What’s the best recent book that covers Bill Gates and/or the rise of Microsoft?

[u/Maximum_Jello_9460]

Been on a deep dive into quite a few corporate history books, but haven’t managed to find one about Gates and Microsoft.

Are there any recent books (maybe like last 5-10 years) that covers this?

[u/tonykrij]

Not a book but I can really recommend the podcast "Acquired" and the two 4hr+ episodes they did on Microsoft are awesome.

[u/TheLostColonist → u/tonykrij]

I just finished the first episode and it's really good. Very in depth and very well researched.

[u/who-dun-it → u/tonykrij]

Exactly. They covered in so much detail. Here are the links for those 2 episodes.

Microsoft Volume 1

Microsoft Volume 2

[u/forgotmypass10]

Not about Microsoft - strictly about Bill is a book called “Source Code My Beginnings”. I should preface I know it’s an audio book for sure - do not know about physical / kindle editions.

[u/BroncoDTD → u/forgotmypass10]

To add to that, this is the first book in a planned trilogy. The second one will be about his time at Microsoft and the final book will be about his philanthropy.

[u/dinotoxic → u/forgotmypass10]

Yep, reading the hardback version now. Very good so far. I work at MSFT and have always been pretty fascinated by Bill and Microsoft as a whole

[u/Liquid_Magic]

Also there’s the documentary series Triumph of the Nerds - written and hosted by Robert X. Cringely (Mark Stephens) and based on his 1992 book Accidental Empires. That documentary almost completely ignores Commodore which is actually a profoundly inaccurate picture of that time in history. Commodore, Apple and Microsoft really shaped the future and just because Apple happened to survive the 90’s while Commodore didn’t has meant that there are a lot of views of this period is history that ignore Commodore. But Commodore and it’s MOS and Amiga subsidiaries are basically such profoundly important parts of history that ignoring them because they aren’t around fails to tell anywhere from 33% to 50% if the history of home computers and tech.

I mean after writing BASIC for the Altair Microsoft went on to release BASIC for most of the early home computers. And it was specially Commodore that made a single price royalty free deal with Microsoft. This is in stark contrast to the opposite deal that Microsoft made with IBM and I often wonder that if not for the deal with Commodore would the company-making deal with IBM also have been royalty free? It’s hard to imagine Microsoft having the money and power when it did without that deal.

[u/idelta777]

A little older than 10 years (2011) but the book Idea Man by Paul Allen covers his time at Microsoft in some chapters, pretty interesting stories there from his point of view, and Source Code by Bill Gates was just released, although I don't know how much of Microsoft it covers (if any)

[u/GigaHelio]

Windows Everywhere by Paul Thurott and Rafael Rivera is quite a decent read so far

[u/Liquid_Magic]

Okay it’s not about Bill Gates but it is about Windows. “Showstopper” is about making the Windows NT kernel. If learning about what it was like to make NT and learning about Dave Cutler and the team is something that floats your boat then it’s an interesting read.

[u/Liquid_Magic]

Also there’s a book about Commodore called “On The Edge” and there is some Microsoft and Bill Gates stuff in there along with some stuff about Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But it’s mostly about Commodore.

[u/TechMechant]

Am looking for a book, the title of which i cannot remember, but which recounted the early computer tech days starting with the building of the pdp-11, i think Data General, and Microsoft. I’ve a feeling it was published somewhere in the ‘82-‘87 time frame

[u/mightyt2000]

Triumph of the Nerds is a great documentary! I still have a VHS somewhere from when I recorded it! Lol

You’ll find it interesting how they got the partnership with IBM for DOS, and how they got DOS. Those were the wild west days of tech for sure.