmer Tim Paterson to create one. It called this system QDOS, for “Quick and Dirty Operating System.” Gates bought the rights to QDOS for $75 000 and hired Paterson to modify it into MS-DOS; that’s what he licensed to IBM for its PC as PC-DOS.
The IBM PC became a huge success, and Microsoft soon displaced DRI as the leading microcomputer operating system company. Kildall resented the success of Gates and Microsoft, and he eventually went back to IBM and negotiated a deal to offer CP/M on IBM PCs. However, Kildall negotiated a very high license fee, much higher than that of MS-DOS, meaning IBM had to charge $240 per copy of CP/M rather than the $40 per copy it charged for PC-DOS. Few people bought CP/M, and PC-DOS sales continued to grow.
Kildall maintained that QDOS, and subsequently MS-DOS, had been directly copied from CP/M and thus infringed on his copyright. DRI attorney Davis claimed forensic experts had proven that MS-DOS had been copied from CP/M, but that in 1981 there was no way to go to court over copyright infringement and get a judgment. The latter, at least, was not true. One year earlier, Congress had passed the Computer Software Copyright Act of 1980, which made copyright protection of software explicit, so why DRI didn’t take the battle to court at the time is not clear.
The claim about the forensic proof was probably false as well. In those days, software forensic tools consisted of off-the-shelf disassemblers and various utilities, typically used for debugging, cobbled together by investigators—they weren’t very effective. Today, however, forensic tools are much more sophisticated; they can divide up programs into various elements to be compared independently, and they can compare object code directly without having to disassemble or decompile it, processes that can add extraneous information or lose elements of the code. The tools available today that compare software source code include Measure of Software Similarity (MOSS) from Stanford University and JPlag from the University of Karlsruhe, in Germany. The tools called CodeSuite, sold by my company, Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering Corp. (SAFE), compare source code and object code as well.
So with CodeSuite in hand, I donned my deerstalker, downed a Rockstar Energy Drink, pulled out my meerschaum-and-mahogany calabash pipe, and set out to answer the Gates/Kildall question once and for all.
The investigation commenced on the Unofficial CP/M Web Site,where I downloaded CP/M source code files. These files included notices of copyright by Gary Kildall from 1975, shortly after he founded DRI. They were written in the PL/M programming language, which Kildall developed for microprocessors while he was employed at Intel. From the same site I downloaded the source code files of CP/M 2.0, which were from 1981 but contained copyright notices from 1976, 1977, and 1978. These files were written in both PL/M and low-level assembly code. I also downloaded executable binary files of CP/M 1.4 that included three source code files dated from 22 March 1979 through 5 September 1981.
Continuing to gather clues, I downloaded 86-DOS (QDOS) source code files and executable binary files from Howard’s Seattle Computer Products SCP 86-DOS Resource Website that contained revision dates in April 1981. The source code files were written in assembly language.
Getting an early copy of MS-DOS source code wasn’t so easy; it isn’t sitting around online, which is understandable because it’s a commercial product from an ongoing company rather than open source or developed by a now defunct company. Because I collect vintage computers, I just happened to have one of the first PC clones, the Compaq “luggable” computer and a floppy disk containing MS-DOS 1.11 for it.
First, I compared the QDOS source code with the CP/M source code to see if there was any evidence that QDOS was copied from or was a derivative of CP/M. This had to be done in two steps because the CP/M source code included files written in the PL/M programming language as well as files written in assembly language.
Could our suspect software include code copied from a high-level language such as PL/M and translated into a low-level assembly language? It’s not likely: The languages are so different it would be like translating a story from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic into English. It’s doable, but it’s easier to just write the story from scratch. I compared the files anyway—and voilà: I found a match between programming statements in the two programs.
I kept my calm, though, because these matching statements appeared to be common, simple statements—for example, statements like “CALL,” “MAKE,” and “BOOT.” The same held for the bit of correlation I found in some comments and strings; these comments and strings, such as “SECTORS PER TRACK,” are common operating system terms and messages that can probably be found in many programs. A real smoking gun—sequences of instructions that matched that would show similar, possibly copied functioning pieces of software—was notably missing.
I continued my examination of the source code. Again, some correlation came to light, but most of it in this case came from partially matching identifiers—that is, pieces but not the whole; names of variables and functions. Had I found a trail? Partially matching identifiers could be a clue that a clever programmer had copied some code but changed the names enough to appear different while still retaining some meaning. For example, the variable name FirstName might be changed to Fname.
I looked a little closer, but the trail evaporated. I could clearly see that the partially matching identifiers were simply commonly used names or random characters. For example, the identifier ENDMOD in the CP/M source code partially matched the identifiers MOD5 and MOD6 in the QDOS source code.
The CodeSuite tools rely on Internet searches to filter out correlations due to reasons other than copying. For example, if an element is found in two programs and is also found many times on the Internet, it is most likely a commonly used term. If it is found in two programs but nowhere else on the Internet, then it is almost certainly present because it was copied.
Normally, I would filter out all matching elements that had any hits on the Internet at all. In this case, I decided to be a bit more liberal and filter out matching elements that were found more than 100 times on the Internet. In this way, even things that were found in some other programs or documents on the Internet would not be filtered out. I didn’t come up empty-handed; though no identifiers remained and no comments or strings remained, one programming statement did: “jnz comerr.”
Aha! I thought. Could “jnz comerr” finally be the smoking gun that shows DOS was copied from CP/M? It turns out this statement could be found in only one place on the Internet. Could it be simply mere coincidence that it appeared in both sets of code?
Breaking this statement down, I determined that “jnz” was a standard program assembly language statement for “jump if not zero.” “Comerr” was a label that both programs use to specify the beginning of some routine; it appeared to be a combination of “com,” which could refer to a communications port or a command, and “err,” which typically means an error. My guess: “Comerr” was a routine that handles either communication errors or command errors. If “jnz comerr” referred to the same function in both programs, it could break this case wide open.
I turned to look at the actual routines in the code and could tell that these were significantly different routines. The QDOS routine was in a file that handles input and output and gets invoked when there is a problem reading a file. The CP/M routine was more complex and was in a file that handles a problem in the processing of a command, getting invoked when there is a problem with a command. These routines have no relationship to each other and therefore do not signify copying.
I went on to try to compare object code for MS-DOS using that old MS-DOS 1.11 floppy. I used a CodeSuite tool called BitMatch to compare MS-DOS 1.11 binary code with the CP/M source code files from CP/M version 2.0 and miscellaneous incomplete sets of source code files from copies of CP/M version 1.4 and earlier versions that were available on the Unofficial CP/M Web Site.
Using binary files in comparisons is not foolproof; it’s possible that the copying may not show up because the compilation of source code into binary can eliminate telltale elements. If matches appear even after filtering, then the files have almost certainly been copied. However, if no matches appear, it doesn’t mean that copying hasn’t happened, just that it has gone undetected.
Still, it was a test worth running. And, indeed, comparing binary with source code, I found 80 matching identifiers. But with a couple of exceptions, these identifiers were all common words from operating systems and programming or just from the English language. I also found 11 matching strings, but again, these strings were all common words or phrases. And once I filtered the matching elements to eliminate common identifiers found more than 100 times on the Internet, all the matches evaporated.
Next I compared the MS-DOS 1.11 binary code with CP/M binary code. There was only one matching identifier: “com.” This is a common abbreviation for a communication port like a serial port or printer port, and certainly not a sign of copying. There were also 65 matching strings, but they were all common words or phrases used in many operating systems.
So far, every trail had come up cold. But I had one more trick up my sleeve. Legend tells us Kildall himself buried a secret message in CP/M and that the message can also be found in MS-DOS.
In 2006, science fiction writer and technology reporter Jerry Pournelle said on “This Week in Tech,” an Internet radio show, that this secret command triggered the display of a copyright notice for DRI and Kildall’s full name. According to Pournelle, Kildall had demonstrated this command to him by typing it into DOS; it produced the notice and thus proved that DOS was copied from CP/M.
This story, circulated for years, has a few problems. First, no one knows the secret command; Pournelle claims he wrote the command down but has never shown it to anyone. In addition, such a message would be easily seen by opening the binary files in a simple text editor unless the message was encrypted. CP/M had to fit on a floppy disk that held only 160 kilobytes; Kildall’s achievement was squeezing an entire operating system into such a small footprint. But it is difficult to imagine he could do this and also squeeze in an undetectable encryption routine. And although we’re now in an era of hackers breaking into heavily secured computers, no one has ever cracked DOS to find this secret command.
But I set out to look for it anyway. I used a utility program developed at SAFE to extract strings of text from binary files. Not only did Kildall’s name not show up in any QDOS or MS-DOS text strings, it did not show up in CP/M either. The term “Digital Research” did appear in copyright notices in the CP/M binary files, but not in MS-DOS or QDOS binary files.
If Jerry Pournelle did indeed see a hidden message revealed by a secret command, it was not in MS-DOS.
And that is that. Every lead brought me not to Bill Gates but to a dead end. QDOS was absolutely not copied from CP/M, and MS-DOS showed no signs of copying either. Kildall’s accusations about Bill Gates were totally groundless.
Gary Kildall’s fate was sad. He died in 1994 at the age of 52. The circumstances of his death are as muddied and debated as the missed meeting with IBM. He suffered a head injury in a California biker bar—some reports describe a brawl, others a fall from a chair or down a staircase, and still others report a heart attack. Some claim that Kildall committed suicide and his family covered it up. Most agree that alcoholism, in one way or another, led to his death.
Kildall indeed deserves credit for creating the first personal computer operating system, but his operating system didn’t come out of nowhere; it was essentially a simpler version of many other operating systems in use at the time, including Unix, developed in 1969, and VAX/VMS, introduced in 1978. And while Kildall is sometimes remembered as a pauper for “being cheated by Bill Gates,” DRI was actually a successful company for many years, and Kildall sold it to Novell in 1991 for $120 million. Kildall was undeniably very creative and innovative, but he was also a poor businessman who was nonetheless very successful. If he was not as successful as Bill Gates, it wasn’t because Microsoft stole the CP/M source code.
About the Author
Bob Zeidman is the president and founder of Zeidman Consulting, a premier contract research and development firm in Silicon Valley. He is also the president and founder of Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering Corp., a provider of software intellectual property analysis tools. Zeidman has worked on and testified in more than 100 cases involving billions of dollars in disputed intellectual property. His latest book is The Software IP Detective’s Handbook (Prentice Hall, 2011). And that deerstalker hat? He purchased it at 221B Baker St. in London, the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes.
The history of the computer industry is filled with fascinating tales of riches that appear to practically fall from the sky.
Along with stories of riches won, there are stories of opportunities missed. Take that of Ronald Wayne, who cofounded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs but sold his shares for just US $2300. And John Atanasoff, who proudly showed his digital computer design to John Mauchly—who later codesigned the Eniac, often defined as the first electronic computer, without credit to Atanasoff.
But by far the most famous story of missed fame and fortune is that of Gary Kildall. A pioneer in computer operating systems, Kildall wrote Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M), the operating system used on many of the early hobbyist personal computers, such as the MITS Altair 8800, the IMSAI 8080, and the Osborne 1, before IBM introduced its own machine, the PC. Kildall could have virtually owned the personal computer operating system business, had he sold that system to IBM. He didn’t. Why is a matter of speculation, mundane gossip, and urban legend. We’ll get to that.
Bill Gates at Microsoft, however, did sell an operating system to IBM—and reaped then-unimaginable rewards. A cloud of speculation has hung over that part of the story as well. The big question: Was the operating system Gates sold to IBM his to sell? Or was a key part of it stolen from Kildall?
Microsoft has stated that its hands were clean. Kildall maintained that QDOS, and subsequently MS-DOS, had been directly copied from CP/M and thus infringed on his copyright. But until now there’s been no way to conduct a reliable examination of the software itself, to look inside MS-DOS for the fingerprints of CP/M, and settle the issue once and for all.
My company’s CodeSuite forensic software lets us look inside operating systems and other software for fingerprints of other programs. And I applied it to finally answer the question: Did Bill Gates steal the heart of DOS?
But first, here is the sequence of events, part known, part only speculated. IBM in 1980 started a skunkworks project in Boca Raton, Fla., to create the IBM PC. The company decided that rather than developing software in-house, as was typical at IBM, it would instead partner with one of the small companies already producing code for microcomputers. IBM’s first stop was then-small Microsoft in Bellevue, Wash., known for its version of the BASIC programming language. There, the young Gates told IBM that Microsoft didn’t have an operating system, but that the company should contact Kildall at his company, Digital Research Inc. (DRI) in Pacific Grove, Calif., because Kildall did have an operating system—CP/M.
Here’s where the story varies, depending on who’s telling it. In one version, the IBM executives flew down to meet Kildall who, as a member of the personal computer counterculture, didn’t trust “Big Brother” IBM. Rather than meet with the buttoned-down IBM executives, Kildall took off in his plane for a joyride. When the IBM execs showed up, they were met by Kildall’s wife and business partner, Dorothy McEwen, who refused to sign IBM’s nondisclosure agreement, or NDA, a standard business document that would have kept the discussion secret and would have not allowed DRI to make use of confidential information presented by IBM. After several hours of haggling over the NDA, the IBM executives got frustrated and left.
In another version of the story, Kildall and DRI employee Tom Rolander went off in the plane to deliver software to a customer and left the license negotiations with McEwen, who normally handled those matters. McEwen felt the NDA was too restrictive and talked to their attorney, Gerry Davis, who advised her to wait for Kildall to return. Kildall returned later that day. Accounts again differ on whether he signed the NDA or even participated in discussions with IBM.
In any case, it’s a fact that no deal was signed. Kildall later said that he met IBM negotiator Jack Sams on a flight to Florida that evening, negotiated a deal on the flight, and shook hands on it. Sams denied ever meeting Kildall. In fact, the IBM negotiators, still in need of an operating system, flew to Seattle again that day—not Florida—and met with Bill Gates.
Since Gates’s first meeting with IBM, he had conveniently gotten his hands on a microcomputer operating system similar to Kildall’s, from nearby Seattle Computer Products. SCP, which sold microcomputer boards, needed an operating system that ran on the new Intel 8086 processor. Because DRI was late in porting its system to that processor, SCP hired programmer Tim Paterson to create one. It called this system QDOS, for “Quick and Dirty Operating System.” Gates bought the rights to QDOS for $75 000 and hired Paterson to modify it into MS-DOS; that’s what he licensed to IBM for its PC as PC-DOS.
The IBM PC became a huge success, and Microsoft soon displaced DRI as the leading microcomputer operating system company. Kildall resented the success of Gates and Microsoft, and he eventually went back to IBM and negotiated a deal to offer CP/M on IBM PCs. However, Kildall negotiated a very high license fee, much higher than that of MS-DOS, meaning IBM had to charge $240 per copy of CP/M rather than the $40 per copy it charged for PC-DOS. Few people bought CP/M, and PC-DOS sales continued to grow.
Kildall maintained that QDOS, and subsequently MS-DOS, had been directly copied from CP/M and thus infringed on his copyright. DRI attorney Davis claimed forensic experts had proven that MS-DOS had been copied from CP/M, but that in 1981 there was no way to go to court over copyright infringement and get a judgment. The latter, at least, was not true. One year earlier, Congress had passed the Computer Software Copyright Act of 1980, which made copyright protection of software explicit, so why DRI didn’t take the battle to court at the time is not clear.
The claim about the forensic proof was probably false as well. In those days, software forensic tools consisted of off-the-shelf disassemblers and various utilities, typically used for debugging, cobbled together by investigators—they weren’t very effective. Today, however, forensic tools are much more sophisticated; they can divide up programs into various elements to be compared independently, and they can compare object code directly without having to disassemble or decompile it, processes that can add extraneous information or lose elements of the code. The tools available today that compare software source code include Measure of Software Similarity (MOSS) from Stanford University and JPlag from the University of Karlsruhe, in Germany. The tools called CodeSuite, sold by my company, Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering Corp. (SAFE), compare source code and object code as well.
So with CodeSuite in hand, I donned my deerstalker, downed a Rockstar Energy Drink, pulled out my meerschaum-and-mahogany calabash pipe, and set out to answer the Gates/Kildall question once and for all.
The investigation commenced on the Unofficial CP/M Web Site,where I downloaded CP/M source code files. These files included notices of copyright by Gary Kildall from 1975, shortly after he founded DRI. They were written in the PL/M programming language, which Kildall developed for microprocessors while he was employed at Intel. From the same site I downloaded the source code files of CP/M 2.0, which were from 1981 but contained copyright notices from 1976, 1977, and 1978. These files were written in both PL/M and low-level assembly code. I also downloaded executable binary files of CP/M 1.4 that included three source code files dated from 22 March 1979 through 5 September 1981.
Continuing to gather clues, I downloaded 86-DOS (QDOS) source code files and executable binary files from Howard’s Seattle Computer Products SCP 86-DOS Resource Website that contained revision dates in April 1981. The source code files were written in assembly language.
Getting an early copy of MS-DOS source code wasn’t so easy; it isn’t sitting around online, which is understandable because it’s a commercial product from an ongoing company rather than open source or developed by a now defunct company. Because I collect vintage computers, I just happened to have one of the first PC clones, the Compaq “luggable” computer and a floppy disk containing MS-DOS 1.11 for it.
First, I compared the QDOS source code with the CP/M source code to see if there was any evidence that QDOS was copied from or was a derivative of CP/M. This had to be done in two steps because the CP/M source code included files written in the PL/M programming language as well as files written in assembly language.
Could our suspect software include code copied from a high-level language such as PL/M and translated into a low-level assembly language? It’s not likely: The languages are so different it would be like translating a story from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic into English. It’s doable, but it’s easier to just write the story from scratch. I compared the files anyway—and voilà: I found a match between programming statements in the two programs.
I kept my calm, though, because these matching statements appeared to be common, simple statements—for example, statements like “CALL,” “MAKE,” and “BOOT.” The same held for the bit of correlation I found in some comments and strings; these comments and strings, such as “SECTORS PER TRACK,” are common operating system terms and messages that can probably be found in many programs. A real smoking gun—sequences of instructions that matched that would show similar, possibly copied functioning pieces of software—was notably missing.
I continued my examination of the source code. Again, some correlation came to light, but most of it in this case came from partially matching identifiers—that is, pieces but not the whole; names of variables and functions. Had I found a trail? Partially matching identifiers could be a clue that a clever programmer had copied some code but changed the names enough to appear different while still retaining some meaning. For example, the variable name FirstName might be changed to Fname.
I looked a little closer, but the trail evaporated. I could clearly see that the partially matching identifiers were simply commonly used names or random characters. For example, the identifier ENDMOD in the CP/M source code partially matched the identifiers MOD5 and MOD6 in the QDOS source code.
The CodeSuite tools rely on Internet searches to filter out correlations due to reasons other than copying. For example, if an element is found in two programs and is also found many times on the Internet, it is most likely a commonly used term. If it is found in two programs but nowhere else on the Internet, then it is almost certainly present because it was copied.
Normally, I would filter out all matching elements that had any hits on the Internet at all. In this case, I decided to be a bit more liberal and filter out matching elements that were found more than 100 times on the Internet. In this way, even things that were found in some other programs or documents on the Internet would not be filtered out. I didn’t come up empty-handed; though no identifiers remained and no comments or strings remained, one programming statement did: “jnz comerr.”
Aha! I thought. Could “jnz comerr” finally be the smoking gun that shows DOS was copied from CP/M? It turns out this statement could be found in only one place on the Internet. Could it be simply mere coincidence that it appeared in both sets of code?
Breaking this statement down, I determined that “jnz” was a standard program assembly language statement for “jump if not zero.” “Comerr” was a label that both programs use to specify the beginning of some routine; it appeared to be a combination of “com,” which could refer to a communications port or a command, and “err,” which typically means an error. My guess: “Comerr” was a routine that handles either communication errors or command errors. If “jnz comerr” referred to the same function in both programs, it could break this case wide open.
I turned to look at the actual routines in the code and could tell that these were significantly different routines. The QDOS routine was in a file that handles input and output and gets invoked when there is a problem reading a file. The CP/M routine was more complex and was in a file that handles a problem in the processing of a command, getting invoked when there is a problem with a command. These routines have no relationship to each other and therefore do not signify copying.
I went on to try to compare object code for MS-DOS using that old MS-DOS 1.11 floppy. I used a CodeSuite tool called BitMatch to compare MS-DOS 1.11 binary code with the CP/M source code files from CP/M version 2.0 and miscellaneous incomplete sets of source code files from copies of CP/M version 1.4 and earlier versions that were available on the Unofficial CP/M Web Site.
Using binary files in comparisons is not foolproof; it’s possible that the copying may not show up because the compilation of source code into binary can eliminate telltale elements. If matches appear even after filtering, then the files have almost certainly been copied. However, if no matches appear, it doesn’t mean that copying hasn’t happened, just that it has gone undetected.
Still, it was a test worth running. And, indeed, comparing binary with source code, I found 80 matching identifiers. But with a couple of exceptions, these identifiers were all common words from operating systems and programming or just from the English language. I also found 11 matching strings, but again, these strings were all common words or phrases. And once I filtered the matching elements to eliminate common identifiers found more than 100 times on the Internet, all the matches evaporated.
Next I compared the MS-DOS 1.11 binary code with CP/M binary code. There was only one matching identifier: “com.” This is a common abbreviation for a communication port like a serial port or printer port, and certainly not a sign of copying. There were also 65 matching strings, but they were all common words or phrases used in many operating systems.
So far, every trail had come up cold. But I had one more trick up my sleeve. Legend tells us Kildall himself buried a secret message in CP/M and that the message can also be found in MS-DOS.
In 2006, science fiction writer and technology reporter Jerry Pournelle said on “This Week in Tech,” an Internet radio show, that this secret command triggered the display of a copyright notice for DRI and Kildall’s full name. According to Pournelle, Kildall had demonstrated this command to him by typing it into DOS; it produced the notice and thus proved that DOS was copied from CP/M.
This story, circulated for years, has a few problems. First, no one knows the secret command; Pournelle claims he wrote the command down but has never shown it to anyone. In addition, such a message would be easily seen by opening the binary files in a simple text editor unless the message was encrypted. CP/M had to fit on a floppy disk that held only 160 kilobytes; Kildall’s achievement was squeezing an entire operating system into such a small footprint. But it is difficult to imagine he could do this and also squeeze in an undetectable encryption routine. And although we’re now in an era of hackers breaking into heavily secured computers, no one has ever cracked DOS to find this secret command.
But I set out to look for it anyway. I used a utility program developed at SAFE to extract strings of text from binary files. Not only did Kildall’s name not show up in any QDOS or MS-DOS text strings, it did not show up in CP/M either. The term “Digital Research” did appear in copyright notices in the CP/M binary files, but not in MS-DOS or QDOS binary files.
If Jerry Pournelle did indeed see a hidden message revealed by a secret command, it was not in MS-DOS.
And that is that. Every lead brought me not to Bill Gates but to a dead end. QDOS was absolutely not copied from CP/M, and MS-DOS showed no signs of copying either. Kildall’s accusations about Bill Gates were totally groundless.
Gary Kildall’s fate was sad. He died in 1994 at the age of 52. The circumstances of his death are as muddied and debated as the missed meeting with IBM. He suffered a head injury in a California biker bar—some reports describe a brawl, others a fall from a chair or down a staircase, and still others report a heart attack. Some claim that Kildall committed suicide and his family covered it up. Most agree that alcoholism, in one way or another, led to his death.
Kildall indeed deserves credit for creating the first personal computer operating system, but his operating system didn’t come out of nowhere; it was essentially a simpler version of many other operating systems in use at the time, including Unix, developed in 1969, and VAX/VMS, introduced in 1978. And while Kildall is sometimes remembered as a pauper for “being cheated by Bill Gates,” DRI was actually a successful company for many years, and Kildall sold it to Novell in 1991 for $120 million. Kildall was undeniably very creative and innovative, but he was also a poor businessman who was nonetheless very successful. If he was not as successful as Bill Gates, it wasn’t because Microsoft stole the CP/M source code.
About the Author
Bob Zeidman is the president and founder of Zeidman Consulting, a premier contract research and development firm in Silicon Valley. He is also the president and founder of Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering Corp., a provider of software intellectual property analysis tools. Zeidman has worked on and testified in more than 100 cases involving billions of dollars in disputed intellectual property. His latest book is The Software IP Detective’s Handbook (Prentice Hall, 2011). And that deerstalker hat? He purchased it at 221B Baker St. in London, the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes.
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