Lifebegin to take on the of being an interviewer even though i have a day job running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Years you have been the wealthiest man in the world. But because you have given away so much money recently, jeff bezos became wealthier. Do you think if you stayed in college and gotten your college degree, you do not feel inadequate because you are the only the second wealthiest man in the world . Bill it is a sign i have not given the money away fast enough to drop out of the top 10. The market has been strong. The market has been strong. Microsoft is 35 this year. To what do you would should be that . , a great ceopany is a whole dream of the importance of software has really come true. The five most valuable companies our technology companies. Microsoft has a good share of that. I get to spend a six of my time at microsoft. David you said the biggest mistake you made professionally is that microsoft should have had Android Technology . we were in the field of doing operating systems for computers. We knew the mobile phone would be very popular. We are doing what was called windows mobile. We missed being the operating system by a plenty amount. We had been assigned the best people to do the work. The biggest mistake i made in terms of something that was clearly within, we were clearly the company that could achieve that. Focus your main areas of are education and health care. You recently decided to make another effort not for your foundation, but for Breakthrough Energy to do something about Climate Change. Why are you so worried about Climate Change . Climate change is a problem that gets worse every year, and what you have to do on a global basis is very dramatic in reshaping the entire physical economy that we have. It is a very complex problem and a problem where i see, looking at something through the lens of innovation. Not just the r d part, but the deployment of products. Aboutg educate people what are the sources of Greenhouse Gases and how do you get on a path of innovation so that you can get Global Adoption and bring emissions down genetically. David are you doing this outside your foundation . Bill the part where you mitigate and help poor countries with better seeds and policies partly through Development Aid is through the foundation. The part where you invent new electricity,g cement, steel, that is done directly with a lot of investment, including the ventures that i assembled a group of 22 people to put money that are trying to commercialize the breakthrough. You put into hundred 50 million, can 1 billion make that much of a difference. Billion, so far they have 20 investments. Late next year we will probably raise another billion to 1. 5 billion. This is all about innovation. If you said you have to make steel with no omissions that will cost you four times what still does today. Your electric bill would double if we take the technology we have today. Companiesrting those and drawing other investors in, green investing did not go well in the first round. Thatoked like the field might evaporate to some degree. To bring a depth of understanding, they have been able to invest. The first billion will be fully committed in the first year, but we have other investors. That has gone quite well. Companiesinvest in that have a chance of reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions by a half percent. Found 20 and i think they will find another 20. David i am the smallest investor, will i make my money back . Bill of the things you invest theit is probably one of higher risk things. It is being done on a commercial basis and we are likely to have a few significant successes. It is not philanthropic that you can deduct it. But the timeframe of the return is fairly high. We do expect to make a profit. David why do you think some people do not believe there is such a thing as clement change . What is propelling that to say there is no Climate Change . Is it Scientific Evidence or a political reason . There are people who do not think there is Climate Change. Have taken ast not science course, i do not know. Climate is a complex issue. Understanding how you do the abatement requires a lot of indepth study. In United States, it has become a partisan issue, which is unfortunate. That might make it harder to achieve the agreements we need in the United States. We have the people who denied climate, and then people who think it is easy to solve. We need to educate both of those groups. Is there any evidence people do things that affect the great ran children but they will not see the benefit from . Bill United States has been willing to take on different problems and like cancer and make giant investments knowing the real payoff will be many decades down the road. When that was being pushed, people are saying this is important. Climate change is like that. You have got to take a longterm perspective, and government is at its best when it takes longterm perspective m policies. David you worry there is too much power in technology companies. Bill technology is so central, government has to think if it will affect me. David a large part of the carbon in the atmosphere is 20 4 comes from agriculture in 4th street. Why is that causing a big increasing carbon . Category is a variety of things. When you clear land, you are taking in carbon in the trees and releasing that. Another thing is that cows and other grass eating species have a digestive system that emits methane. Methane is a powerful Greenhouse Gas. 6 s alone account for about of global emissions. Just cows alone. David how are we going to do that . Bill of all the categories, the one that has gone better than i wouldve expected is this work to make artificial meat. You have impossible or beyond meet which i invested in. David do you eat it as well . Bill absolutely. David is it healthier for you . Bill it is slightly healthier in terms of less cholesterol. It is dramatic reduction in methane emissions, animal cruelty come on the newer management, and the pressure that Meat Consumption puts on landuse. David are electric cars a solution . Bill absolutely. If you look at the transport withr, passenger cars another factor of three in battery improvement which is possible, the mainstream for passenger cars can become electric. You have to make that transition. You have to scale it up and make e electricity is for trucks and planes, there is no chance the batteries will be good enough. You will have to create liquid fuel with electricity or biofuels. Gasoliney density of is 13 times the Energy Density of the best battery we can make. If you look at a container ship that crosses the ocean. Their fuel would be 30 times less efficient, and 90 of the weight you are carrying would be batteries instead of cargo. Boats, ad planes and toctrification is unlikely work in those cases. We need ways to make fuel better zero carbon. David do heads of state roll their eyes and say can i have a selfie with you . Or do they do anything less to mark what are you trying to get them to do . Bill in the paris climate conference, one of the things that was missing was the focus on r d. We want that to be an issue that gets discussed. Modi got to pick that name, and the commitment of 30 governments to double their energy r d was a significant milestone that came out of the conference. In order to get that commitment, i had to make a commitment that there would be things out of those labs to get them into the marketplace. There has been some progress. Climate is complicated enough. Peoplet a broad set of to understand the complexity and in terms of r d that needs to be done, unless the u. S. Is deeply engaged, it is unlikely to happen. So much of the world capacity to do that innovation is here in the United States. David United States pulled out more or less of the paris accord , is that of concern to you, and do you think this will hurt the effort to change Climate Change around the world . Bill it is a huge step backwards. Even if you meet the current commitments in that climate accord, you are way over two degrees warming, and most countries are behind the commitment they made. Those commitments were reductions where you compare your 2030 emissions to your 2005 emissions. The shift from coal to natural gas is a lot of that, and yet the world is falling short. To have people like United States say that is not important just shows how daunting this is going to be. There is no way we will get there without the u. S. Coming back in a strong way. David do you think you could convince President Trump to get back into the paris . Or is it beyond your capability . Bill someone else should do that. [laughter] the Largest Companies in the world are technology companies, apple, facebook, google, microsoft and so forth. Are you worried there is too much power and data in these technology companies, and are you surprised the government has not done more . Bill technology has become so central that government has to think about what does that mean about elections . What does it mean about bullying or wiretapping authorities that lets you find out what is going on financially, drug Money Laundering and things like that. The government needs to get involved. Eventually i came to regret not having that statement about having in office in washington dc. , theye Technology Company , they are seen that very engaged. There will be more regulation of the tech sector, things like try to see. There should be a point that relates to that. The fact that this is the way people come to media has really brought it into the realm that we need to shape it so that the benefits outweigh the negatives. David you have three children, welladjusted, and have kept them out of newspapers. How do you keep from spoiling them . Bill i think that is a huge problem. David if you were 20 years old today and you wanted to start a new company and drop out of harvard, what area would you want to start in . This is a great time for innovation because the tools are so much better. There are a lot of things in biology that are interesting. There are a lot of things in energy that are interesting. Given my background, i would start and ai Company Whose goal to teach computers how to read, so they can absorb and understand all the written knowledge of the world. Has yetan area where ai to make progress, and it will be profound when we achieve that goal. David are you worried about the power of ai to disrupt civilization and put people out of work . Bill increased positivity that will come from ai will create dilemmas about what should people do with that extra time. You have to consider that a good thing even though it will be an interesting set of adjustments that have to take place. Said the two major issues have you made progress on either of those . Bill Global Health is our biggest area, and the progress has been unbelievable. Not just because of our work, but our partners that include u. S. Government spending, european donors who have stepped up on health issues. Numberthe metrics is the of children who die before the age of five. When we got started in 2000, that was over 10 million a year. Now it is about 5 million a year. Peopleind blowing, and are not as aware of it as you would like them to be. Because of getting out vaccines and understanding more about nutrition, those deaths have been cut in half. Now the goal is to cut them in half again by 2030. Our u. S. Education work not just key metrics,e that dropout rate, math and verbal achievement. Those metrics have moved essentially not at all. Even with spending more resources, we spend more than any country in the world, and our results are quite a bit all the otherost rich countries. Even some middle income countries, even vietnam is passing us in terms of their math results. The field has not had the impact we thought. People come to you for money, they say i have something you can invest in or give money to. How do you resist . Pick what you care about, if somebody has something that can make a difference, we are super interested. ,e have a staff of 1500 people and it has to do with Global Health, some talk through whatever your innovation is and how we can partner with you on that. That is clearly in our area. You can substantially improve k12 education, we will be interested in it. If people are outside of that, fortunately you can say no. David people have recognized that raising children is difficult. Jackie kennedy said if you mess up raising your children, nothing else matters. You have three children, welladjusted, and you have kept them out of newspapers. How do you avoid spoiling them . Bill i think that is a huge problem. Obviously, our kids have benefited from having a great education and opportunity to travel. They are lucky in that sense. Making sure the way people treat them is not a natural, there are some challenges that come with that and they have handled it well. Is the one who deserves all the credit for the kids so far. Doing very well. Our kids, we have said to them that the money is going to the foundation, so they do not think of themselves as aristocratic. David do they say, can you give me a little bit . Bill they will get a little bit. David how much money has her Foundation Given away . Bill about 40 billion. We are up to giving away 6 billion a year. David if people are watching and want to do something about im a change but do not have the resources, what can any average person do you have some impact on Climate Change . Bill certainly they can take things like these new meat they buyor how electricity, and they can help drive up the scale of the green solutions. The most important thing at this stage is their political voice. There will be a need to put substantial resources into this effort. Need a bipartisan solution, and to send the right you wino the market, if one year and then it gets repealed, that does not help at all. The key is what people see the policies will be over the next 30 years on a consistent basis. That means there is a much higher bar than a onetime victory. Everyone uses their phone differently. Thats why Xfinity Mobile lets you design your own data. You can share 1, 3, or 10 gigs of data between lines, mix in lines of unlimited, and switch it up at any time. 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