Hard Drive (Review and Analysis of Wallace and Erickson's Book)

By BusinessNews Publishing

The must-read summary of James Wallace and Jim Erickson's book: "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire".

This complete summary of the ideas from James Wallace and Jim Eriskon's book "Hard Drive" tells the story of America's youngest millionaire and Microsoft founder, Bill Gates. In their book, the authors have interviewed childhood friends, employees and business rivals to present this compelling story behind the rise of this genius who transformed the computer industry. By reading this summary, you will understand how one man took his passion for computing and transformed it into a multi-million dollar world-class company.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Understand key concepts
• Expand your knowledge

To learn more, read "Hard Drive" and discover the secrets behind the success of the most feared player in the computer industry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Business Book Summaries
• Release date: Feb 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9782806246462

Book preview

Book Presentation: Hard Drive by James Wallace & Jim Erickson

Important Note About This Ebook

Summary of Hard Drive (James Wallace & Jim Erickson)

1. Lakeside High School

2. Traf-O-Data and Harvard University

3. The Altair 8080 and MITS

4. Microsoft BASIC

5. Growing Pains

6. The Industry Standard

7. Making Progress

8. MS-DOS and the IBM Personal Computer

9. Growing From Strength to Strength

10. Windows

11. Going Public

12. The Fruits of Success

Important Note About This Ebook

This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book. This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, viewpoints and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.

1. Lakeside High School

William Henry Gates II was born on 28 October 1955.

His father, William Gates Jr., served in the Second World War after which he studied law at the University of Washington. He later became a partner in an established legal firm Shidler, McBroom, Gates and Lucas based in Seattle, Washington. His mother, Mary Maxwell, also graduated from the University of Washington before settling down to raise a family.

In describing her son, Mary Gates later remarked that he has pretty much done whatever he felt like doing since the age of eight. This also held true for most of the friends Bill Gates made in school, who always describe him as being very competitive and persistent.

While his father was busy building his legal practice, Bill Gates’ mother was equally hard working and ambitious for her three children. (Bill Gates has two sisters). Mary Gates worked hard at cultivating the right social contacts and organizing numerous activities for the family’s social calendar.

As a student, Bill Gates excelled at mathematics. In fact, most of his early teachers considered he would end up as a mathematician or college professor. At age 11, Gates’ parents enrolled