- Bill Gates was dedicated to making Microsoft successful when he was a Harvard student.
- The billionaire said he had “no girlfriend” and “no hobbies” in 1976 outside his company.
- His intensity embodies “founder mode” — a term coined and popularized by tech leaders in 2024.
The tech industry couldn’t stop talking about “founder mode” in 2024 — but Bill Gates embodied it decades ago.
Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham coined the term to summarize advice from Airbnb cofounder Brian Chesky. Graham wrote in an essay that Chesky mentioned Steve Jobs at Apple as an example of a founder who took a hands-on approach to running their company.
Gates, who built Microsoft in the 1970s, was similarly intense when it came to making his budding company…