The Road Ahead
Gates journal on Microsoft
The Road Ahead provides a glimpse into the magical, computational mind of Bill Gates. He details how Microsoft began, paved information superhighways, and his foresight into future decades.
Recent Microsoft press releases might include layoff talks, AI outbreaks, or earnings calls. But what about a deeper knowledge of Bill Gates and Paul Allen? You can find this in The Road Ahead, written by Bill Gates himself. Published way back in November of 1995, The Road Ahead is a vintage autobiography about Gates’s dreams of dazzling code. Bill starts his roadmap by recalling an old after-school pastime of typing instructions into antique video terminals at the Lakeside School in Seattle. In 1968, 13-year-old Gates, alongside Paul Allen, wrote his first software program to play tic-tac-toe using BASIC (Beginner’s All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).
Playing with code was fun for Gates, but computer time in the late 60s cost more than his allowance. This could have stopped Bill, but he saw a gleaming opportunity instead. Unlike today, most computers were built with individual software programs that were designed to work only with specific hardware. In other words, you couldn’t just download stuff; programs had to be custom-built. Bill’s modular intelligence helped local businesses fix or rewrite software. He continued to finance his programming habit with part-time coding gigs until 1972. When he turned 17, Bill Gates and 19-year-old Paul Allen founded their first company, Traf-O-Data.
Inspiration for Traf-O-Data came to Paul Allen after he flipped through an edition of Popular Electronics Magazine and came across Intel's new 8008 microprocessor chip. He promptly contacted Intel to request a manual that could be used to write additional programs compatible with 8008. Unfortunately, Intel’s chips were not easy to manipulate due to a low number of transistors. Transistors are a choreographed sequence of switches that flip on or off to execute binary instructions. Allen & Gates went back to the drawing board and mapped out how to transmit information from traffic monitors. At the time, analyzing traffic data involved cars driving over a rubber hose that punched holes into paper tape stored in metal boxes. Traf-O-Data would use computer chips to process data from tapes. Despite high hopes, the duo struggled to sell anything, so Traf-O-Data shut down just as Gates left Seattle to attend Harvard.
During Gates’ junior year as an Orange Man, the world's first personal computer, the Altair 8800, was launched. When paired with the VT-100 video terminal, the Altair brought personal computers into the limelight. However, no software program existed that could run on Altair tech stacks. This is where Gates identified the multi-billion-dollar opportunity of his lifetime. If he and Paul could write a versatile program for the Intel 8080 chip that worked on the Altair, they would have enough material to found Microsoft!
Bill Gates’ transformation from a dorm room computer geek to a $116 billion titan is outlined in The Road Ahead by the man himself. The book details Microsoft's early partnership with IBM, MS-DOS, the release of Windows 1.0, along with numerous other bullet points in the company’s history. Support us by clicking the button at the top of this post to order your copy on Amazon or signing up for Audible. Audible listeners get one free credit each month that allows them to listen to any book in the app’s vast library. You can also follow our socials or tune into regular episodes of the Serenity Saga podcast. Namaste.
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Bibliography
"Traf-O-Data." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traf-O-Data.
"Altair 8800." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800.
"The Road Ahead (Gates book)." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_(Gates_book).en.wikipedia.org
"April 4, 1975: Bill Gates, Paul Allen Form a Little Partnership." Wired, 4 Apr. 2011, https://www.wired.com/2011/04/0404bill-gates-paul-allen-form-microsoft.wired.com+1wired.com+1