5 memoirs that helped shape my own

I feel like I’m always learning, but I really go into serious learning mode when I’m starting a new project. In the early days of Microsoft, I read a ton about technology companies, and as I was starting the Gates Foundation, I researched the history of American philanthropy.

Writing my memoir Source Code, which came out earlier this year, was no different: I thought about what I could draw on from the best memoirs I’ve read.

So for this year’s Summer Books, I want to share a few of them. With the exception of Nicholas Kristof’s Chasing Hope, I read all of these before finishing Source Code—in fact I read Katharine Graham’s Personal History years before I even decided to start writing. (Nick’s book is so good that I wanted to share it anyway.)

You won’t find a direct correlation between any of these books and Source Code. But I think it has shades of Bono’s vulnerability about his own challenges, Tara Westover’s evolving view of her parents, and Trevor Noah’s sense as a kid that he didn’t quite fit in.

In any case, I hope you can find something that interests you on this list. Memoirs are a good reminder that people have countless interesting stories to tell about their lives.

Personal History, by Katharine Graham. I met Kay Graham, the legendary publisher of the Washington Post, on July 5, 1991—the same day I met Warren Buffett—and we became good friends. I loved hearing Kay talk about her remarkable life: taking over the Post at a time when few women were in leadership positions like that, standing up to President Nixon to protect the paper’s reporting on Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, negotiating the end to a pressman’s strike, and much more. This thoughtful memoir is a good reminder that great leaders can come from unexpected places.

Chasing Hope, by Nicholas Kristof. In 1997, Nick Kristof wrote an article that changed the course of my life. It was about the huge number of children in poor countries who were dying from diarrhea—and it helped me decide what I wanted to focus my philanthropic giving on. I’ve been following Nick’s work ever since, and we’ve stayed in touch. He’s reported from more than 150 countries, covering war, poverty, health, and human rights. In this terrific memoir, Nick writes about how he stays optimistic about the world despite everything he’s seen. His book made me think: The world would be better off with more Nick Kristofs.

Educated, by Tara Westover. Tara grew up in a Mormon survivalist home in rural Idaho, raised by parents who believed that doomsday was coming and that the family should interact with the outside world as little as possible. Eventually she broke away from her parents—a process that felt like a much more extreme version of what I went through as a kid, and what I think a lot of people go through: At some point in your childhood, you go from thinking your parents know everything to seeing them as adults with limitations. Tara beautifully captures that process of self-discovery in this unforgettable memoir.

Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah. Back in 2017, I said this memoir shows how the former Daily Show host’s “approach has been honed over a lifetime of never quite fitting in.” I also grew up feeling like I didn’t quite fit in at times, although Trevor has a much stronger claim to the phrase than I do. He was a biracial child in apartheid South Africa, a country where mixed-race relationships were forbidden. He was, as the title says, “born a crime.” In this book, and in his comedy, Trevor uses his outside perspective to his advantage. His outlook transcends borders.

Surrender, by Bono. I’m lucky that my parents were super supportive of my interest in computers—but Bono’s parents had a very different view of his passion for singing. He says his parents basically ignored him, which made him try even harder to get their attention. “The lack of interest of my father … in his son’s voice is not easy to explain, but it might have been crucial.” Bono shows a lot of vulnerability in this surprisingly open memoir, writing about his “need to be needed” and how he learned he’ll never fill his emotional needs by playing for huge crowds. It was a great model for how I could be open about my own challenges in Source Code.