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A look back and a look forward with one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs of our time.
With Microsoft (MSFT) turning 50 this year and a newly released book about his life called “Source Code: My Beginning,” it’s no surprise that many want to take a deeper look at what makes Bill Gates tick.
It’s a life Gates, 69, shares in “Source Code,” which chronicles his upper-middle-class childhood in Seattle up to the very start of Microsoft in 1975 alongside friend and co-founder Paul Allen. The book has a few stories that would may as a surprise to Microsoft investors.
“Yes, that is correct,” Gates told Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi on the Opening Bid podcast when asked whether an older Allen gave a younger Gates the drug acid to try as a teen.
Added Gates, “Paul was responsible for all sorts of things. I mean, my first time I got drunk, the first time I smoked marijuana. You know, he kind of got a kick out of seeing my kind of zany high energy and you know, how it might be influenced. I gave that stuff up pretty quickly because I like my brain to be working.”
In Source Code, he credits his highly supportive parents, Mary and Bill Sr. — especially his super-organized and goal-driven mother — for a large part of his success.
“If you had to pick one person who shaped me in my desire to please and succeed, that’s absolutely my mom,” he said. “My parents were both amazing, but my mom was around all the time telling me to fix my manners and to get dressed and be on time.”
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He and Allen — who died in 2018 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma — saw plenty of success at Microsoft, which continues to innovate in a highly competitive tech landscape.
Gates says he is pleased to see the company, now led by CEO Satya Nadella, investing aggressively in AI and working closely with key partner OpenAI.
“I’m thrilled Microsoft is making those investments,” said Gates. “But there’s a great deal of uncertainty there. In the meantime, the AI stuff, that is improving at a very rapid rate. In a sense, it’s more predictable that over the same three to five years, that will get extremely powerful.”
Microsoft isn’t the only Gates-adjacent entity celebrating a milestone birthday this year. His nonprofit organization, the Gates Foundation, will turn 25.
Its goals and mission often surround public health, including the eradication of diseases and distribution of vaccines. Health initiatives such as vaccines are currently under the microscope with the Trump administration and his pick to lead Health & Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but Gates takes comfort in the foundation’s record.
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“Since the year 2000, we’ve cut the number of children under five who die every year from over 10 million to under five million,” he said. “We want to go from five million to 2.5 million.”
Continued Gates, “It’s fair to say we need to test vaccines well and understand their side effects and all these things, but the net benefit, I hope people don’t get confused about that, because whether it’s the children in poor countries or facing the next pandemic, which will come at some point, we need the science of vaccines and the incredible work those scientists do.”
Gates credits vaccines for tackling the ailments. To reduce the number further, “we’ll need new vaccines to do that.”
Three times each week, Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi fields insight-filled conversations and chats with the biggest names in business and markets on Opening Bid. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram and on LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com. Grace Williams is a writer for Yahoo Finance.
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