Raja Jasti’s Blog - Renaissance Thinking

Most people would have heard of Bill Gates. But many of them may not much about his parents. WSJ has a nice story on them and Bill Gates’s growing up.

Bill Gates Sr., 83 years old, is now co-chair of his son’s $30 billion philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has avoided the spotlight. The public details of his life include little beyond his official biography at the foundation, which says he was a Seattle lawyer, World War II veteran, nonprofit volunteer and father of three. He has compiled his thoughts on life in a short book to be published next week.

In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates Sr., Bill Gates and their family shared many details of the family’s story for the first time, including Bill Gates Jr.’s experience in counseling and how his early interest in computers came about partly as a result of a family crisis. The sometimes colliding forces of discipline and freedom within the clan shaped the entrepreneur’s character.

The relationship between father and son entered a new phase when the software mogul began working full-time seven months ago at the Gates Foundation. For the past 13 years, the father has been the sole Gates family member with a daily presence at the foundation, starting it from the basement of his home and minding it while his son finished up his final decade running Microsoft. They now work directly together for the first time.

At six-foot-six, Bill Gates Sr. is nearly a full head taller than his son. He’s known to be more social than the younger Bill Gates, but they share a sharp intellect and a bluntness that can come across to some as curt. He isn’t prone to introspection and he plays down his role in his son’s life.

“As a father, I never imagined that the argumentative, young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name would be my future employer,” Mr. Gates Sr. told a group of nonprofit leaders in a 2005 speech. “But that’s what happened.”

A Battle of Wills

Bill Gates at an early age became a diligent learner. He read the World Book Encyclopedia series start to finish. His parents encouraged his appetite for reading by paying for any book he wanted.

Still, they worried that he seemed to prefer books to people. They tried to temper that streak by forcing him to be a greeter at their parties and a waiter at his father’s professional functions.

Then, at age 11, Bill Sr. says, the son blossomed intellectually, peppering his parents with questions about international affairs, business and the nature of life.

“It was interesting and I thought it was great,” Mr. Gates Sr. says. “Now, I will say to you, his mother did not appreciate it. It bothered her.”

The son pushed against his mother’s instinct to control him, sparking a battle of wills. All those things that she had expected of him — a clean room, being at the dinner table on time, not biting his pencils — suddenly turned into a big source of friction. The two fell into explosive arguments.

“He was nasty,” Ms. Armintrout says of her brother.

Mr. Gates Sr. played the role of peacemaker. “He’d sort of break them apart and calm things down,” says Ms. Blake, the eldest sibling.

The battles reached a climax at dinner one night when Bill Gates was around 12. Over the table, he shouted at his mother, in what today he describes as “utter, total sarcastic, smart-ass kid rudeness.”

That’s when Mr. Gates Sr., in a rare blast of temper, threw the glass of water in his son’s face.

He and Mary brought their son to a therapist. “I’m at war with my parents over who is in control,” Bill Gates recalls telling the counselor. Reporting back, the counselor told his parents that their son would ultimately win the battle for independence, and their best course of action was to ease up on him.