Bill Gates Talks AI, Journey to Microsoft at Sanders Event

Harvard dropout and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates discussed the early days of Microsoft and current developments in artificial intelligence at a sold-out Monday talk in Sanders Theatre.

The event, which was moderated by Harvard Kennedy and Business School professor Arthur C. Brooks, was held ahead of the Tuesday launch of “Source Code: My Beginnings,” Gates’ fifth book and the first of a planned three-volume memoir series. All attendees were given a free copy of the book.

“Source Code” details Gates’ early life, spanning from his childhood in Seattle, Wash. to his time at Harvard and, ultimately, Microsoft’s founding. The next two books are set to cover the rise of Microsoft and Gates’ shift to full-time philanthropy, respectively.

During the talk, Gates — originally a member of the Class of 1977 in Currier House before dropping out during his sophomore year — admitted that, while his parents were “super supportive” of his decision to leave college to found Microsoft, he worried about supporting the company’s employees more than his own academic future.

“It’s not risky to drop out because you can always come back,” Gates said. “What’s risky is when you start hiring people who move their families and they expect you to pay their salary.”

“That’s what scared the hell out of me,” he added.

Though he left the College without completing a degree, Gates has maintained a continued presence at Harvard since his rise to fame. He has returned to campus repeatedly for talks and visits, and has made a number of prominent donations — including tens of millions of dollars to support public health research at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, alongside a 1996 donation that endowed the Maxwell Dworkin Laboratory building.

Gates also discussed the rise of artificial intelligence, comparing it to another technical revolution from decades before: the emergence of personal computers.

“What we’re doing now, it’s kind of an extension of the digital revolution,” Gates added.

But Gates framed the end goal of the AI boom not as a technical accomplishment, but as “free intelligence.”

“Intelligence will be completely free,” he said. “The intelligence to do a medical diagnosis or design a new drug, and that is such an earth-shaking thing.”

Though the exact timeframe of AI’s rise is still an ongoing debate, Gates said, he added that he believes AI’s “ability to be arbitrarily smarter than humans” is on the horizon — and only a matter of years away.

“There’s still a few people who don’t get that,” he added.

—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.