The New Yorker Radio Hour
Bill Gates on His New Memoir and Dining with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
Fri, 31 Jan 2025
In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, Bill Gates was the best known of a new breed: the tech mogul—a coder who had figured out how to run a business, and who then seemed to be running the world. Gates was ranked the richest person in the world for many years. In a new memoir, “Source Code,” he explains how he got there. The book focusses on Gates’s early life, and just through the founding of Microsoft. Since stepping away from the company, Gates has devoted himself to his foundation, which is one of the largest nonprofits working on public health around the globe. That has made him the target of conspiracy theories by anti-vaxxers, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has asserted that Gates and Anthony Fauci are together responsible for millions of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates views the rise of conspiracy thinking as symptomatic of larger trends in American society exacerbated by technology. “The fact that outrage is rewarded because it’s more engaging, that’s kind of a human weakness,” he tells David Remnick. “And the fact that I thought everybody would be doing deep analysis of facts and seeking out the actual studies on vaccine safety—boy, was that naïve. When the pandemic came, people wanted some evil genius to be behind it. Not some bat biology.”
Chapter 1: What is the main theme of Bill Gates' new memoir?
Yeah, that's not the right question. The question is, why would they do such a stupid thing? Yeah, that is the question, isn't it? Yeah, that's the question.
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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft. Gates was 30 when Microsoft went public in 1986, and the IPO made him a billionaire. His business practices at Microsoft were often criticized as monopolistic, even ruthless.
And make no mistake, it's still an immense conglomerate invested in cloud servers and AI and much more. But today, Gates seems generationally and dispositionally distinct from people like Elon Musk. A new memoir called Source Code talks about how he fell in love with computing. And it stays on Gates's early life, covering just through the founding of Microsoft.
I'll continue my conversation now with Bill Gates. Now, when you were a kid, you've written, you told a therapist when you were very young that you were at war with your parents. How old were you then? And moreover, who were you at that time? What was that war all about?
Well, I was about 10 when they first sent me to see Dr. Cressy. And I decided, you know, I could kind of figure things out myself. And I was getting better at cards than these adults. And their rules seemed very arbitrary to me. And I thought, you know, why that bedtime? Why those weird manners? And there was just some rigidities that I thought, no, I'm going to say no to this.
I'm kind of embarrassed even to think back at it, but, you know, I was kind of showing my independence. And fortunately, the therapist said, hey, that's really a waste of your energy. You know, fighting your parents really, what's to be gained there? They're basically on your side.
When did the penny drop? When did you come across the idea of that early computing would be your life's mission, obsession, possession. Forget about fortune. That's, in a way, a lot less interesting and much later.
Well, at first, the computer was just a puzzle to figure out. And because I was good at math, people drew me in, and there were four of us who just stayed and were kind of obsessed at figuring out that puzzle. The part that makes it part of my destiny is when Paul Allen reads that these computer chips are going to double in power every year or two, which is called Moore's Law.
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Chapter 2: What challenges does Bill Gates face in public health?
You know, things like polio and malaria, where I really do know what we need to do. That one, we've kind of left it to the younger generation to figure out.
Bill Gates, thank you very much.
Thank you.
I really appreciate your time.
No, it's great talking with you.
Good to talk to you. Bill Gates was the co-founder of Microsoft, and he's chairman today of the Gates Foundation, the largest nonprofit in the world. His new book is called Source Code, I'm David Remnick. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer.
With guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.
And we had additional help this week from Jake Loomis.
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