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Bill Gates

Co-founder of Microsoft; co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
I read Stephen Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature a few years ago and got to talk to him about it after, which was a lot of fun. I reviewed it for my blog, Gates Notes, because I wanted other people to read it, love it, and hopefully learn from it the way I did. It's probably my favorite book and the one I recommend most often.

TIME interview, 2017 source ↗

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Jason Khalipa American Crossfit athlete
I read a lot. I think there are some really poor books at the airport, I really do. For me, I like more of a practical application book. I like a book like Mark Cuban’s Sport of Business. I Like it because it gets me fired up. I like it because it’s a real story from a real guy, just saying it like it is and it’s easy reading. It’s not so analytical and things like that. So that’s the book I like.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 1 June 2018 source ↗
Diana Chapman Leadership coach; co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks is probably the book I've gifted the most, and the one I've recommended the most of any other book. And also, Conscious Loving for Couples, because you asked that question earlier. Conscious Loving, I think, is a fantastic book for couples who are wanting to get more connected, is another one I've gifted a lot. And those are the two that come top of mind.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 6 October 2021 source ↗
Cory Booker American politician
I have gifted your book a lot. It wasn’t The 4-Hour Workweek . The book of yours that I gifted to anyone was The 4-Hour Body . I just thought there were so many great little hacks in there. Some of them
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 4 June 2018 source ↗
Jacqueline Novogratz Founder and chief executive of Acumen
I have reasons for each of those books and certainly The Invisible Man in this moment of the Black Lives Matter protests and the continuing racial reckoning. Invisible Man really taught me to not see through anybody ever. But the book I give right now in this time of so much despair is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning , where he really looks at people in the Holocaust and asks himself, why did some just sort of crumple up and die and others stayed resilient and strong? And that at the end of the day, no one can take our dignity away from us. And so I think that we have to be reminded right now that, between stimulus and response, there is a choice. And we’re in that moment. And I have seen myself personally so often that in the darkest times we can find our best selves and that’s our opportunity right now. And so I think for this moment, Tim, Man’s Search for Meaning should be required reading for all of us.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 6 May 2021 source ↗

More from Bill Gates

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Question What counsel would you give your twenty-year-old self — and what should they ignore? Time & hindsight
My last piece of advice is the one I could have used the most. It took me a long time to learn. And it is this: You are not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack. When I was your age, I didn't believe in vacations. I didn't believe in weekends. I pushed everyone around me to work very long hours. In the early days of Microsoft, my office overlooked the parking lot—and I would keep track of who was leaving early and staying late. But as I got older—and especially once I became a father—I realized there is more to life than work. Don't wait as long as I did to learn this lesson.
Recorded Northern Arizona University Commencement, Gates Notes, 13 May 2023 source ↗
Question What fills you with the most pride? Identity & self
Microsoft was at the center of the personal computer revolution, and particularly the creation of a software market where you went out to lots of companies, and encouraged them to write software for different applications, mundane applications, wild applications. That idea that you would encourage people to be creative, and build software, and there would be a whole industry around that.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview, Seattle, Washington, 17 March 2010 source ↗

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