I started reading Bill Gates’s new memoir Source Code the day after David Lynch died. In between learning about his pioneering BASIC coding language, I struggled to grasp what Laura Dern was saying in Inland Empire. In many respects, the two couldn’t be more different, but in some ways they act as mirrors—two lives that could have reversed with just a few small tweaks. Both were strongly identified with the West Coast: Gates in Seattle, Lynch in foresty Washington and then Los Angeles. Both held singular visions in their respective fields. One man pursued his passion with antisocial intensity, the other became the subject of clip compilations like “David Lynch melting my heart for three minutes straight.” One has spread software we use day in and day out, the other masterminded some of the most beguiling cinema ever produced. And now, Gates, one of the world’s richest men, has delivered one of its most pointless memoirs.
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