I'm in Kenya for a rare interview with the
all-American entrepreneur and titan of technology,
Bill Gates.
For decades, Bill Gates was the richest man on Earth,
a tech geek whose zeal and work ethic made him
the very face of American computing and capitalism.
Then he decided to give his money away.
He's donated tens of billions to fighting for global causes.
He's hyper rational,
but behind those glasses are 67 years of emotion and experience.
I want to access that.
I want to find out what motivates him,
why conspiracy theorists are so obsessed with him,
and at what cost all that power, influence and wealth have come.
I'm touring farms and hospitals in the remote region
of Kathonzweni in Kenya, with the founder of Microsoft.
OK, so you put it in here.
Why are you feeding some chickens?
Even chickens have to eat.
I want to find out how he's getting on in his new full-time vocation
as a philanthropist,
and ask him some of the tough and personal questions
that follow him around the world.
And I've managed to carve some time out of his meticulous
minute-by-minute schedule.
What's the thing that you were doing there at that farm?
Why was I surrounded by chickens?
Well, chickens are high quality protein.
Both the chicken meat and eggs.
And if you want young children to be healthy,
mixing into their diet more than just a bean and cereal crop,
those chickens are...
..much better than the chickens they used to have.
They're more resistant to disease.
They lay more eggs, they grow more meat.
They're big.
It takes grant capital to fund all of that science.
Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
which he set up with his former wife,
Gates has pledged to give away most of the billions of dollars
that he made at Microsoft
to solve what he feels are the biggest problems
facing our species -
hunger, disease and climate change.
Did you come to philanthropy in a kind of eureka moment,
where you thought, "Right, this is what I'm going to do.
"It's a rational calculation.
"My kids can't have all this money,
"so I should give it away and do it effectively."
Or did you, over time, get exposed to thoughts and ideas
that made you think, you know,
"This is a good thing to do with my life."
I knew that the wealth of Microsoft was far more
than I or my family would need.
When Melinda and I found out about how little
was going into saving children's lives,
which was kind of shocking to us,
then we realised we should get going right away,
and we started funding vaccines and work on malaria.
And then later,
I decided I would shift, er, my time also,
and so in 2008, I left Microsoft
and became full-time in my foundation work.
How do you decide what your priorities are?
You know, a few hundred miles northeast from here,
there's this huge issue in Somalia, you know, dreadful drought.
What do you do when someone from Somalia says,
"Hey, come and see us."
Yeah. So our Foundation, although we support some emergency relief,
the place that we're very strong is the new tools.
So better seeds, better systems to advise farmers
using their cellphones, digital money,
so they're not paying bank fees
and a lot in health, new vaccines.
So we're by far the biggest funder on malaria,
coming up with new bed nets, new drugs...
..a vaccine, a way of killing mosquitoes.
Yeah, but if you think about this in terms of ethics,
are you driven in your philanthropy mostly by excitement,
by the potential outcome,
or does it come from some deep psychological motive,
you know, guilt, a feeling that you should live a life
that's purposeful, a feeling that, you know,
you genuinely just don't know what to do with this cash?
I not only want to put the money in, but I want to put my time in
and assemble people so we can learn,
you know, what health systems work, which ones don't.
I, you know, find the work very fulfilling.
I get to learn new things. Get to go to interesting places.
Yeah. There's no sacrifice involved.
It's... Well, it's quite a lot of financial sacrifice!
Sure, but I don't have any use for that money.
I mean, I'm not denying myself, you know,
the world's best cheeseburger, you know?
Is that your food of choice, a great cheeseburger?
It's the food I eat more than anything else.
Bill Gates is able to enjoy philanthropy
because for much of his life, he was the richest man in the world.
Hey, Bill Gates is here.
And though his beginnings were somewhat humbler,
he still had a pretty comfortable childhood.
Born in Seattle in 1955, his father was a successful lawyer.
His mother, a teacher and influential community figure.
But it wasn't all plain sailing.
One thing that some people may not know about you
is that very interestingly, your family referred you
for some therapy when you were 12.
What was going on that made them do that?
Oh, I was just a little rebellious,
and they thought if I talked to a psychologist,
I'd...understand about, uh...
..cooperating with the family, maybe? Obeying the rules.
But 12-year-olds are rebellious,
wasn't it quite a big deal for a family
on the West Coast of America then, what's that, late 1960s?
Isn't that quite a big deal? It wasn't that unusual, but...
..I, you know, was reading on my own and, you know,
trying to prove my independence.
The person I went to see was fantastic
and actually got me to think
in a way that, you know, having any conflict with my parents
was kind of a waste of time.
So, in the end, they were glad they had me do a few sessions.
Would you recommend it?
Um, sure I...
..I think, you know, when you step back from your life
and look at where you're having conflict
or where you're not fulfilling the things you want,
it can be helpful to have a professional
who's guiding you through that thought process.
Clearly, the therapy helped.
Bill excelled at high school,
where he made friends with fellow genius Paul Allen.
They spent hours playing around with a teletype computer,
initially writing code for fun,
before monetising their skills writing software
for the local government.
But the key moment would come in 1974,
when Paul Allen saw the new Altair 8800 computer
on the cover of a magazine
and implored his old friend Bill to help him write the software.
Gates dropped out of Harvard to dedicate himself
to his new company, Microsoft,
and 20 years later, he was the richest man on Earth.
I'm fascinated by the combination of factors
that make great entrepreneurial success.
So there's key partnerships, in your case with Paul Allen,
your co-founder.
There's a sense of vision, a sense of purpose, a huge work ethic
and also a sense of timing,
being in the right place at the right time.
When you think now, with the benefit of experience,
about that magic mix that makes great entrepreneurs,
what do you think is THE vital ingredient?
Well, I think it takes most all of those to be there
all at the same time.
We recognise something that very few did,
which was that the software would be quite valuable,
that the hardware would get so cheap,
that actually the software piece
would be important, and that the computers wouldn't just be this big,
expensive thing that only big companies had,
it would literally be, as we said,
people laughed at the time,
on every desk, in every home.
And it was one of the things that made Microsoft
so wealthy so quickly, that you were first.
We were first.
Then a lot of other companies came along, and they came and went.
Our speed of engineering, our low prices, our global presence,
we became not only the first,
but also, by far, the most successful software company.
It's interesting you mention low prices and competition because
some of our older viewers will know from these very famous
antitrust cases in the 1980s and 1990s,
basically very huge, very big,
very costly antitrust cases looking at whether or not
Microsoft unfairly crushed competition.
To what extent would you say that your business practises
back then were pretty ruthless?
You know, we were vindicated on all of that stuff.
You know, the company never, er,
had to raise our prices or anything.
You know, they were saying that it was hard to compete with us.
I mean, you worked very hard for a long time.
You are a hard taskmaster.
You memorised the number plates of your staff's vehicles
sometimes so you knew when they were coming in and out of the car park,
you had famous outbursts of,
"That's the stupidest effing thing I've ever heard."
You very rarely took holidays or weekends.
There is something of a parallel here with some people, arguably,
describe what Elon Musk does these days.
And you've described your own work ethic as fanatical.
But if you're honest now, looking back,
do you feel like you were something of a tyrant?
Uh...
Did you have to be? Working, for me,
was a guaranteed way to make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
HE LAUGHS
And to work on some of the most interesting,
amazing things possible.
I wish you'd give me a call.
Do you have any regrets about how you treated staff?
The people who worked, who would have been in meetings
directly with me, and were all hyper successful,
there may have been some people who couldn't, you know,
my style, which was, "Hey, we've got to move fast.
"We've got to be tough."
You know, we may have missed some very talented people, but,
you know, everybody who was there wanted to be there.
It was...I bet everyone would describe it as one of the most
amazing parts of their life.
I wonder, in that context, what you make of, and whether or not
you look with a wry smile, at Elon Musk's management style.
I mean, when you're describing yourself,
it makes me think of what I read about Musk today.
No, I wasn't, you know, going out to the public and insulting
the president of the United States or something like that, I mean...
Yeah.
But in the sense of driving a company hard, pushing staff,
a huge sense of mission and purpose,
I mean, that's part of what he's about.
Well, I didn't run, you know, three companies at a time.
So you could say he's more talented than I was.
He might say that. I believed in magic of software,
and, you know, I was focused on that.
I wasn't making comments on politicians and every trend
of the day, you know.
Hard work, we have that in common.
Otherwise, you know, there's some differences.
There are some differences, and I'm not suggesting for a moment
you have any time on your hands these days,
but if he asked you to come in and say, chair the board of Twitter,
would you say to him, take him aside and say,
"Elon, maybe spend less time insulting the American president,
"maybe run one company instead of three or several?"
I'm sure he has people telling him that,
and I'm sure he's decided to ignore them.
Musk says he wants to use technology to liberate humanity,
and a lot of people look at what
you're mentioning about social media,
and they say our relationship with technology is going badly wrong.
Do you ever worry that what you did
helped to unleash technologies
that helped humanity in the short term, but in the long term,
could set us back?
Well, most of the things that Microsoft did specifically,
like, let you have a nice word processor,
you know, nobody blames Microsoft if you write a nasty note,
you know, or some evil plan using that word processor.
Now we're getting into how people communicate.
You know, we're sort of replacing media
with a lot of these digital forums.
And they're, you know, it is the downside of
people being ill informed and sort of sharing...lies with each other
has caught me a bit by surprise.
I do think on balance, it's still all very positive,
but, you know, other people get to judge that and set the rules.
You know, would we be better off if you had no social media?
Some people definitely feel that way.
The judgment on how you stop those digital forms
from being toxic and driving, sort of, the worst of us
as opposed to enlightening us,
which as we were creating all these things, you know,
we saw the opportunity to make education better and learn.
The fact that people are pushing conspiracy theories,
that's a bit of a surprise to me.
And, you know, can we be creative to get rid of
or at least minimise that bad stuff? It's an open question.
Yeah, because we're having a civilised conversation,
and a lot of people would say one of the biggest lessons
from social media is it's made having civilised conversation
much, much harder.
And do you worry that we are seeing a kind of
really severe toxification, a decline in the public domain,
where being able to disagree respectfully
is getting very, very hard?
That would be very bad.
Is it happening?
The degree of political polarisation in the United States,
and we see that somewhat outside the United States,
is higher than it's ever been in my lifetime, and it scares me.
I don't blame digital media for all of that,
but it does seem to magnify it,
that, you know, some, you know, QAnon idea, I mean, literally,
there's people elected who believe in these QAnon conspiracy theories.
So, erm, I hope that smart young people
can take and shape
these digital forms to be more constructive
and get rid of the negative things.
You know, I think the next generation is always given
some great breakthroughs and some challenges
that come with those breakthroughs,
and I don't think my generation, you know,
took care of the downside of digital media.
And so I hope that gets solved,
because what that's done to political discourse, I think,
has made it even somewhat worse than it would be without it.
Well, since we've gone there, we're talking about conspiracies,
about QAnon and people who get elected off the back of it,
do you mind just telling the story of when you first met Donald Trump?
You know, I don't really understand him.
I'm always going to meet on behalf of our Foundation
with the US President.
You know, the US President controls the biggest aid budget in the world,
and so one of the things I went into that meeting saying was,
"Hey, let's, during your term as president,
"you know, find a cure for HIV.
"Let's pick some high impact science goals for the world."
None of that ever came to pass,
but I don't feel bad that I tried.
What do you make of the fact that he's running for president again?
Um...
You know, I hope that we can move on to new Republican candidates
who are more forward looking,
more believing in election integrity.
But my prediction on politics are not uniquely good,
my understanding of science and picking scientists and, you know,
funding things in that realm, I have experience.
But in politics, I never expected him to be elected,
so I'm disqualified for any predictions related to him.
I just wonder what went through your mind when you saw
those pictures of rioters in Washington
storming the Capitol building?
I mean, did you think that you'd see that in your lifetime?
No. It's deeply troubling
that what you think of
in sort of tinpot democracies
is happening in what is supposed to be
the exemplar of democracy.
When we had the first pandemic in a century,
he was the guy running America.
And I think it'd be fair to say that his leadership
was not always as committed to the best sciences as you have been.
The US performance, which the executive branch has to
take responsibility for, was quite disappointing.
Now, the US did a few things right,
including funding a lot of the vaccine work.
You know, the US government funded the most.
Our Foundation also funded a lot,
but other than that, the US did not set a good example.
In 1995, Bill Gates reached number one on the world's rich list
and spent much of the following 20 years occupying the top spot.
Wealth is relative.
What do you consider to be rich?
I think if there's one person in the world I want to ask that, it's you.
Well, certainly not having to worry
about can I pay my kid's tuition?
Can I, you know, afford a nice trip?
You know, that is an incredible luxury.
So I guess if you have enough
for your family's consumption
at quite a comfortable level,
you know, that's rare in the world,
and you ought to think of that as a huge privilege.
When I told people I was interviewing Bill Gates,
I was amazed by the question that they all seemed
collectively to want me to ask you,
and I'm going to ask you - it's a nice question.
The question is, are you frugal?
Um, you know, I don't have a gigantic closet.
I don't, you know, wear jewellery.
You make me feel very self-conscious.
But most of this is fake.
Like when I'm unwrapping a present,
I don't take the wrapping and, you know,
fold it up and use it again.
You know, if I use a paper bag, my grandmother never threw away
a paper bag in her life or any string on a package.
So, by her standards, I'm crazy.
I just take the bag, and I put it in the garbage.
In 1994, you were asked by The New Yorker
if you worried that wealth would corrupt you.
And you said something very interesting.
You said, "Absolutely. Hey, being in the spot..."
This is me doing my Bill Gates impression.
You said "Absolutely. Hey, being in the spotlight is a corrupting thing.
"Being successful is a corrupting thing.
"Having lots of money is a corrupting thing.
"These are very dangerous things to be guarded against carefully,
"and I think that's very, very hard to do."
Have you been corrupted?
In the sense that if my 30-year-old self saw that,
you know, I take vacations,
erm, I, uh, go to the Olympics... Tsk, tsk.
You know.. That's very irresponsible of you.
A plane that I travel in, I think the 30-year-old would think,
"Wow, you really have gone soft." You sold out.
"You take too much time off and you're allowing yourself,
"as part of your travelling all over the world,
"to do it in a simple way."
Erm, you know, I try to keep my intellectual integrity of,
"OK, do I really understand stuff?"
For example, is the money and the team we've built
to go after these diseases, are they the best they possibly can be?
So I still think I'm pretty demanding
and really try to understand in a deep way.
Do you feel guilty about being rich?
As long as I take the money and make sure it goes back to society
in a highly impactful way, like eradicating polio,
eventually eradicating malaria,
saving children's lives,
figuring out malnutrition to get rid of most of that.
You know, then I will feel like,
"OK, I had a responsibility to spend this money well."
But that sounds to me like what you're saying,
you partly give so much money away
because you do want to not feel guilty,
because if you didn't give it away, you would feel guilty.
Oh, certainly if I spent it on myself,
I should feel guilty, and I would.
I mean, what am I going to have 1,000 people fanning me,
you know, as I walk down the street?
Wow. Yeah, that would not be very....
Or the world's greatest cheeseburger, which, I mean...
I eat the world's greatest cheeseburger,
money can't buy you a better cheeseburger.
I want to talk to you about this.
What would go in the world's greatest cheeseburger?
Just, you know...a McDonald's burger.
I don't think if you stuck gold inside,
it would taste better.
Passing up the opportunity to eat gold-plated food
has allowed Bill Gates to pledge $7 billion
to support African institutions
fight hunger, disease, gender inequality, and poverty.
And being in Kenya allows him to assess
whether his money is being put to good use.
So the Kathonzweni Health Centre, why this place?
Most health care in Africa is done at a place like this.
This is where the vaccinations and all the advice...
Why does it matter to you to actually be here?
Cos, you know, you could just look at this stuff on Zoom,
not a Zoom, Microsoft Teams.
Why is that not how you operate?
Why do you want to actually be here and feel it?
I don't think you can understand this remotely.
You know, we...our Foundation is very involved
in improving these health care systems,
and it, you know, makes a huge difference in
the number of children that die, the number of children
who grow up with the full physical development.
You know, when we first got going, in Africa,
over 20% of kids would die before the age of five.
Worldwide, it was about 10%.
That's in the year 2000.
That's been cut in half.
So, you know, the world level's about 5%
and the African level's about 10%.
And you want to half it again? Yep.
And I've got this notion that Bill Gates doesn't
leave a place like this without an action plan for what comes next.
So what does come next?
Well, I get to see the President and talk about how they can... Ruto.
Yeah. Who's newly elected and talk about, OK,
where are they doing a good job, you know, where are they falling short?
You know, and fortunately, the Foundation is able to collaborate
with a lot of the leaders and, you know, let them know
what we've learned from other countries
and where they can improve their health care system.
So the power's pretty reliable here? Yes.
How much are you giving away now?
Oh, about 30 billion.
About 30 billion a year.
HE LAUGHS About 30 billion.
Money buys you power. It's given you extraordinary power.
A lot of people would say that the nature of the power
it's given you, which you now use philanthropically,
is undemocratic, because nobody voted for you.
What do you say to that charge?
I think spending money on malaria,
reducing malaria deaths is a good thing.
So when we did our first big grant,
we became the biggest malaria funders,
or diarrhoea, or pneumonia or sickle cell or HIV.
You know, other than a few categories,
where the US government spends more than we do,
we're the largest funder on every single one of those things.
So, yes, somebody can disagree with the choices I've made.
You know, democratic processes don't
always let you
do the most innovative work.
So if you want to do risk,
like curing sickle cell or curing HIV,
governments are too conservative.
So I do think there's some projects that philanthropy is good
at doing better than governments.
Well, let me channel some of your critics.
They would say in that very impressive answer from Bill Gates,
he's given a huge amount of money to polio.
He's given a huge amount of money to malaria.
But why should Bill Gates decide where that money goes?
Who made you God?
I'm not God. I mean, as a percentage of the world economy, you know,
I'm kind of rounding there,
but, yes, I decided that the death of children,
when I read that diarrhoea was killing a half million children
and that the vaccine to stop those deaths
was being given to the rich kids, but not to the poor kids,
I said, "Wow, now I know the area of inequity
"most of my money will go on."
I'm pleased to see you say you're not God,
but what do you make of this criticism that
some philanthropists, that Bill Gates,
fancies themselves as a white saviour?
What does that mean?
All of us should work together to save children's lives.
Erm...
So...
You know, I'm not a religious saviour.
My thing is just, you know, health, staying alive.
I think it's admirable that you do interviews where you
deal with some of that criticism head on.
There have been controversies about your philanthropy,
which have achieved extraordinary things.
I want to address one of them head on so that we can move on.
One of the many people that you've met through philanthropy
is Jeffrey Epstein, and you've said many times
that you regret meeting him.
What I really want to know is why.
Well, anything that gave, you know, as people, including myself,
learn more about his behaviour,
anything that gave him credibility, you know,
is kind of shameful.
Erm, he spent a lot of time with a lot of rich people who he, you know,
said to me he would
get them to give lots of money to global health.
Erm, so I chose to have several dinners with him
along those lines,
but, you know, nothing actually came of it.
I eventually broke off the relationship,
but in retrospect, I would have been much smarter never to
even talk to him at all.
What was he like?
You know, I've only met him a few times,
so it's not like I'm some expert.
There are people who actually knew him.
Erm...
Do you worry that any connection with him
among the thousands of relationships that you've nurtured
through your philanthropy, can overshadow the good work you do?
Well, it's tough.
Everyone you meet, you know, and you say, "OK, I'll go to dinner."
How careful should you be?
I'm certainly more careful now than back when I did that.
That's a long time ago.
So you've changed your behaviour and who you meet
after that experience?
I'll do a little more due diligence. I may make a mistake again.
I mean, you know, I'm out in the world,
and I'm not trying to be a recluse.
You know, I've met with people from Russia and people from China
who it may turn out later, or even from America, OK,
but, you know, it might be more likely that
some of the wealthy people I meet from those countries will later be,
you know, accused of some bad behaviour.
Not content with improving public health,
Bill Gates feels his fortune can help to solve climate change, too.
He's been investing heavily in green technologies
and using his influence to encourage nations
to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
What's your central message to government
about what they need to do to accelerate the path
to what some people call net zero?
Well, what the rich countries owe to the entire world
is that they need to get their emissions down to zero
as fast as they can.
But that's not enough, because they, you know,
they have so many... much in the way of resources.
They also need to invent new approaches,
so that the cost of being green, the cost of not having emissions
in all areas gets down to be zero.
So a new way of making cement or steel, you know,
electric passenger cars, that's all on the rich countries.
And they've got to solve it,
so they can turn to the middle income countries and say,
"OK, you know..." India being a good example.
"Here's how you make steel. Here's how you make cement."
For the low income countries,
as you get rich, you're much more resilient
against climate disasters.
And so improving that those economies through health,
education, agriculture
is how...what we owe to the low income countries.
You've written about and you've spoken at length about
how climate change is a moral issue as well as a political one.
Do rich countries owe reparations to poor countries
for historic climate change?
Well, the rich countries have done the bulk of emissions,
and the countries near the equator are suffering the most.
And so, yes, the rich countries should be more generous.
You actually mentioned your use of a private jet.
Let me put it to you directly,
what do you say to the charge that if you are a
climate change campaigner,
but you also travel around the world on a private jet,
you're a hypocrite.
Well, I...
..I by the gold standard of funding, Climeworks, to do direct
air capture that far exceeds my family's carbon footprint.
And I spend billions of dollars on climate innovation.
So, you know, should I stay at home and not come to Kenya
and learn about farming and malaria?
Anyway, I mean, I'm comfortable with the idea that
not only am I not part of the problem by paying for the offsets,
but also through the billions that my breakthrough energy group
is spending, that I'm part of the solution.
For decades now, a lot of people have seen you
as the face of American capitalism.
And there are some critics who say that capitalism in its very nature,
no pun intended, depends on inequality
and the destruction of the planet.
Is that fair?
It certainly...as you incent people to invent things,
you'll give them an opportunity...
..to make money from those things.
So, societies that have tried to get rid of that, like North Korea
or, you know, during the Cultural Revolution in China,
it's an experiment that's been run.
And if people prefer to be in that situation, you know, great.
So is capitalism the worst form of arranging our societies,
except for all the others that have been tried?
Basically, I mean, yes, we could tax the rich more.
Yes, more ought to go into climate mitigation
and climate adaptation.
But the idea that, you know,
"Oh, things were better 200 years ago",
you know, where 30% of kids died before the age of five,
you know, I don't buy that.
Just saying that, "Oh, we're going to give up capitalism."
What are they saying?
You know, and do they really want to go backwards?
I think we can use a form of capitalism
and continue to get its benefits while solving climate change.
As well as his work as a tech entrepreneur and philanthropist,
Bill Gates has become famous for his eerie ability
to predict the future,
both on his pet subjects of tech...
There'll be digital keys and digital money and digital credit cards,
so almost everything that you have in your wallet today
will be accessible on this little device.
..and global health...
If anything kills over 10 million people
in the next few decades,
it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war.
..inspiring reverence for his foresight
as well as an overwhelming amount of suspicion.
Your warnings about the pandemic were eerily prescient.
What is the big future threat facing humanity
that we're not thinking about enough but should?
Well, fortunately, we're starting to think enough about climate change,
and so I'd probably put bioterror, which is a really awful...
Bioterror and pandemics are sort of the same.
Bioterror is a little harder to defend against,
because whoever's trying to do it
is consciously understand your defence system
so they can be trying to design around them.
But everything you do for pandemics is extremely useful
for bio-terrorism, and we're not as activated
on being ready for that as I think we should be.
Everything we're talking about involves human reason
and rationality,
and yet we started off with you mentioning briefly
conspiracy theories.
And I'm struck in researching this interview by
a very profound irony,
which is that you want to apply rationality and reason
to as much of human affairs as you can,
and yet you might be the subject of more irrational
conspiracy theories than anybody alive today.
Why do you think that is?
I did not expect that.
But in a during the pandemic, there were, you know,
tens of millions of messages about,
that I intentionally caused it or I'm tracking people,
which it's true I'm involved with vaccines,
but I'm involved with vaccines to save lives.
You know, I guess people are looking for
the bogeyman behind the curtain.
The oversimplistic explanation that its malevolence
is a lot easier to understand than biology.
But why are you an easy target? What is it about you?
I think in this case, because of my work on vaccines and saying,
"OK, you know, is he making money off of vaccines?",
which, of course, I'm not. I spend billions on vaccines.
You know, do vaccines kill children?
No, vaccines have saved tens of millions of children.
You know, Elon's got more money than I have,
but, you know, on the pandemic,
he wasn't there funding vaccine factories,
nor was he there predicting that it would happen.
And so, you know, some people say,
"Hey, he felt bad, his prediction didn't come true.
"So he, you know, had to start the pandemic.
"Otherwise, he would have lost credibility."
And just on Elon, would you encourage him to join your club
of mega philanthropists, you, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos,
people who give away most of their wealth?
Yeah, I think someday he'll be a great philanthropist, obviously,
you know, things like Tesla are having positive impact,
even without being a form of philanthropy.
But at the end of the day,
I don't think he'll, other than going to Mars a few times,
which might cost a little bit,
I don't think he'll want to spend it on himself.
So, yeah, someday I think he will join the rank
of philanthropists using his ingenuity.
He's going to Mars, whether funded by him or others,
is that a good use of money? Uh...
..not in my view, but, uh...
Cos there's more pressing things to do on Earth? Definitely,
and it's actually quite expensive to go to Mars.
Have you looked into it?
Have you got someone to do a little break down...
You know, you can buy measles vaccines and save lives
for $1,000 per life saved,
and so it just kind of grounds you,
as in don't go to... don't go to Mars.
Gates's philanthropy is a joint project with his former wife,
Melinda.
The pair met at Microsoft in 1987, married in 1994...
..and announced their divorce in 2021,
amid rumours of historic affairs and inappropriate emails
to female members of staff at Microsoft.
You got divorced fairly recently.
You said in May you were still grieving over Melinda.
And that really struck me because I've spent a lot of this year
thinking about grief and grieving.
Are you still grieving?
Well, Melinda's an incredible person,
so I'm lucky that I knew her, that we were married.
I'm lucky that she still works at the Foundation.
I'm lucky that we parent our kids, although,
they're old enough not to need quite as much at this point.
Erm, and so, yeah, both,
I think there's some regrets, but, you know,
we're moving forward in a very positive way.
We have this phrase "empty nest syndrome",
it must be very strange when your kids grow up and leave the house.
Do you get lonely?
You know, I prepared myself very well,
thinking, you know, when the kids are gone,
I won't get much time with them.
Partly because of, you know, digital connection,
you know, I can do video conferences with the kids.
You know, my kids are all learning about medicine,
they understand the modern world, so they can tell me about things.
So, because I set my expectation low,
I'm always impressed how much time the kids are willing to give me.
What's the most important thing you've learned from your kids?
Well, you have a certain immortality through your kids that,
you know, even things you do
that won't have an impact during your lifetime,
you want them to have a good life.
And so they, you know, they challenge the work I do.
They challenge my thinking.
You know, young people are kind of smart in a different way.
Old people are kind of wise.
And there's some good creative tension there.
I feel I may have unfairly traduced you as hyper rational
because you are something of a romantic,
and some people will be fascinated to know that
on the night before your marriage to Melinda,
you got Willie Nelson to come along and play on a beach in Hawaii.
Are you a romantic?
Can you see yourself falling in love again?
Sure.
Would you like that?
Yeah, I'm...I'm not a robot.
You're not a robot.
You're still involved in Microsoft,
but you stepped down from the board in 2020.
Now US publications suggested that the board spoke
to you about inappropriate emails to female members of staff
and that separately, you had an affair some years ago,
which you've acknowledged.
I know you won't want to reopen those issues
or speak about particulars, but you've said sorry about the affair.
Who are you sorry to?
Well, you're going back, you know...
Years.
..more than 20 years ago.
And so, you know, I don't think it's relevant at this point.
But you said you were sorry.
I'm interested in why and to whom.
Is it about the impact on your family now?
The...you know, I...
That's between me and my family and from a long, long time ago.
OK. Let's turn to the future.
How profoundly do you think artificial intelligence
will transform our species?
You know, pretty dramatically.
Erm, we're at the early stage,
and, you know, nobody's been perfect about predicting these things.
But the fact that it will help us
look into medical and scientific questions
will give us much higher productivity.
You're going to turn 70 in three years,
that's a big milestone for some people.
How do you feel about it, and how do you feel about your
remaining time on Earth and optimising those years?
You know, it's strange to be an old person.
I don't think of myself that way.
You know, I feel young, but, you know, I have limited time.
You know, my life is two thirds done,
and, you know, can I get malaria eradication done?
I think so.
You've described yourself as more intense than other people,
though you said not more intense than Steve Jobs.
You have this remarkable ability to read,
to analyse, retain information.
Greta Thunberg credits her Asperger's as her special power.
What's your special power?
You know, I think I'm a student, I'm curious. Erm...
You know, defining whether somebody is on the Asperger's spectrum
is a pretty vague thing, but my ability to concentrate, erm...
..is very high.
And when I was young, it was weird, weirdly high, you know,
to memorise things and, you know, try out my thinking,
you know, which made science and maths super interesting.
And then I discovered software and was able to throw
all my energy into that.
So I'm a good student, I think.
Do you have an unusual ability to focus on the task in hand?
Yes.
I've got some quickfire questions for you.
Maximum ten words, minimum one. OK?
These are nice. All right. You ready?
I think you're going to enjoy these.
What time do you wake up in the morning?
Just before my first meeting.
Like my first meeting's at 8:00, I get up at 7:45.
I like to...I stay up late.
I'm a night person. That's not ten words.
Hang on a second. Hang on a second.
If you've got a meeting at 8:00, surely takes more than 15 minutes
to get from bed to the meeting?
If it's a virtual meeting,
I literally get up 15 minutes before the virtual meeting.
You don't want to have a little coffee, shower, shave?
Hey, I can get a lot done in 15 minutes.
What social media platform are you most active on?
None.
I mean, I publish things,
but I don't spend much time browsing.
Your greatest hero, living or dead?
You know, my dad, Warren Buffett.
Who's a person from history you'd most like to meet?
Um...
..maybe Da Vinci.
Probably Da Vinci.
Do you believe in God?
Somewhat.
What do you fear most?
Well, that's hard to say.
You know, not being a good friend, I guess.
If you had your time again, what would you do differently?
I don't think I would change much.
I'd be afraid it wouldn't come out as well as it did this time.
So, you know, trying to second guess myself...
You know, obviously I've mellowed over time and I've seen, you know...
..decisions I made that didn't work out, but I wouldn't...
..I wouldn't want to try again because it's been an amazing life.
Bill Gates. Thank you. A real pleasure to talk to you.
Yeah, no. Thank you so much.