His Bottom Line: Educating the World's Kids

Some hung marigold garlands around their necks. The younger ones pressed flower petals into their hands.

What happened next can be shorthanded as a fairy-tale ending: Having discovered his true calling, Wood quit Microsoft, founded Room to Read and never looked back.

The real story is a bit more complicated.

Wrestling with mid-career angst, Wood actually quit Microsoft twice, the first time before he had a clue as to what he wanted to do next. He was lured back by the offer of a high-level job in China, where his then-girlfriend had been dispatched by her employer. But his time in Beijing turned sour, professionally and personally.

In his book, he takes care not to burn his Microsoft bridges. Still, his frustrations come through. A chapter titled "Gates in China" tells how he knocked himself out to prepare for a visit by his multibillionaire boss, who cavalierly ignored his suggestions about dealing with the Chinese. On the advice of a friend, he threw out some other negatives about his time with the company.

"You're a positive, optimistic guy," she told him. "Leave that stuff behind the scenes."

Around the time of the Gates visit, he was also coming to understand that his girlfriend -- with whom he'd thought himself headed toward marriage -- had a vision of life incompatible with his. Most important, it had no room for the hardships and rewards of engagement with the Third World. When he finally told her it wasn't going to work out between them, he writes, she smashed a painting she'd given him against their bedroom wall.

His mother says she cried when she read that part.

Wood is a positive, optimistic guy, and when he decided to launch Room to Read he threw himself totally into the effort. That didn't mean he wasn't frightened about the cliff he'd just jumped off. He figured he had enough saved to work for free for a long time -- but that was before the tech bubble burst and his $2 million worth of Microsoft stock lost nearly half its value. He discovered he could buy a house in San Francisco or do Room to Read, but not both.

He's still renting.

And there was status anxiety to go with the financial kind.

"So much of who you are is defined by your job," Wood says. When strangers meet, they exchange "secret handshakes and code words about what they do." He'd been accustomed to working for an elite company. Now he was contemplating bartending jobs to make ends meet. The secret handshake thing was going to be a problem.