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Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry--and Made Himself the Richest Man in America Paperback – Illustrated, January 21, 1994

by Stephen Manes (Author), Paul Andrews (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 266 ratings
See all formats and editions
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The Washington Post called this book "impressive" and "meticulously researched," with "much of the drama and suspense of a novel." The New York Times and USA Today found it "definitive." The Seattle Times said Gates "should be required reading for any new hire in the personal computer industry." Since its publication, Gates has been cited and used as a source by dozens of books and articles.

Bill Gates is an American icon, the ultimate revenge of the nerd. The youngest self-made billionaire in history was for many years the most powerful person in the computer industry. His tantrums, his odd rocking tic, and his lavish philanthropy have become the stuff of legend. Gates is the one book that truly illuminates the early years of the man and his company.

In high school he organized computer enterprises for profit. At Harvard he co-wrote Microsoft BASIC, the first commercial personal computer software, then dropped out and made it a global standard. At 25, he offered IBM a program he did not yet own--a program called DOS that would become the essential operating system for more than 100 million personal computers and the foundation of the Gates empire. As Microsoft's dominance extended around the globe, Bill Gates became idolized, hated, and feared.

In this riveting independent biography, veteran computer journalists Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews draw on a dozen sessions with Gates himself and nearly a thousand hours of interviews with his friends, family, employees, and competitors to debunk the myths and paint the definitive picture of the real Bill Gates, "bugs" and all.

Here is the shy but fearless competitor with the guts and brass to try anything once--on a computer, at a negotiation, or on water skis. Here is the cocky 23-year-old who calmly spurned an enormous buyout offer from Ross Perot. Here is the supersalesman who motivated his Smart Guys, fought bitter battles with giant IBM, and locked horns with Apple's Steve Jobs--and usually won.

Here, too, is the workaholic pessimist who presided over Microsoft's meteoric rise while most other personal computer pioneers fell by the wayside. Gates extended his vision of software to art, entertainment, education, and even biotechnology, and made good on much of his promise to put his software "on every desk and in every home."

Gates is a bracing, comprehensive portrait of the microcomputer industry, one of its leading companies, and the man who helped create a world where software is everything.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    560 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Touchstone
  4. Publication date
    January 21, 1994
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.6 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0671880748
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0671880743
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The definitive work ... gets beyond the cliche ... particularly good at providing insights into what sets Mr. Gates apart."
--The New York Times

"A hot read ... The best account yet ... The good stuff starts on page one ... "
--Fortune

"Finally, the real book on Microsoft's Gates! ... a potent biography ... a compelling story."
--Newsweek

"An impressive account ... meticulously researched ... Well-written, with much of the drama and suspense of a novel."
--The Washington Post

"The most complete and most colorful account yet ... "
--Business Week

"The definitive book on the USA's oddest, richest person ... "
--USA Today

"Impressively detailed ... independent ... an outstanding job."
--PC Magazine

"So painstakingly documented it's hard to imagine a more thorough job ... Should be required reading for any new hire in the personal computer industry ..."
--Seattle Times

"While this isn't the first book written about Gates, it's by far the best--complete, balanced, insightful, and well-documented."
--Detroit News

From the Author

More praise for Gates!

"A real gem ... The book takes us behind the scenes as Gates uses the power of deftly worded contracts to quickly squeeze out rivals and even finagle his partner.... Manes and Andrews provide insights."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"We should thank our lucky stars for authors Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews. These journalists and personal computer experts have given us a rare and exacting look at America's richest man--who just happens to head the world's largest software company."
--Rocky Mountain News

"Rich with anecdotes and details that are so painstakingly documented it's hard to imagine a more thorough job ... should be required reading for any new hire in the personal computer industry, especially those who want to understand what has made Microsoft the dominant power it is. Ultimately, Gates is a thorough history of a business that has changed the way we work and play."
--Seattle Times

"A remarkable story of a complex and highly talented individual made all the more interesting because of the close links between Gates's career and the evolution of the computer."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Manes and Andrews have produced a valuable primer on the computer industry, its cast of strange characters and its even stranger array of corporate cultures...."
--Chicago Tribune

"From now on, this estimable effort will be mandatory reading for whoever writes about Gates.... In documenting the rise of Gates, Manes and Andrews provide a valuable history of the computer and software industries that grew up with him."
--New York Post

"The book methodically separates the real from the apocryphal. Future writers will thank Manes and Andrews for their reporting ... the bio of record."
--Seattle Weekly

"The book not only is the story of a man of vision, but it also is about the explosive growth of a new industry--software--in which he was something of a pioneer. And it paints the most complete picture yet of Gates, who has remained something of an enigmatic figure despite spending a lot of his time in the public eye."
--Arizona Republic

"Gates is a comprehensive account of the early years of personal computing, a crazy time ... a high-tech story told in the language of the streets ... an informative look at a generalissimo of the information revolution."
--Financial Times of Canada

"Scrupulous, balanced, and thoroughly engaging ... a tour-guided voyage through historic events behind the transformation of an information industry and age."
--Toronto Star

"Manes and Andrews combine authoritative discussions of technology with a clear and entertaining prose style.... Most interesting is the glimpse of the turbulent 20-year history of the computer industry."
--Publishers Weekly

"An illuminating, unsentimental biography ... a like-it-is portrait of an archetypal nerd who built a world-class business empire ... An exhaustive report on an aging whiz-kid whose consequential life story is far from over."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Refreshing ... Rich with detail, this book is thorough and not always laudatory of Gates."
--Library Journal

"Two veteran reporters take off the rose-colored glasses to show the young tycoon at his best ... and worst.... This warts-and-all portrait of a businessman as a celebrity reveals Gates' temper, childishness, and disregard for employees, as well as his brilliance and work acumen."
--Booklist

"An impressively detailed chronicle ... Independent and scrupulously documented ... the authors do an outstanding job."
--PC Magazine

"Definitive ... The intertwined history of the man and the industry is fascinating ... engrossing ... What a story!"
--IEEE Software

"A fascinating, detailed, warts-and-all account of the accumulation of America's largest private fortune by, arguably, the single most important person in computer history."
--Windows Magazine

"A rich and wonderfully captivating account of the birth of an industry that changed the world ... The book captures those early years of computing so well that you can almost feel the excitement and power.... Manes and Andrews should also be applauded for presenting technical information about the emerging technologies of the time that should neither intimidate nor insult the reader."
--Computer Shopper

"The ultimate Bill Gates book ... dismisses old myths and adds new seasoning to the Gates legend, as fact is separated from fiction with extraordinary detail. This history book tells a story that is as fascinating as the American dream."
--CompuServe Magazine

"Manes and Andrews have written not just a biography, but a history of the microcomputer industry ... that is at once entertaining and. informative. Whether you work with business or computers, or are simply curious for details on how the wealthiest man in America made it to the top, Gates should be at the top of your reading list."
--OS/2 Professional

"... the best-researched and most-detailed history of desktop computing ever written. It's ostensibly about Billion-Dollar Bill, but Microsoft's history starts with the Altair in 1975 and touches literally every aspect of desktop computing to happen since then.... Gates is an interesting guy, one you have to admire without necessarily wanting to play bridge with him.... He is quintessentially American, and I doubt a better portrait of him will be painted than this one..."
--PC Techniques

"Bill Gates has become a symbol of many things, from good old American inventiveness to weird, secretive power-wielding. Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews have put the complicated pieces together in a revealing and nicely droll way. Anyone interested in how computers have remade the world, anyone curious about how Bill Gates has made his fortune, anyone who loves--or hates--Microsoft's Windows will enjoy this impressive book."
--James Fallows, columnist, The Atlantic

"A real knockout! Gates is so clear and exciting that anyone can enjoy it, yet so crammed with detail that computer fanatics will have their eyes opened about how their business--and Bill Gates--really work. Manes and Andrews know their stuff: They've laid the myths to rest, they've provided amazing new revelations, and they've written the first serious book about the computer industry that you simply can't put down."
--Paul Somerson, editor, PC/Computing and MacUser

"Part history, part biography, part computing, Gates tells how a man turned a byte into a dollar, a language into an obsession, and a program into a bestseller. Here's the complete story of the man who built a universe from his keyboard and an empire from his software."
--Clifford Stoll, author of The Cuckoo's Egg

"Scrupulously researched, overflowing with detail, and just plain fun, Gates is must reading for anyone interested in an accurate history of Microsoft, and learning what's gone right--and what's gone wrong--in the personal computer industry."
--Charles Petzold, author of Programming Windows

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Touchstone; Illustrated edition (January 21, 1994)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0671880748
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0671880743
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.84 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.6 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 266 ratings

About the author

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Stephen Manes

Stephen Manes

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Bestselling author Stephen Manes has written more than thirty books and hundreds of articles in a long career of making arcane worlds accessible to the uninitiated. Four years in the making, his new book, "Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet," was born of his desire to discover how ballet really happens. Now the book has arrived--with an unprecedented amount of inside information about the world he calls the Land of Ballet, from intense rehearsals and lighting sessions to closed-door casting conferences and business meetings.

The book has already earned acclaim from around the globe. In the United States, BalletScoop and ExploreDance called it a "must-read," and Ballet-Dance Magazine deemed it "not to be missed." In Great Britain, a former dancer writing for Balletco found it "engrossing" and "unparalleled." In Australia, Dancelines said "'Snowflakes' reveals all. . . . I can't imagine any other company allowing a writer the same access . . . " James Fayette, a former Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet, calls the book "a truly in-depth exploration that should be recommended to anyone who craves insight into the very private world of professional ballet and the dancer subculture."

Manes co-wrote the bestselling and much-acclaimed biography "Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry--and Made Himself the Richest Man in America." He wrote long-running columns on personal technology for The New York Times, Forbes, PC World, PC Magazine, and many other publications. He was a creator and co-host of the weekly public television series "Digital Duo."

Manes is also the author of dozens of books for children and young adults. His "Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days!" won kid-voted awards in five states and is a curriculum staple in American and French schools. The sequel, "Make Four Million Dollars by Next Thursday!", quickly became a Publishers Weekly bestseller. His books have been adapted for stage and television productions.

Manes has a degree in cinema from the University of Southern California. His writing credits for the screen include programs for ABC Television and KCET/Los Angeles, as well as the 'seventies classic movie "Mother, Jugs & Speed." A native of Pittsburgh, he lives in Seattle.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
266 global ratings
A Good Book About Microsoft Bill Gates
5 Stars
A Good Book About Microsoft Bill Gates
I like this book about Bill Gates because I am his secret admirer. His early practice and knowledge in computer programming are the elements which have compelled me to pursue this field of software technique. Additionally, I personally feel that I use this book mainly for understand his background and also to learn the materials which are useful for future use of my Scalecessor, the name which I have founded many years ago in the computer based on my final year project report.
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Top reviews from the United States

Mark F. LaMoure
5.0 out of 5 stars Bill Gates And Golden Microsoft
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2012
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Mark F. LaMoure, Boise, ID

Powerful! You will enjoy reading "Gates." The book explains what it took Bill Gates to build Microsoft and grow the computer revolution. Bill Gates was CEO of Microsoft Corporation and greatly empowererd the world's computer industry with his effective and precious software. His book gives you great insight and deep vision on the challenges Bill faced. The book is much more than fascinating.

The two authors, Manes and Andrews, wrote an in-depth book on brilliant Bill Gates. It is entrancing, because the book chronicles the difficult trials Bill overcame for success at Microsoft. I rate the book 5 Gold Stars.

The book is written from a captivating standpoint. Reading it gives you deep insight on Bill's personality, life and background. It is a first class story of an outstanding man everyone in America should be proud of.

An ivy league college dropout, Bill Gates was a smart, pre-law major at Harvard University. In 1978 just after dropping out of Harvard, Bill cofounded Microsoft Corporation with Paul Allen. Paul was his smart boyhood friend, since Bill's early teens. The two friends proved to be a dynamic duo of sparkling genius.

After going into the software business, Gates demonstrated his brilliant brain power. He has been constantly ranked with the world's wealthiest and most intelligent men for more than 30 years. At Microsoft, Bill's accomplishments have been stunning, as well as gigantic. His software has helped the world tremendously.

Bill Gates became the guiding compass behind Microsoft. By a huge distance, Microsoft rapidly became the world's most enormous computer software company. Over the long-term, Microsoft has cumulatively earned literally hundreds of billions of dollars, selling software for computers over three decades worldwide. That's big-league, collossal achievement, in helping billions of people internationally.

An exceptional book, GATES will blow your mind. With 560 pages and 31 chapters, the book not only explains the awesome history of Bill Gates, but also the major players and events in the intriguing computer industry. An excellent book, its full of marvelous ideas and stories on Microsoft's development.

Buy the book. I rate the book AT LEAST 5 Gold Stars. It is for people who are fascinated by Bill Gates and the unbelievable miracles it took to build Microsoft. The book delivers a precious payload of golden history to help you understand what goes on in the American computer industry. Enjoy!
3 people found this helpful
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Renfrew Fan
4.0 out of 5 stars A Thorough Retelling of a Fascinating Era...
Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2015
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I read this book twice through - something I rarely do - only because I lived through, as an IT professional, the time period covered. I appreciated the authors' treatment of highly technical information - leaving this info out for fear of boring lay readers would have spoiled the read for me. My only complaint is the authors' continual and unrelenting use of sophomoric popular idioms. I'm not sure what their purpose was - an appeal to readers of the current generation or simple literary immaturity. Either way, it was a very distracting part of this otherwise compelling history.

Overall, the tone of the book is anti-Gates - not viciously so, but in the sense that Bill comes across as more of a lucky recipient of a vacuum of technical leadership, rather than the highly competent visionary he was.
2 people found this helpful
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Benjamin W. Slivka
5.0 out of 5 stars Get the Business: Microsoft's intense focus on success
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2013
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I think this is a must-read book for any technology entrepreneur -- and all senior technology executives. Covering Bill Gate's childhood and the first 17+ years of Microsoft, you read in gory detail about just how complicated and chaotic that time was, and you marvel at Bill's and Microsoft's ability to surf through and dominate.

I joined Microsoft in 6/1985 and departed in 8/1999. It grew from 800 people and $120M revenue to >30K people and >$19B revenue during those 14 years.

Manes and Andrews have done a very thorough job capturing the feeling of the 8 years (1985-1993) where I overlapped with their chronology, when I worked on what became OS/2 for my first 5.5 years, then did early work on "Win32 for DOS", and co-led software engineering for MS-DOS 6.0 and 6.2 (both shipped in 1993).

As they describe, the focus of the company was on OS/2 and IBM up until the "divorce" toward the end of 1990. The OS/2 group was much larger than the Windows group and it was staffed with most of the more experienced software engineers. Similarly, the Apps teams working on Word and Excel for OS/2 were larger and had more senior folks.

By 1987 I was leading engineering teams, and like all engineering leaders I spent a lot of time on recruiting. Our focus was on the top talent graduating with BS (and BA) degrees, and our summer internship program was a key tool to both get real work done and attract the best software folks. Up until the web started heating up in 1996, Microsoft was able to hire the absolute best undergrads (a role Facebook and Google have today).

I was too busy working to read the print release back in 1993, but I just finished this 20th anniversary April 2013 Kindle re-release. Andrews and Manes did an exhaustive amount of research, and it shows in the level of detail they provide in the early years of Gates and to a lesser extent the other very early Microsoft employees.

Readers who were not around the PC industry in the 1980s and 1990s might be overwhelmed/bored with all the details of companies, products, dates, product unit sales figures, etc. But it was a walk down memory lane for me: GEM, DesqVIEW, Taligent, Kaleida, PS/2, PS/1, SAA, Cairo, NEC 9800, Atari, all those long-gone PC vendors, strategic alliances, and could-have-beens.

What is very clear from this book?
1) Bill Gates is very smart, very hard-working, very technical, very aggressive, and has boundless energy. He placed many bets, traveled and met with friends and foes relentlessly, and was forever paranoid about how Microsoft could be tripped up.
2) The current dominance of Windows and Office was never a foregone conclusion. There were many competitors -- bigger and smaller -- pursuing various strategies and technologies in the 1980s and early 1990s, all attempting to gain dominant market share in PCs, operating systems, and applications. Big companies like IBM, HP, AT&T, and small companies like Novell, Lotus, Ashton-Tate, WordPerfect, Borland, Software Publishing.
3) Apple had its wins and (mostly) losses in the "PC Wars"...who would have predicted that Jobs would come back and resurrect the company with iPod, iPhone, and iPad?
4) When the books closes off its narrative in 1993, it is far from obvious that Windows is going to dominate the "PC Wars". There are still plenty of competitors.
5) Hardware prices were SO HIGH back then. A megabyte of RAM cost ~$350 in 1988-1989. Today you can buy an 8Gb RAM DIMM for $70. Even ignoring inflation, that is 8,192 times as much RAM for 1/5th the cost.

There is a brief 1994 "Envoi: A Computer in Every Wallet?" (I assume from a paper pack release) and then a 2013 "Afterword: Windows Update" that very briefly catches up to the present.

The 1993 book mentioned Bill's 1990 "Information at Your Fingertips", and the 1994 chapter hints at the coming "national data highway", but the rise of the Internet changed the world for Microsoft in ways that no competitor had been able to.

My thanks to Steve and Paul for their hard work in bringing this story together and sharing it with us.
27 people found this helpful
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David Swann
3.0 out of 5 stars No major refresh since it was written in 1993
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2013
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I'd read the book when it was first released. If you've never read it I still recommend it. It's an amazing story, well told. But, if you read it back then, don't be suckered in by the 'updated' label. At best there's a bit of froth added but don't expect any discussion about Google, Facebook, the revitalized Apple - it's not there. Not even anything about the Gates' philanthropic works. So it's disappointing and I wish publishers would be more open and honest about re-releasing under that 'updated' label.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars If you like technology and history
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2015
Verified Purchase
Interesting read. Would give it 5 stars, but I feel it gets a little dense with the technical stuff. I understand it well enough, it just seems a bit much at times. I personally had to research on the web to fully understand the IBM/OS2 relationship. If you like technology and history, it is worth your time.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Jonm
5.0 out of 5 stars Very comprehensive account
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 7, 2019
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This book is the perfect counter to issacsons bio of Steve Jobs, giving a different perspective of the birth of modern computing. Also a very in depth account of the earlier life of Bill Gates and the formation of Microsoft. Having lived through this era it also set right some of the miss-reported facts from the time. A must read for any one interested in modern day computing.
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goodsimporter au
1.0 out of 5 stars Outdated and not easy to read
Reviewed in Australia on July 20, 2018
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I like to be inspired and motivated that's why I buy this book. Although the story of Gates is admirable, but the author does not make the book easy to read. Even I have a technical computer background for almost 15 years, I can understand the technicalities and the terms that was used in this book. However, the way that the author present it to the reader is not easy to read, the book is outdated and need some revisions.
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Simon
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on September 14, 2015
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good book
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Romulo Garcia
5.0 out of 5 stars Biografia completa e detalhada
Reviewed in Brazil on May 28, 2014
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O livro é muito bem escrito e descreve perfeitamente a criação e evolução da empresa, servindo também para eliminar alguns mitos, mas por outro lado sem mistificar a personalidade do Bill Gates.
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BruceB
4.0 out of 5 stars Highly detailed; highly readable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2013
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I recently read Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography [Kindle Edition] and, having done so, checked for an appropriate book about Bill Gates.

This book seemed to be the obvious one to choose.

Having worked with computers since before both Gates or Jobs, albeit rather less successfully, I was interested to see how my remembrance of the development of personal computers - generic small 'p' and small 'c' - mapped to the books' content.

Having both books on the Kindle, it was an easy matter to identify common points in each book, and compare how they were spun. I think 'spun' is the right word because each book tends to discount the subject of the other book as being of any real importance. The authors of this book went rather overboard to discount the part that Jobs played and in doing so, lost a little credibility, for me.

Having read both, I found the facts in each to be pretty much spot on and I was surprised to find I liked the Bill Gates as portrayed more than I did Steve Jobs.

All in all, I found this book an engrossing read. It was flawed only in its premature end in 1993, with only some short additions to cover the next 20 years. While I appreciate that a full update would have been a huge undertaking, a lot has happened in that 20 years. As the update at the back of the book asks: "so how did Jobs manage it?".

For me, the two stories become reality in what I now see before me. From 1983 to 2010 I used DOS and all versions of Windows, learning to kludge things throughout that time as a natural need to make the systems work effectively. Eventually, the fact that my PCs were always heavily slowed down by the need for copious anti-virus software topped me into switching to Apple. Productivity wise, there's no competition. The only problem moving to an iMac was learning to unlearn all the kludges as the Apple system simply worked, and the need for antivirus software disappeared. So, quality won the day for me.

Summation: the Gates book is well recommended, but take a look at the Gates one as well, to get a view of the other side of the story. Then make up your own mind. The process will be very illuminating.
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