Over the years I’ve probably read over 20 books about Microsoft, Bill Gates, Windows and various Microsoft related people and projects. As I was adding books to my profile at Goodreads, I thought to myself which is my favorite Microsoft related book?
Many of the books have been interesting but none more so than one of the earliest I read called “Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft“
The book details how a group of renegade programmers, lead by Dave Cutler, created Windows NT. I enjoyed reading about how Bill Gates didn’t have the right people at Microsoft to design and code this key version of Windows so he decided to hire them away from NEC. Gates wanted just Cutler but he wouldn’t budge unless he could bring over his entire team. I believe he was able to force Bill to hire about 20 of his buddies. Cutler is one of the few people who genuinely seems to have intimidated Gates during this time. If you are interested in the early history of Microsoft, this is the best book I can recommend. I found it riveting.
The book details a huge turning point in Microsoft’s history. It also details how shrewd a businessman Gates is by going after the best software architect he could find in Cutler. Who knows where Microsoft would be today had Gates not been been able to convince Cutler to join Microsoft.
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