The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

by Walter Isaacson

But to those who knew him, Gates was more than merely nerdy or bratty. Intense and whip smart, he also had a sense of humor, loved adventures, took physical risks, and liked to organize activities. At sixteen he got a new red Mustang (he still had it more than forty years later, preserved in the garage of his mansion), and he took it on high-speed joy rides with his friends. He also brought his pals to his family compound on the Hood Canal, where he would kite-ski on a thousand-foot line behind a speedboat. He memorized James Thurber’s classic story “The Night the Bed Fell” for a student performance, and he starred in a production of Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. Around that time, he started informing people, in a matter-of-fact way, that he would make a million dollars before he turned thirty. He woefully underestimated himself; at age thirty he would be worth $350 million.