The Road Ahead, Bill Gates The Road Ahead is a book written by Bill Gates, co-founder and then-CEO of the Microsoft software company, together with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson.

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “The Road Ahead” as Want to Read:
Rate this book

See a Problem?

We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Road Ahead by Bill Gates.
Not the book you’re looking for?

Preview — The Road Ahead by Bill Gates

The Harvard dropout who founded Microsoft based on his vision of a personal computer in every home and on every desk offers a clearly written, accessible book which describes how the tools of the future will change the way we make choices about everything, from what we buy to how we choose our friends to how we protect our families in an increasingly complicated world. Inc..more
Published November 21st 1995 by Viking Books
To see what your friends thought of this book,please sign up.
To ask other readers questions aboutThe Road Ahead,please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
SaranshI ordered mine from amazon.in
Best Business Biographies
58 books — 180 voters
Silicon Valley History
204 books — 438 voters

More lists with this book..
Rating details

The Road Ahead Bill Gates Pdf

|
Oct 12, 2009Ahmad Sharabiani rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: biography, 20th-century, computer, non-fiction
The Road Ahead, Bill Gates
The Road Ahead is a book written by Bill Gates, co-founder and then-CEO of the Microsoft software company, together with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson. Published in November 1995, then substantially revised about a year later, The Road Ahead summarized the implications of the personal computing revolution and described a future profoundly changed by the arrival of a global information superhighway.
عنوان: راهی که در پیش است؛ نویسنده:
..more
Jan 11, 2012Saeed Almazrouei rated it it was amazing
This book is about The Road Ahead and it tells us new ideas and new ways of doing things. For more than 500 years people have used paper to hold ideas and information. There will still be paper in the future, but there will also be other new ways. As the book says the computer has already changed our lives. Also the computer offers faster communications. Computers are used for many things like part of business work for markets and money, Also it is used for education. It is a beginning for new t..more
Nov 05, 2014Mark Oppenlander rated it liked it
Shelves: anthropology-sociology, business-economics, current-affairs, biography-and-memoir, popular-science
Written in 1995, 'The Road Ahead' was Microsoft founder Bill Gates' attempt to describe for people what the much hyped 'information superhighway' might look like. Building from his own knowledge of what had happened already, what was possible and what was in the pipeline, Gates first explains how we got to where we were in 1995 (e.g. the rise of the PC, the beginnings of the internet) and then explains what the next steps are likely to be in terms of connectivity, new wired devices and a variety..more
May 22, 2019Kavitha Sivakumar rated it really liked it
Too technical and some part of the book went above my head. Don't know whether he could have dumb down..
Other than that, the book is very inspiring and I learned a lot. He talk about the evolution of computer from the business stand point of view.
But comparatively Melinda Gates book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World is mind blowing. So this book got 4 stars.
Mar 11, 2010Tasshin Fogleman rated it really liked it
I read this only a few years after it came out, as a little boy. It really stretched my mind and forced me to start thinking about the future.
The
Written in 1995. I read it in 2013 and most of it is still relevant. It is relevant because Bill Gates was on on the forefront of computers back then and could see the many directions and ways computers would affect us in the future. This book is fascinating and also amusing in ways which the internet and technology did not go the way he predicted. A solid book. It is a keeper for me and I will probably read it again in a few years.
Jul 20, 2018Ron rated it liked it
Road
Read this shortly after publication. An infomecial for Microsoft projects.
Overcome by history.
Bill Gates’ “The Road Ahead” is non-fiction publication in which Gates writes about how we are on the brink of a complete cultural and technological revolution. He outlines major technological innovations of the past that have led to this and how we are being affected by it right now. He also shares his own theories regarding the innovations of the future and how they will affect the average American household. This book was written in 1995, a time in which Microsoft was still a developing compa..more

The Road Ahead Bill Gates

Jun 03, 2014Christopher Lewis Kozoriz rated it liked it
'..finding a job will be easier if you have embraced the computer as a tool.' ~ Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, p. 258
I found this book like reading the prophets of the old testament and Bill Gates is the prophet and the things he is saying are predicting what will happen in the future of the technological highway.
Because this book was written in 1995, you begin to see that Bill Gates was not too far off from the mark. I believe that is why Microsoft has had tremendous success..that being the lead
..more
Admirable !
Loved how many of those predictions he made about future of computer has come true !
I needed an inpiration for programming and this did the trick !
Also provided quite useful business tactics !
i learned that Bill Gates was a great man !
and. Microsoft was a wanderful company, but it gone!
welcome to google and googling
Feb 19, 2007aliBill gates the road ahead pdf rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: aboutmywork
i learn i could get evrything from life that i want .but bill gates never learn to respect to other brain.
‘The Road Ahead’ written by Bill Gates with the collaboration of Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson had surely kept its promise that it would clear up the ‘seemingly endless hype about the information highway’ which is proudly stated on the book’s synopsis. Published by the Viking Penguin in 1995, the book had vividly shown the situation that the people encountered about the rising age of technology over that time. Funny enough, those individuals who have read the hardback right after it was re..more
Fascinating!
May 31, 2012Senthil Kumaran rated it it was amazing
I had found this book very inspiring. I liked the vision Bill gates shares in this one, namely 'A computer running Microsoft Windows on everyones desk'. This book, I believe, from the early days of Microsoft and had really thought on future world with ubiquitous computing. I liked to so much that I inherited some of his thoughts on future home design and tried it at my house while building (wherein there would be phone on all rooms and only phone near the person would ring (this was before cell..more
A 1995 book being read in 2014. His idea and vision of information highway is way too awesome. He has already described what Google has been up to for past few years. Too bad, Microsoft couldnt catch up even though Bill Gates had the vision. As for the book, a good read. :)
Bill Gates and Paul Allen understood the potential of developing an information highway long before most entrepreneurs gained a similar vision. Most successful business start ups begin with an idea and require subject knowledge, patience, market timing and luck. Bill's and Paul's development of the DOS operating system was timely and vital to IBM's successful launch of an interactive computer system. Gates and Allen focused on software. IBM limited focus on developing hardware. It was fortuitous..more
Being written in 1995, this book precedes a heck of a lot of present day computer/internet world but is able to describe a future in a way that made it sound not so far fetched (and actually pretty representative for what we have for today). And with coming from that era, multimedia was a hot topic so with an interactive CD-ROM accompanying this book was a peak mid-90s computer thing to do.
A major buzz word back in 1995 was the 'Information Superhighway' (I remember). This phrase is practically
..more
If you haven't read one of the several biographies of Gates, you might find some of the personal tidbits he has included mildly amusing. Gates says he recognized the real power of computers, for example, when he wrote a scheduling program for his school that put him in a class with mostly girls.
At age 8, he started to read a set of encyclopedias, finally stopping when he reached the Ps. He talks of virtual dating in which he watches the same film as a girlfriend living in another city and discus
..more
Feb 25, 2018Salah DADDI NOUNOU rated it really liked it
I found this book a bit funny, 'cause as it has more than 20 years, the information that it provides are so familiar for us nowadays, Bill Gates tried to explain in a very simple way how the computers would look like, his predictions were so precise as he had a very clear plan for the future! he speaks about the features the internet will bring with, like the electronic mail, the communication with voice and picture instantly, why we are not gonna miss our favorite TV show, and so on.
But he emp
..more
Dec 31, 2017Christian Ray rated it really liked it
(1995 version) Gates's surprisingly prescient predictions from 1995. It bogs down a little in the middle, where he painstakingly describes his imagined gadgets of the near future, where his vision of a complete internet is made. He has a higher emphasis than he would today on capitalistic deregulation (it was the deregulation-mad nineties) and, of course, his classic and unpopular opinions on what wasn't quite yet known as DRM. The best parts are his view on the recent history of PCs at the star..more
Jul 21, 2019Captain Pixel rated it really liked it
I find it extremely funny when Bill Gates criticizes IBM for applying 'mainframe business' mindset during the dawn of PC only for Microsoft to stubbornly trying to miniaturize 'personal computer running Windows' into wallet-sized form-factor during the inception of the smartphone.
NOTE: I have chosen the original 1995 release, to see what had Bill Gates in mind when the book became first available. There was a substantial revision released a year later - AFAIK quite a lot of things were changed i
..more
Nov 27, 2017Abhinav Bhardwaj rated it it was amazing
My brother had given me this book 7 years ago. I tried several times and failed. But after developing bit of reading aptitude I tried it and finished off successful. in these 7 years I have also become an entrepreneur and now when I turned it's last page, I feel so foolish for not reading it. I would have taken more intelligent steps. must read for technology related entrepreneur. it is not biography but vision of Mr. Gates which is a realty in today with Google, Facebook, Twitter and many Inter..more
While I have the advantage of 20 years of hindsight, I found this to be an interesting read of Bill Gates' prophetic view of the technology environment and his projection for how technology would impact the world we live in. Since I lived through that twenty year period employed by other key players in the tech world, it is easy for me to challenge certain of his visions, but, without question, a very enjoyable retrospective read.
It's been estimated 21 years after this book was published and Bill Gates'prediction in computing and communication is happening drastically. Hence, as a student in this field, I learned that we need to enhance our pace to move ahead of this rapidly changes. Don't be afraid to take risks since we still don't know our future. We need to keep learning, for in the future we'll not become obsolete in our careers.
I read this a number of years ago when it was published. Looking back on it now it is more of a history book than anything else. It is interesting to look where IT was heading at the time. Some aspects turned out completely incorrect and other aspects turned out to be accurate, but well before the technology could support it (i.e. Clippy being an embryonic Siri?).
As a snapshot of the times this would still be an interesting read, but I daresay of limited appeal
Bill Gates's thinking of 1995, indoubthly a technologic vissionary, so much of their predictions now be reallity. (27 years after) Although this book isn't a summary fo their enterprise ideas with Microsoft, I enjoyed every chapter because much of his ideas about the role of tecnology and communication for a better life actually be value.
This book was a good book about the technology of tomorrow. This is about how emerging technologies will change people's lives and how the information highway known as the internet will change lives around the world. This book was written in 1995 so when it is talking about the technology of tomorrow it is really the technology of today which is why I found it so interesting.
I am a little torn on the rating here. The book is pretty complex and sometimes technical but the insights into the future written almost 25 years ago: amazing. On the one hand I wish I had read it when it first came out and on the other hand I wish I could find something as insightful that is new today.
Apr 15, 2018Gregory rated it liked it
Reading this 20 years after it was written, predictions were dead on.
topics posts views last activity
Article Review: 7 Books world's 'second' richest man wants you to read 1 1May 28, 2019 06:48AM
Mrs. Anderson's E..:The Road Ahead 1 6Jan 06, 2016 09:18PM
Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates
See similar books…
See top shelves…
Reading books is one of my favorite ways to learn new things and better understand the world. I try to read every day, even when I’m busy and traveling. I’m excited to share with you what I'm reading, the people I meet, and what I'm learning. I hope that you'll join the conversation here and on my blog, gatesnotes.com.
“DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” — 142 likes
More quotes…
The Road Ahead
AuthorBill Gates, with Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson
Cover artistLaurie Rippon (jacket design); Annie Leibovitz (photograph)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectInformation technology, information superhighway, computer networks, telecommunications[1]
GenreNonfiction
PublisherViking Penguin
  • November 24, 1995[2]
  • October 1996 ('Completely revised and up-to-date.'[3])
Media typeHardback with companion CD-ROM
Pages286
ISBN978-0-670-77289-6
OCLC33281938
Followed byBusiness @ the Speed of Thought

The Road Ahead is a book written by Bill Gates, co-founder and then-CEO of the Microsoft software company, together with Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold and journalist Peter Rinearson. Published in November 1995, then substantially revised about a year later, The Road Ahead summarized the implications of the personal computing revolution and described a future profoundly changed by the arrival of a global information superhighway.

Android jelly bean update download. Gates received a $2.5 million advance for his book and money from subsidiary rights sales;[2] all his proceeds were donated to 'encourage the use of technology in education administered through the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education,'[4] a foundation created by the National Education Association.[5]

Content differences between hardback and trade editions[edit]

The hardback edition saw the Internet as one of the 'important precursors of the information highway..suggestive of [its] future' (p. 89);[4] he noted that the 'popularity of the Internet is the most important single development in the world of computing since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981'[4] (p. 91) but 'today's Internet is not the information highway I imagine, although you can think of it as the beginning of the highway': the information highway he envisioned would be as different from the Internet as the Oregon Trail was to Interstate 84.[4] (p. 95)

After the book was written, but before it hit bookstores, Gates recognized that the Internet was gaining critical mass, and on December 7, 1995 — just weeks after the release of the book — he redirected Microsoft to become an Internet-focused company; in retrospect he had 'vastly underestimated how important and how quickly the internet would come to prominence'.[3] Then he and coauthor Rinearson spent several months revising the book, making it 20,000 words longer and focused on the Internet.[citation needed] The revised edition was published in October 1996 as a trade paperback,[6] with the subtitle 'Completely revised and up-to-date.'.[3] Star plus serials songs download.

Home / Sports Games / Download Fifa 12 PC Game Full Version Free. Download Fifa 12 PC Game Full Version Free. Fifa 12 is a football video game that was released in PC, Play Station 4, Microsoft Windows and XBOX One. Release date of this installment is 27 September 2011. This installment was developed by EA Sports Studios and published by EA. Download fifa 12 pc game.

Both editions came with a CD-ROM that contained the text of the book and supplemental information. The hardback was published by Viking, and the paperback by Penguin, an affiliate of Viking. Numerous publishers around the world produced translated versions of the book.

Collaborators[edit]

One of Gates' coauthors, Nathan Myhrvold, was a computer scientist and Microsoft vice president who for a time oversaw Microsoft's research efforts and later co-founded Intellectual Ventures, an intellectual property company. The other co-author, Peter Rinearson, was a Pulitzer Prize winner and entrepreneur who later founded and sold an Internet company and became a Microsoft vice president.

Quotes[edit]

  • 'Anyone expecting an autobiography or a treatise on what it's like to have been as lucky as I have been will be disappointed.'[4] (p. xiii)
  • 'The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.'[4] (p. 265)
  • 'Computers are great because when you're working with them you get immediate results that let you know if your program works. It's feedback you don't get from many other things.'[4] (p. 2)
  • 'We’ll find ourselves in a new world of friction, overhead capitalism, in which market information will be plentiful and transaction costs low. It will be a shopper’s heaven' (Gates, 1996: 181).
  • 'Corporations will redesign their nervous systems to rely on the networks that reach every member of the organization and beyond into the world of suppliers, consultants and customers.' (Gates, 1996: 153)

Publicity[edit]

This is as big as it gets in nonfiction for us. It's pretty exciting.
— Paul Slovak, vice president of publicity for Viking[2]

The publisher's $1 million promotional budget was one of its largest ever, rivaling that given to My American Journey, an autobiography of Gen. Colin Powell also released at the time.[2] The first excerpts from the book were published on November 19 by The Sunday Times in the United Kingdom (only a few months after Microsoft, in a Windows 95 promotion, 'paid for an entire daily press run of The Times and gave it away to readers') and in the November 27th, edition of Newsweek.[2] Accompanying the publicity was a 'one-day lay down', a 'very expensive marketing technique' where a book is placed on sale in multiple countries on the same day (November 24, in this case), giving the book 'an almost sure shot at the No. 1 spot on best-seller lists.'[2]The Road Ahead got a first printing of 850,000 books in North America and several hundred thousand overseas.[2]

It was early enough in the history of the World Wide Web that The New York Times thought it newsworthy to report that Gates was going to 'conduct on-line forums to promote the book' and Penguin had created a 'Bill Gates web site on the Internet (http://www.penguin.com/roadahead), which will feature information and an audio clip about the book, printed excerpts and quotes from reviews, as well as information about the CD-ROM.'[2]

Gates publicized the book's release during a five-day tour of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, London and Paris,[2] which included appearances on Nightline, Talking with David Frost, The Today Show, the Late Show with David Letterman, MTV, Fresh Air, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer[2][7]

Reception[edit]

The Road Ahead occupied the top spot on The New York Times' bestseller list for over seven weeks in late 1995 and early 1996, and sold 2.5 million copies.[citation needed]

A reviewer at The Seattle Times (and coauthor of Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made Himself the Richest Man in America, a 1993 biography of Gates), called Gates' coverage of the Internet 'weakest of all' the topics Gates covered, saying the 'World Wide Web receives just four index citations and is treated as a functional appendage of the Internet (rather than its driving force), and both come off as a subset of the Information Highway, a term Gates uses with abandon.'[7]

The New York Times review called the book 'bland and tepid' and reading 'as if it had been vetted by a committee of Microsoft executives'; it is 'little more than a positioning document, sold in book form with accompanying CD-ROM and designed mainly to advance the interests of the Microsoft Corporation.'[8] It also said that Gates 'has been caught flat-footed by [the Internet's] sudden emergence' and saying the book is 'part of Mr. Gates's extensive effort to force his way back into the game before it's too late.'[8]

Time magazine, in a December 1995 article about Gates in general rather than his book, said:[9]

Gates is as fearful as he is feared, and these days he worries most about the Internet, Usenet and the World Wide Web, which threaten his software monopoly by shifting the nexus of control from stand-alone computers to the network that connects them. The Internet, by design, has no central operating system that Microsoft or anybody else can patent and license. And its libertarian culture is devoted to open—that is to say, nonproprietary—standards, none of which were set by Microsoft. Gates moved quickly this year to embrace the Net, although it sometimes seemed he was trying to wrap Microsoft's long arms around it.

References[edit]

  1. ^Library of CongressCataloging in Publication data
  2. ^ abcdefghijTabor, Mary B. W. (November 20, 1995). 'Viking rolls out the big guns to promote Gates's book'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
  3. ^ abcWeiss, Philip (4 September 2006). 'The Road Ahead, 2nd edition / Bill Gates'. Seattle: read-irresponsibly.com. Retrieved 2013-07-23. Penguin published this edition in 1996, only a year after the first edition. Why was it so quick to completely revise the book and put out a new edition? When Bill wrote the first version, he vastly underestimated how important and how quickly the internet would come to prominence. ..He refers to it obliquely in the book by noting a number of video-on-demand collaborations that were abruptly terminated as the internet rose to prominence in 1995. One of these included Microsoft as a partner. However, Gates is somewhat disingenuous in the book when he makes it seem like it was only a minor change to the timing that took Microsoft by surprise. Microsoft was caught completely flat-footed.
  4. ^ abcdefgGates, Bill; Nathan Myhrvold; Peter Rinearson (1995). The Road Ahead (1st ed.). Viking Penguin. ISBN978-0-670-77289-6.
  5. ^'National Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE)'. 1997-12-16. Archived from the original on 2003-06-13. Retrieved 2014-09-15.
  6. ^Gates, Bill; Nathan Myhrvold; Peter Rinearson (1996-11-01). The Road Ahead (revised ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN978-0-14-026040-3.
  7. ^ abPaul Andrews (November 22, 1995). '`Road Ahead': Gates And Our PC Future'. The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
  8. ^ abJoseph Nocera (December 24, 1995). 'The Microsoft Word'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-10-27.
  9. ^'Headliners: Bill Gates'. Time. December 25, 1995. Retrieved 2009-10-27.

The Road Ahead Pdf

Further reading[edit]

  • Geoff Richards (8 February 2006). ''The Road Ahead' 10 years on'. bit-tech.net. Retrieved 7 October 2017.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Road_Ahead_(Bill_Gates_book)&oldid=914175575'