Enlarge By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY Microsoft founder Bill Gates, left, with his father, Bill Gates Sr., at the family's compound along the Hood Canal near Seattle. UNION, Wash.  Everywhere he goes, Bill Gates is escorted by a mythic résumé. Mercenary software genius. Self-made billionaire. Passionate philanthropist. Everywhere, that is, but here — a tree-studded haven along the Hood Canal near Seattle that has welcomed him and his clan for a half-century. "Where's Trey?" asks Bill Gates Sr., 83, using his son's family nickname. Informed that a planned interview is still an hour away, the 6-foot-6 patriarch makes a call by cellphone. Minutes later, the other Bill Gates, 53, one of the world's wealthiest people and the guiding force behind Microsoft, dutifully strolls into the wine room at the Alderbrook Resort, not far from the family's private compound. Father and son do not hug. They don't have to. "The Bill Gates of the boardroom and the Bill Gates of this family are two different people," says investor and close friend Warren Buffett. "Bill becomes Senior's son in his presence. There's an affection, respect and admiration that goes both ways and is very deep." Adds PBS interviewer Charlie Rose, who knows both men: "Who (the younger) Bill is today links to a philosophy that comes directly from family." In a rare father-son interview with USA TODAY, both Bills take a break from the family's last-gasp-of-summer bonding over golf and pickleball to discuss everything from raising children to eradicating diseases. During the talk, the two treat each other with deference. But there's a sense that, at least this morning, there's only one Bill Gates in the room. It's the father — the quietly imposing lawyer who recently received the American Bar Association Medal for service to jurisprudence. Far from retired, Senior in 1999 launched and is now co-chairman of his son's $30.2 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It focuses on global health, notably HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention, and education. The son's admiration is palpable in a foreword to Senior's recent book, Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime. His father should tell people that he is "the real Bill Gates," the son wrote. "Tell them you're all the things the other strives to be." Although not a fan of interviews, the younger Gates in this setting appears relaxed — jacketless, smiling and even laughing, a sharp contrast to the uncompromising businessman whose baronial success is the result of what some critics say is a domineering hold on the software industry. The phenomenon known as Bill Gates has roots in childhood summers on this lazy canal, where eight or nine families would take over a rustic stretch of shoreline and play games, host parties and, in a twist, sometimes swap children at dinner. They dubbed the place Camp Cheerio. "The kids (including daughters Kristy, 55, and Libby, 45) got serious exposure to how other families did things and formed judgments — good, bad or indifferent," Senior says. Gates says those days made him appreciate his parents ("You always think yours are strict, until you see otherwise") and provided a shortcut to maturity. "Relating to adults early on was very valuable to me, as was seeing the different dads' careers," which ranged from construction to politics, he says. Matriarch Mary Gates, who died in 1994, was by all accounts a woman of generosity and discipline. Her Sunday night dinners, typically starring roast beef and potatoes, required attendance from all three Gates kids well into the years of Microsoft's boom. That sense of regimen meant Mary and her precocious son were at loggerheads early. When Gates was 12, Senior and Mary hauled him to a counselor. Those sessions may well have led to the creation of Microsoft. "My parents still wanted me to come to the table and keep my room clean," Gates recalls. Through counseling, "there were huge insights that allowed us to move on quickly." Specifically, the marriage counselor ("I was the only kid in there," Gates recalls with a chuckle) told him that his struggle with his parents "to prove that I was in charge or smarter or whatever, that that energy was misapplied. That in the world at large, they were my allies. That was very enlightening." Senior smiles. "There's no getting around the word 'difficult' when recalling those days," he says. "But in fairness, it was typical stuff. A child developing independence and rejecting control." The son rises The loosening of reins that ensued allowed the son to become, well, Bill Gates. While in high school, he and buddy Paul Allen developed a "maniacal passion" for the relatively primitive computers of the late 1960s, spending hours writing code for the unwieldy machines installed at their high school and Senior's alma mater, the University of Washington. The rest is history: Gates went to Harvard, but left after Allen persuaded him to move to Albuquerque to write software for Altair personal computers. Wired senior writer Steven Levy met Gates in 1983, when he was a young mogul on the rise. He lauds Gates' evolution. "He seemed like a teenager then, and I think his parents worried his lack of social skills might affect his career," Levy says. "When Gates started his foundation right after the 1998 Microsoft antitrust trial (in which the company was accused of illegally stifling competition to enhance its monopoly), cynics said he was just doing it to polish his image," Levy says. "But over time, that's not proven to be the reason. He's done a great job growing up." Eventually, Levy says, Gates may be remembered more for his financial giving than his company's tech innovations. "Think of the Rockefeller Foundation. How many people know what business that family was in?" he says. "Forty years from now when people mention Gates, I doubt it'll be because of the kind of operating system he created." Last year, Gates' vision of the world — and his role in it — crystallized when he left Microsoft for a full-time role at the foundation, which he'd tasked his father and a few company intimates to start. Its importance grew in 2006 with financier Buffett's commitment of tens of billions. Senior says it was his late wife's constant pressure that led his son to turn to philanthropy. The younger Gates laughs: "Mom always pushed. But Dad made it easier for me to jump on board now. Dad advanced my (foundation) clock easily a decade with his work and encouragement." This is not a giving machine set on auto-pilot. Most foundations are designed to dole out a dollar amount each year in perpetuity. Despite taking a 20% hit to its value in 2008 because of the economic downturn, Gates' foundation in 2009 has upped its giving from the required philanthropic minimum of 5% to 7% ($2.1 billion). Gates has made it clear that all the funds should be paid out 50 years after he and his wife, Melinda, die. The notion of eliminating malaria might seem daunting, but Gates says education issues often are more vexing than scientific ones. "The benchmark there is pretty poor, and we're hoping our focus on libraries, scholarships and teacher effectiveness will help," he says. "If the U.S. can figure this issue out, it'll be a valuable model for the rest of the world." Although the foundation has grown from being Senior in his basement with a box of letters to a 700-plus staff, the effect of expansion actually has been a reduction in requests for funding. Says Senior: "We've made it clear how we proceed, how we design projects and then invite others to work with us. So we're no longer besieged." Going deep into issues rather than spreading the foundation's money across a range of areas is a significant move, says Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, which covers the non-profit world. "They've definitely created a broader awareness of philanthropy among a younger generation, as well as an overall quickening of the pace of philanthropy," she says. "They can snap their fingers and make things happen." Gates travels in the most rarified financial circles. Does he ask peers to follow his lead in giving? "Some," he says. "The fact that they can have a big impact can lure them in. But it's often daunting to learn enough about these issues. Particularly with global health, because it's so far away and a bit of science." Gates has turned his passion for software into an obsession with the minutiae of Third World maladies. He often jogs on a treadmill while watching DVDs of university lectures and repairs to his reading room with scientific research. He says he has another legacy to consider: his children (Jennifer, 13, Rory, 10, and Phoebe, 6). How do he and Melinda, 45, raise kids amid such wealth? "It's everything from going around the dinner table saying what we're thankful for to going downtown and serving meals together" at a soup kitchen, he says. There are also occasional trips overseas, most recently to impoverished African towns. "Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing," Gates says. "You ask the kids right after we leave how it was, and they'll say it wasn't the most fun thing. But then they're still talking about it: 'Why didn't those kids have a bathroom? Or a soccer field?' You do those trips enough and they'll see the world clearly." Still a tech guy Gates' passion for technology remains. About 10% of his time is dedicated to guiding Microsoft. He's "particularly involved with (Internet) search," he says, noting that Microsoft's new Bing search engine "is doing pretty well. But Google's dominant, and we're a distant No. 2. That said, it's an area where the room for innovation is incredible, and the desire by advertisers and others to have more than one company pushing the state of the art is strong." Like other tech visionaries, he's convinced that a new mobile gadget unifying "PC, phone and (a) reading device" is imminent and likely revolutionary, particularly for the publishing world. "We've already got what we call Magic White Boards in Microsoft offices (sort of like CNN's anchor-manipulated, video-capable maps). Once that stuff is in every office, things will get exciting," Gates says. "We're working on software for it now. I think it's three or four years out." But for Bill Gates — both of them — much of life is not focused on professional innovations anymore. It's about family. Their own, gathered to appreciate their good fortune and each other, as well as the millions of people who can benefit from the Gates foundation. Surely there must be both a pressure and a joy being in such a position? A long silence follows. "It's just so straightforward," says Senior, sounding like someone asked to explain breathing. "If there is pressure, it's to change the inordinate death rate arising from diarrhea in Africa and other poor countries. When you're confronted with the data, it make no sense for that to go on." It is as emotional a moment as one gets between these two titans of rationalism. Gates fixes his father with an unwavering gaze before speaking. "Working on software was an amazing part of my life," he says. "But so is this. You can get a sense of self-importance. But Dad's the best at making sure that no matter what we're doing, we stay humble." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more