Transcripts For BBCNEWS Amol Rajan Interviews Bill Gates 202

BBCNEWS Amol Rajan Interviews Bill Gates July 6, 2024

So theyre not paying bank fees and a lot in health, new vaccines. So were 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 thats purposeful, a feeling that, you know, you genuinelyjust dont 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 dont. I, you know, find the work very fulfilling. I get to learn new things. Get to go to interesting places. Yeah. Theres no sacrifice involved. Its. Well, its quite a lot of financial sacrifice sure, but i dont have any use for that money. I mean, im not denying myself, you know, the worlds best cheeseburger, you know . Is that your food of choice, a great cheeseburger . Its 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 wasnt 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 wasjust a little rebellious, and they thought if i talked to a psychologist, id. Understand about, uh. Cooperating with the family, maybe . Obeying the rules. But i2 year olds are rebellious, wasnt it quite a big dealfor a family on the west coast of america then, whats that, late 1960s . Isnt that quite a big deal . It wasnt 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, surei. I think, you know, when you step back from your life and look at where youre having conflict or where youre not fulfilling the things you want, it can be helpful to have a professional whos 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. Im fascinated by the combination of factors that make great entrepreneurial success. So theres key partnerships, in your case with paul allen, your co founder. Theres 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 recognised 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 wouldntjust 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. 0ur speed of engineering, our low prices, our Global Presence we became not only the first but also, by far, the most Successful Software company. Its 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 numberplates of your staffs vehicles sometimes, so you knew when they were coming in and out of the car park. You had famous outbursts of, thats the stupidest effing thing ive 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 youve described your own work ethic as fanatical. But if youre 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. Laughs. And to work on some of the most interesting, Amazing Things possible. I wish youd given me a call do you have any regrets about how you treated staff . The people who worked who wouldve been in meetings directly with me, and were all hyper successful, there may have been some people who couldnt, you know, my style, which was, hey, weve got to move fast. Weve 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 youre describing yourself, it makes me think of what i read about musk today. No, iwasn� t, you know, going out to the public and insulting the president of the United States or Something Like that. Imean. Yeah. But in the sense of driving a company hard, pushing staff, a huge sense of mission and purpose, i mean, thats part of what hes about. Well, i didnt run, you know, three companies at a time. So you could say hes more talented than i was. He might say that. I believed in magic of software and, you know, i was focused on that. I wasnt making comments on politicians and every trend of the day, you know . Hard work, we have that in common. Otherwise, you know, theres some differences. There are some differences, and im 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 . Im sure he has people telling him that, and im sure hes decided to ignore them the nice thing about my relationship with steve is we got to be friends and reflect on the amazing lives we have had. He is very different than me. He had an instinct for design and a sort of picking is about design that is not one of my skills. About design that is not one of m skills. ,. ,. , my skills. The admiration for him is very my skills. The admiration for him is very clear my skills. The admiration for him is very clear and my skills. The admiration for him is very clear and the him is very clear and the complexity of your relationship is interesting and ifind it astonishing what they said about you in his authorised biography in 2011 where he about you in his authorised biography in 2011where he said bill is basically unimaginative, he has never invented anything which is why i think he is more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology, he shamelessly ripped off other peoples ideas. Why do you think he was a personal and rude about it . Steve was somebody who was very tough on himself and often, he thought 0k, tough on himself and often, he thought ok, this time hes to fail. His ability to insult people was an impressive skill but you know, he is also quoted as saying i was super inventive and. � ,. As saying i was super inventive and. And. Its a selective quotation. And. Its a selective quotation. Not and. Its a selective| quotation. Not totally consistent. Quotation. Not totally consistent. But quotation. Not totally consistent. But yeah, i quotation. Not totally i consistent. But yeah, he quotation. Not totally consistent. But yeah, he could be tough. Consistent. But yeah, he could be tough consistent. But yeah, he could betou h. ~. ,. , be tough. Musk says he wants to use technology be tough. Musk says he wants to use technology to be tough. Musk says he wants to use technology to liberate use technology to liberate humanity and a lot of people say our relationship with technology is going badly wrong so do you ever worry that what you did help to unleash technologies that helped humanity in the short term but in the could set us back . Humanity in the shortterm but in the could set us back . In the could set us back . Well, most of the in the could set us back . Well, most of the things in the could set us back . Well, most of the things that 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 or some evil plan using that World Processor word. Now we are getting into how people communicate and thought of replacing media with a lot of these digital forums and there have, 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, its 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. Thejudgement 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, thats 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 . Its an open question. Yeah, because were having a civilised conversation and a lot of people would say one of the biggest lessons from social media is its 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 its ever been in my lifetime, and it scares me. I dont 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, theres people elected who believe in these qanon Conspiracy Theories, so, erm, i hope that smart young people can take and shape these digital forums 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 dont think my generation, you know, took care of the downside of Digital Media. And so, i hope that gets solved because what thats done to political discourse, i think, has made it even somewhat worse than it would be without it. Well, since weve gone there, were 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 dont really understand him. Im 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, lets, during your term as president , you know, find a cure for hiv. Lets pick some high impact science goals for the world. None of that ever came to pass, but i dont feel bad that i tried. What do you make of the fact that hes 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 im disqualified for any predictions related to him. Ijust 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 youd see that in your lifetime . No. Its 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 itd 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 worlds 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 theres one person in the world i want to ask that, its you. Well, certainly not having to worry about, can i pay my kids 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 familys consumption at quite a comfortable level, you know, thats 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 im going to ask you its a nice question. Chuckles. The question is, are you frugal . Um, you know, i dont have a gigantic closet. I dont, you know, wearjewellery. You make me feel very self conscious. But most of this is fake. Like when im unwrapping a present, i dont take the wrapping and, you know, fold it up and use it again. You know, if i use a paper bag, i my grandmother never threw a paper bag in her life or any string on a package, so, by her standards, im 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. 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 thats 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. Thats 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 youre allowing yourself, as part of your travelling all over the world, to do it in a simple way. Um, you know, i try to keep my intellectual integrity of, 0k, do i really understand stuff . For example, is the money and the team weve built to go after these diseases, are they the best they possibly can be . So, i still think im 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 childrens 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 youre saying, you partly give so much money away because you do want to not feel guilty because if you didnt give it away, you would feel guilty. 0h, certainly if i spent it on myself, i should feel guilty and i would. I mean, whatam 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 worlds Greatest Cheeseburger, which, i mean. I eat the worlds Greatest Cheeseburger. Money cant buy you a better cheeseburger. I really want to talk to you about this. What would go in the worlds Greatest Cheeseburger . Just, you know. A mcdonalds burger. I dont 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 dont think you can understand this remotely. You know, we. Our foundation is very involved in improvi

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