Bill Gates's 1999 book, written with Collins Hemingway, published by Warner Books. It argues that companies must build a 'digital nervous system' — information flows through digital infrastructure that enable instant response to changes in the business environment. The book draws on case studies from Microsoft's own operations and from customer deployments of Microsoft enterprise software, which makes it simultaneously a business thesis and a product manifesto.
The Gates foundation file describes the book as "the 1999 argument for what Gates called a company's 'digital nervous system' — running the business on flows of information rather than paper. Effectively a manifesto for the software Microsoft was selling at the time, which is part of what makes it readable as a primary source."
For a founder, this is the closest Gates ever came to publishing a management book, and its period-piece quality is exactly the point. Read in the 2020s, the specific technology recommendations (Exchange Server, SQL Server, Windows NT) are dated, but the underlying argument — that organisational speed is determined by how fast information moves through the company, not by how fast people work — remains a useful diagnostic. Any founder who has watched a good decision get stuck at a department boundary will recognise the problem Gates is solving for, even if the solution he proposes is now obsolete.