Bill Gates has claimed he would be diagnosed with autism if he were a child today.
Gates has said that he believes his obsessive and socially awkward behavior as a child would have been labeled as a sign of neuro divergence if he had grown up in today’s society.
The tech billionaire reflects on his “neurodivergent” behavior as a young boy in his new autobiography, Source Code.
Gates, 69, said as a child he would miss social cues, often “rock in place” and could focus intensely on certain subjects.
Speaking to the Times, he said he would today be considered “on the autism spectrum”, adding: “My parents had no guideposts or textbooks to help them grasp why their son became so obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues, and could be rude or inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.”
His claim comes amid an increase in autism diagnoses, with a 2021 study finding a 787 percent rise in the number of UK diagnoses in the decades between 1998 and 2018.
The Microsoft founder said he had no idea he was different until he produced a 200-page piece on the state of Delaware as part of a school assignment, in contrast to the standard 10 pages of his fellow pupils.
He said: “I knew I could focus when I was curious. But it signaled me out as a weirdo. My social skills were slow to develop with my peers.”
Gates utilized his ability to focus on intellectual pursuits. He dropped out of university to develop Microsoft, and by 31 he was a billionaire.
Now known as the founder of disease research, he said he would never trade in these “autistic traits” for a more “normal” way of experiencing the world.
He said: “If they ever invent a pill where they could say, ‘OK, your social skills will be normal, but your ability to concentrate would also be normal,’ I wouldn’t take the pill.
“Maybe I am forgetting how painful it was, but I needed my neurodiversity to write that software; I could do all that stuff in my head. That takes a lot of concentration.”
Gates is not the only major figure in tech to display autistic behavior. In 2021, Elon Musk revealed in a Saturday Night Live monologue that he had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.
He elaborated on this experience in 2022, saying that “the social cues were not intuitive”.
He added: “I found it rewarding to spend all night programming computers, just by myself.… But I think that is not normal.