Source Code: My Beginnings

by Bill Gates

The logic, focus, and stamina needed to write long, complicated programs came naturally to me. Unlike in hiking, among that group of friends, I was the leader.

The first thing I did was to think back to that miserable day on the Low Divide and retrieve from my memory the evaluator code I had written. I typed it into a computer, and with that planted the seed of what would become one of the world’s largest companies and the beginning of a new industry.

realize Gami isn’t just lucky or talented. She’s trained her brain. And I can too.

Card playing taught me that no matter how complex or even mysterious something seems, you often can figure it out. The world can be understood.

“The more you know, the more you don’t know.”

This is what smart people do. They get together with other smart people and solve really tough problems. That sounds perfect to me.

To question what you know—what you think is true—is how the world advances.

It’s a marvel of adulthood to realize that when you strip away all the years and all the learning, much of who you are was there from the start.