What was the name of the book Bill Gates published in 1999 about the digital economy?

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Bill Gates published Business @ the Speed of Thought in 1999.

The book presents Gates’s argument that digital information systems could transform how organizations make decisions, communicate, and serve customers. It was written with business writer Collins Hemingway and followed Gates’s earlier book, The Road Ahead, which was first published in 1995.

The title’s unusual “@” symbol reflects the internet-era branding of the late 1990s. The book focuses less on the technical construction of software than on using connected computers as a company-wide information system. Gates discussed digital dashboards, electronic communication, and rapid access to business data.

Readers sometimes confuse the book with The Road Ahead because both were authored by Gates and address technology’s effect on society and business. Business @ the Speed of Thought is the later work and is specifically associated with the digital transformation of organizations. It was published while Gates was Microsoft’s chairman and chief executive.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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