Bill Gates says he dropped out of Harvard because he was scared of missing out on the personal computing revolution

pulse

February 14, 2018 4:52 PM

Speaking to Lin-Manuel Miranda at an event for his annual 2018 Gates Letter, Bill Gates talked about his time at Harvard, and why you should stay in school.

Bill Gates discussed what it was like dropping out of Harvard at an event hosted by Lin-Manuel Miranda for the annual Gates Letter.
He said he loved his time at Harvard, but dropping out to start Microsoft was the right thing to do.
Gates still thinks that finishing school is best for most people.

Bill Gates has no regrets about dropping out of Harvard, but he thinks you should stay in school.

Gates discussed what it was like to take the plunge — leaving a prestigious Ivy League school to start a software company — in an event on Tuesday hosted by the playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, where Gates and his wife Melinda discussed the annual Gates Letter and their charitable work.

"I had a great experience there," Gates said of his three years at Harvard. "I took a lot of classes, they fed me every day — it was a pretty nice deal, lots of smart kids around."

But Gates, who had been obsessed with computers and coding software since high school, knew he wanted to be a pioneer of the personal computing revolution. And he was just delaying that by staying in school.

He said he was "a little worried" that the revolution — putting personal computers in every home, office, and now, pocket across the world — would happen without him.

"When the first computer using that microprocessor came out, Paul [Allen, cofounder of Microsoft] and I said we've got to be the first to get in on this," Gates said. "And that's when I left school."

Gates said he promised his parents he'd go back if his venture writing software was unsuccessful, but the rest is history. He did, however, receive an honorary degree from Harvard in 2007.

And though Gates never finished school, he said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that he still "loves being a student."