How Bill Gates turned a "toxic" personality trait into a strength?

Bill Gates's Long-Term Obsessive Fear

"It was not until 1998, at the age of 43, that I felt comfortable about my career and believed that I was a successful person," billionaire Bill Gates shared in a recent interview with CNBC (USA).

At this time, Microsoft Corporation had been public for 11 years and had become a powerful global corporation. Bill Gates, as the founder of the corporation, had also been a world- famous billionaire for more than a decade.

At the age of 31, Bill Gates became a billionaire, the youngest billionaire in human history. Despite his great success, Bill Gates still felt insecure.

In his newly released memoir, Source Code , Bill Gates shares stories from his childhood to the early days of founding Microsoft in 1975.

In his memoir, he writes about a time of frantic work and constant worry that some mistake could cost Microsoft its leadership in personal computer innovation.

"It was only in the late 1990s that I began to have confidence in the group's position and understood that from now on, if we made a few mistakes, things would not go terribly wrong. Before that, I had always lived with the fear that just one mistake could make all the efforts go to waste.

That was the reality of my spiritual life for the first two decades of my career," Mr. Bill Gates recalled.

Billionaire Bill Gates surprised everyone when he released his autobiography for the first time (Photo: CNBC).

In the late 1990s, Microsoft was the world's most valuable corporation, valued at around $250 billion. Bill Gates was then the world's richest man, with a fortune of $58 billion. Now, Microsoft is worth over $3 trillion, and Bill Gates is worth around $165 billion.

Today, when he is truly confident with what he has achieved in his career, billionaire Bill Gates decided to summarize his entire life story in a 3-part autobiography.

In the first part, called Source Code , billionaire Bill Gates looks back and admits that he finds it funny to recall the fear that haunted him for a long time. He lived for more than two decades in fear that Microsoft would fail miserably if he made any mistakes.

Even though Microsoft is one of the largest corporations in the world, Bill Gates still lives in this haunting fear. This kind of "overthinking" is actually not uncommon among the world's richest billionaires. Many highly successful people tend to "overthink" like this.

Turn "toxic" personality traits into strengths

Jim Collins, an American expert on the leadership styles of world-famous people, said that rigor, perfectionism and a tendency to "take things too seriously" are some of the most common personality traits found in highly successful people. These are even considered strengths that help them achieve leadership positions in their fields.

However, to achieve great success and not let one's personality become too toxic, hindering one's career development, each person must know how to balance it so as not to cause dangerous deviations.

In fact, these tough traits have helped many billionaires take their companies to the top. In the case of Bill Gates, he took Microsoft from a startup to a global powerhouse.

According to Bill Gates, finding a balance in psychology and personality is never a simple task. He understands that if his personality becomes too harsh, unpleasant, and unpleasant, the working environment around him will become toxic, affecting the mental health of himself and his colleagues.

Bill Gates as a young man (Photo: CNBC).

However, looking back at the early stages of his career, billionaire Bill Gates still has regrets. He understands that during that period, he was an autocratic, ambitious boss who made very strict demands. His only goal during that period was to make Microsoft the market leader.

Bill Gates used to worry so much that no matter what achievements the corporation made, he never felt happy. Any positive information reported to him was still... not enough.

Bill Gates once dismissed all plans to hold parties to celebrate milestones and achievements that his corporation or himself achieved, because he feared that he and his colleagues would fall into a state of complacency.

"I lived in fear for many years. When the company passed important milestones, I always dismissed the big celebrations and told the staff: 'We don't have time to look back. Let's just focus on moving forward.'"

Bill Gates' first autobiography

Source Code is the first part of a three-part autobiography series that billionaire Bill Gates will release starting this year. The autobiography is written from his own words. The autobiography will systematize Bill Gates' entire life from his childhood years, until he decided to stop studying at university to soon found Microsoft.

Billionaire Bill Gates will also share about the relationships that left a strong mark on his life, the lessons he learned, and the experiences that helped shape his life.

Bill Gates has been in the media and public eye since he was in his early 20s, yet there are many aspects of his life that remain unknown. That's why he wrote this autobiography.

All profits from the publication of this autobiography will be donated by Bill Gates to charity (Photo: CNBC).

In Source Code , Bill Gates shares candidly about the most difficult times in his life. For example, as a child, he always felt like an outsider. As a teenager, he often rebelled against his parents and became a rebellious teenager. When he was in college, he was almost expelled, before he decided to stop studying to start his own business early.

In fact, the decision to stop going to college was not a simple one for Bill Gates. He bet on starting a business in a field that was not yet clearly formed at that time. In the journey to build a great career for himself, he gradually learned to turn challenges into opportunities.

Looking back on his journey, Bill Gates sees that his life has been filled with many lucky things. Starting from being born into a family with loving parents, to growing up in a period that witnessed historic changes in the technology industry.

Two autobiographies following Source Code are expected to revolve around his career at Microsoft and the philanthropy he pursued throughout his life.

According to Bill Gates, his autobiography Source Code is a collection of foundational stories that helped shape his personality and career. All profits from the publication of this autobiography will be donated to charity.

According to CNBC

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/bill-gates-bien-net-tinh-cach-doc-hai-tro-thanh-diem-manh-nhu-the-nao-20250205213814059.htm