- Bill Gates chronicled his childhood and schooling in a new memoir, "Source Code."
- Gates, who dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, wasn't a fan of school from an early age.
- He wrote that his preschool teachers described him as a "rebellious child."
From an early age, Bill Gates was not a fan of school.
Gates famously dropped out of Harvard to cofound Microsoft in 1975, a move he's said he doesn't regret.
His new memoir, "Source Code: My Beginnings," reveals how his aversion to academic settings dates back to his earliest years.
In the book, Gates chronicles his upbringing and schooling as a self-described "hyperkinetic, brainy, often contrarian, tempestuous" son and student.
Gates writes that even his preschool teachers noticed that he was not interested in being there.
"My mother worried about me and warned my preschool teachers at Acorn Academy what to expect," Gates wrote.
"At the end of my first year, the director of the school wrote: 'His mother had prepared us for him for she seemed to feel that he was a great contrast to his sister. We heartily concurred with her in this conclusion, for he seemed determined to impress us with his complete lack of concern for any phase of school life. He did not know or care to know how to cut, put on his own coat, and was completely happy thus.'"
Gates wrote that in his second year of preschool, the director described him as a "newly aggressive, rebellious child" who was "frustrated and unhappy much of the time."
"What educators and my parents noted at an early age were hints of what would come. I channeled the same intensity that drew me into solving the puzzle of Gami's card skill into anything that interested me — and nothing that didn't," Gates wrote, referring to his grandmother's card-game prowess.
Gates' misbehavior continued into elementary and high school, where he wrote that he became the "class clown."
"My teacher, my parents, and the school principal were at a loss as to what to do with me," he wrote. "My grades were mixed; my attitude depended on the day and the subject."
When Gates' high school acquired an early computer, it finally provided him with an outlet where he was challenged and engaged — so much so that he even went dumpster diving for source code and hacked into a corporation's operating system in his thirst for more knowledge.
Gates, of course, went on to start Microsoft and become a billionaire and philanthropist — one of many successful people, including Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, and Steve Jobs — who have spoken about their struggles to conform to the structure of traditional schooling.
