Bill Gates
Microsoft co-founder · Gates Notes reading lists
Co-founder of Microsoft, chair of the Gates Foundation and the author of Gates Notes, where his summer and holiday book lists have run for over a decade. He reads about 50 books a year, an hour of it most nights, and writes in the margins as he goes. The rest of the routine is older than the philanthropy: tennis and pickleball, bridge with Warren Buffett, Wordle every morning, three or four Diet Cokes a day. Once proud of pulling all-nighters, he now tracks his sleep and says he was wrong about it.
- Entries
- 22
- Does
- 13
- Recommends
- 9
- Discusses
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Books
7 books in this stack
- BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Why We Sleep
His review says the book made him see the toll of the all-nighters he was once proud of, and that he kept putting it down early to follow its advice. He does not buy every claim in it, the Alzheimer's link in particular, but calls it important even with a discount applied.
Source: Gates Notes: This book put me to sleepView item: Why We SleepOn record from 8 of 62 tracked people: 5 recommend it, 3 have discussed it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Business Adventures
The best business book he has ever read, borrowed from Warren Buffett in 1991 and never returned. He values Brooks for refusing pat lessons, and reads the Xerox chapter as a warning he tried to heed at Microsoft.
Source: Gates Notes: The best business book I've ever readView item: Business AdventuresOn record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 recommend it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Anxious Generation
Scary but convincing, in his words, on how phones rewired adolescence. His daughter, a pediatrician, recommended it; what worries him most is the effect on the ability to concentrate, since his own Think Weeks came out of a childhood with nothing to scroll.
Source: Gates Notes: The cost of growing up onlineView item: The Anxious GenerationOn record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it, 1 has discussed it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Moonwalking with Einstein
One of the most interesting books he read that summer. It convinced him he could improve his memory with the visualization techniques Foer describes, though he admitted he had not started trying, and he warns it takes months of practice.
Source: Gates Notes: Training your brain for recallView item: Moonwalking with EinsteinOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Source Code
His own memoir, covering childhood through the early years of Microsoft. He says writing it was the first time he tried to understand himself through his own history, and that he is giving the proceeds to the United Way.
Source: Gates Notes: My first memoir is now availableView item: Source CodeOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness
He suggests it as the way in for anyone as skeptical as he was. An easy read with good metaphors, research summaries after each practice, and enough of Puddicombe's own story to show he knows what he is talking about.
Source: Gates Notes: Why I'm into meditationView item: The Headspace Guide to Meditation and MindfulnessOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Inner Game of Tennis
The best book on tennis he has read, first picked up in the mid-70s and reread several times, which he says is unusual for him. He still gives copies to friends and credits its approach to mistakes with how he critiques himself and manages teams.
Source: Gates Notes: The best guide to getting out of your own wayView item: The Inner Game of TennisOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it
Apps
3 apps in this stack
- AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Headspace
Credits the app, and Andy Puddicombe's voice on it, with turning him from skeptic to regular. Books on meditation had made the time investment feel too high; ten minutes of following Andy was a low enough bar to start and stick with.
Source: Gates Notes: Why I'm into meditationVisit headspace.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 3 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it, 1 recommends it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Great Courses
He says he has watched a lot of lecture series online. In his 2023 holiday list he was still recommending Timothy Taylor's three economics series on Wondrium to friends and family, more than a decade after he first watched them.
Source: Gates Notes: Great books, courses, and music for the holidaysVisit plus.thegreatcourses.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - AppDoes itFREE, no cost
Wordle
Starts every day with it, then Quordle and Octordle, then checks email to see how friends and family scored. He likes vowel-heavy openers such as AUDIO or OUNCE, usually finishes in four guesses, and values that the daily limit stops him playing all day.
Source: Gates Notes: I can't stop playing Wordle!Visit nytimes.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it
Protocols
4 entriesStructured routines and practices with a defined method.
Plays a lot, practicing drills with a coach and matches against friends, and partnered Roger Federer in doubles at the 2017 Match for Africa in Seattle. Nervous about playing in front of 16,000 people, he put in extra practice the week before.
Source: Gates Notes: Playing tennis with Roger FedererA Pickler for more than 50 years, since his father built a court at the family home in the late 1960s. He plays with friends and family at least weekly, more in summer, and says it and tennis have improved each other.
Source: Gates Notes: Fifty years ago, I started playing this little-known sport with a funny nameAlmost nobody gets by on five hours, he writes, quoting sleep researcher Thomas Roth, so the seven or eight everyone needs applies to you too, however convinced you are otherwise. He admits he almost never got eight at Microsoft and thought sleeping a lot was lazy.
Source: Gates Notes: This book put me to sleepHis short answer to how to sleep better relays Walker's sleep hygiene advice as his own. Two things. Swap out the bedroom's LED bulbs, for their blue light, and set the room to drop to 65 degrees at bedtime so core temperature can fall.
Source: Gates Notes: This book put me to sleep
Habits
8 entriesRecurring behaviors recorded in public statements.
About 50 books a year. His rule is to finish every one he starts, no matter how much he dislikes it. He told Time that every book teaches him something, and that you do not start getting old until you stop learning.
Source: CNBC Make It: This is the simple trick Bill Gates uses to remember what he readsTwo or three sessions a week of about ten minutes, sitting in a comfortable chair, sometimes alongside Melinda. He once dismissed meditation as woo-woo and now describes it as exercise for the mind, nothing to do with faith, that helps his focus and gives him distance from his thoughts.
Source: Gates Notes: Why I'm into meditationWrites notes in about a fifth of the books he reads, which he says doubles the time each takes but is key to his learning. If he disagrees with an author, the counterargument goes in the margin.
Source: CNBC Make It: Bill Gates: On vacation I get to read about 3 hours a dayFrom the 1990s he took an annual Think Week alone in a cabin on Hood Canal with a bag of books and papers, reading, thinking and writing for seven days and not even checking email. He credits a childhood of hours without interruption for the habit.
Source: Gates Notes: The cost of growing up onlineDiet Coke at the office, starting with the can he opens when he gets in, and maybe three or four across the day. He did the math once. By his count the habit adds up to roughly 35 pounds of aluminum a year.
Source: Gates Notes: Have you hugged a concrete pillar today?Warren Buffett got him hooked, he told Reddit in 2023, and while the two play less than they used to, he still plays with some of Buffett's friends, tournaments included.
Source: Gates Notes: Climate change, AI, and more from my latest AMAOn his podcast, he told Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen that he has swung from competing over how little he slept to monitoring his rest. Now he compares scores, he said. With family and friends, asking who got a 90 and how.
Source: Fortune: Bill Gates used to compete with his colleagues to sleep as little as possibleHe does the dishes every night. He said so in a 2014 Reddit AMA. Business Insider paired that chore with his hour of bedtime reading, calling the two the fixed pieces of his evening.
Source: Entrepreneur: Why Bill Gates Washes the Dishes and Reads for an Hour to Get a Good Night's Sleep
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“Now what we know is that to maintain good brain health, getting good sleep … is super important. It’s one of the most predictive measures of any dementia, including Alzheimer’s.”
Fortune: Bill Gates used to compete with his colleagues to sleep as little as possible (opens in a new tab) · 4 Aug 2023 “And the more I dislike a book, the more time I take to write margin notes.”
CNBC Make It: This is the simple trick Bill Gates uses to remember what he reads (opens in a new tab) · 21 Mar 2019 On Margin notes
“On vacation I get to read about 3 hours a day so I get through a lot of books … for a lot of books that is key to my learning”
CNBC Make It: Bill Gates: On vacation I get to read about 3 hours a day (opens in a new tab) · 22 Mar 2021 “I read an hour almost every night. It’s part of falling asleep”
Entrepreneur: Why Bill Gates Washes the Dishes and Reads for an Hour to Get a Good Night's Sleep (opens in a new tab) · 10 Dec 2021 “I do the dishes every night”
Entrepreneur: Why Bill Gates Washes the Dishes and Reads for an Hour to Get a Good Night's Sleep (opens in a new tab) · 10 Dec 2021
Episodes from the feed
Show archive, Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates (opens in a new tab)Last fetched . A title without a link is an episode the feed publishes no page of its own for.
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