00:00:04
Speaker 1: Hi everyone. I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question. Hi everyone, So happy to be here with mister Gates and all of you. Very exciting. He's made the rounds already. He's pretty much been everywhere, so we're very excited that we have sort of a private ish audience with him. And as you know, he is autographed a copy of his memoir for everybody here, so you guys will have fun reading it and talking about it on your various platforms. You book influencers. You I know myself about writing a memoir. How what an intense experience it is looking back on your childhood, looking back on everything that is influenced you as you grew And this is really about the first part of Bill's life. So I'm really excited Bill. I really enjoyed reading it, and it's the first of three volumes. Holy cal you have a lot to say, don't you.
00:01:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, first we were thinking I'll just write one, but then I wasn't covering things in a good way, so that really just didn't come together. And so it was eighteen months ago I thought maybe I'll just do my first twenty five years where I can really focus on my parents and the great luck I had with friends and when I was born.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: So it starts really with your childhood growing up in Seattle and goes all the way to your decision to leave Harvard to commit yourself full time to building Microsoft into one of the country's most consequential companies. I'm curious, what did you learn going back in time? What did you learn about yourself that you really didn't appreciate before.
00:02:03
Speaker 2: Well, I don't look back much because the future, you know, has lots of innovation and things that I'm kind of rushing and working hard to try and achieve nowadays, mostly through my foundation work. And so it was only as I was about to turn seventy later this year that I thought, no, it would be great to look back. And you know, I always thought of my parents is kind of amazing, each in kind of a different way. But that really grew for me as I went through this and talked to my sisters, made sure they had the same views about things. And there are various points where my parents really made great decisions about sending me to a therapist or a private school, or give me an immense amount of freedom and more than I'd say any kid gets today.
00:03:04
Speaker 1: I loved reading about your family tree, but I got especially a big kick out of your gammy what you called her your maternal grandmother, and she was kind of a card shark and a family that was apparently obsessed with card games. What kind of life lessons did you learn? I love the fact when you beat her finally, there wasn't a big celebration. I would have been such so obnoxious. I would have been jumping around and dancing and you know, making her feel really bad, But you kind of said it just sort of went by, but you were still very proud of that moment, right, Yeah.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: I mean she won a high percentage of the time, but she didn't really explain what her state machine was that you know, as cards go by in coachcard Rumney or gin or Bridge being the most complicated, but even hearts there's quite a bit of strategy. And so it took a number of years when I went from being, you know, mostly loser to mostly a winner. And I think she was a little chagrined that I caught on because she never really explained her secret.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: But weren't they that she really I mean, she really understood her opponent's hands. What was her secret? Because I love that you wrote. Card Plane taught me that no matter how complex or mysterious something seems, you often can figure it out. The world can be understood.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: Well in some of these games simply having an exact memory for what cards have gone by and you know what they've picked up. I actually wrote down mathematically optimal strategy for a number of.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: These things you did.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: And you know people weren't that interested in it, but the fact that if you thought hard enough they were is the best play. And that it's the subtlety of it. And so the person who's really spent the time, you know when you walk into the game you have an incredible edge.
00:05:14
Speaker 1: Your dad, Bill Junior, was a lawyer. Your mom, Mary, served on the boards of several corporations and nonprofit organizations. You were the middle kid. You had an older sister and a younger sister coincidentally the same as your kids, right, But looking back on your childhood, what quality do you think you got from each of your parents?
00:05:34
Speaker 2: Well, my dad was mostly just setting an amazing example. He was always calm, he always knew the answer, He never acted out of emotion. The world was a predictable place that you could always think things through my mom. I spent way more time with because my dad would go off to work in the morning, and you know, when he came back, we'd have dinner and talk about mostly what he was working on. But you know, all day long, my mom's saying, you know, get up here, get dressed, keep your elbows off.
00:06:09
Speaker 1: She was kind of a tiger mom, wasn't she a.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: Little bit uh? You know, she did it kind of in an implicit way where when she'd speak about other parents, she'd say, oh, they must be so disappointed, you know, their son didn't go to college or that, you know, he never learned his table manners. And I said to my mom, you know, you you told me to go to Harvard, and she said, I know, I never said that, But then I explained, no, you really did say it. You didn't have to in this indirect way of you know, what what your values were. So that was an intense relationship. You know. I I confused her a bit because I would, you know, stay in my room and read a lot. And there were period of years where I was a bit rebellious and not really thinking.
00:07:05
Speaker 1: You write a lot about the tension between the two of you. You say I could go days without speaking, emerging from my room only for meals in school. Call me to dinner, I ignored. You tell me to pick up my clothes. Nope, clear the table. Nothing built, no offense. But you sound like you were a real asshole.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: There were there were about two years where a lot of I thought.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: He would crack a smile at least at that. It's just like, I.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: Don't think I did any permanent damage. But eventually they sent me to a therapist and he, you know, really got my trust and gave me a bunch of books to read, and you know, just kind of explained that putting my energy against uh my parents, mostly my mom, you know, that was kind of a waste of my time and that there wasn't any you know, grand victory to be had there because they were on my side, and that really was super helpful, and so I gave up all that you know, non compliance.
00:08:18
Speaker 1: See also doctor Cressy was his name. He could get your parents some good advice and that was basically a little to their dismay. You know, you talk about in the book to give you more freedom, right to kind of let you be yourself, and you found that freedom through hikes with a group of how shall I say it, fellow nerds, and I was amazed that you got through one. I loved reading about this one miserably cold hike that you know, you guys were up to your knees or maybe even higher in snow. It was just horrible conditions and you got through it by writing code in your head for hours. Tell us about that and how kind of you had this alternative reality in a way that helped you cope.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Pasitting Northwest where I grew up, there were a lot of great hikes, and through Boy Scouts, I got in with the group where we took a lot of hikes. I wasn't hiking so much that I love, but just having this different group of friends and kind of challenging ourselves all.
00:09:31
Speaker 1: Took on different roles, Like you were the fire builder, right.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: Right. I wasn't a great hiker. And in fact, the day where I did this software work, they had all out voted me to take the long route because they thought it was more scenic or something. And we carried these very heavy packs and I was pretty scrawny, so you know, in order to just not dwell on the rain or the switchbacks. You know, I started thinking through a very complex piece of what's called the Basic Interpreter that almost three years later, I drawn that knowledge for Microsoft's Area first product. But the idea of really good software, it's kind of elegant, how small and fast it can be. So I really put my mind to that, and you know, spent about five hours really making it one of the best piece of software I ever wrote.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: And that took your mind off the miserable condition.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, then I didn't notice all those switchbacks that we were going up and down.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: You know. You also write that if you were growing up today, you'd likely be diagnosed as autistic, and I thought it was interesting that you said you often rocked when you were sort of concentrating, and it's something you still do today when you're deep in thought or focused on something. When did you realize that this might be the case, that you might beyond the spectrum in some way.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: Well, when I was growing up, that term just didn't exist. I mean, autism was a pretty narrow definition in terms of not ever developing full social skills. And it wasn't until I was an adult in a Q and A session and somebody said that, you know, maybe I was rocking at the time, and I thought, well, that's interesting. You know, I don't want to say no, because you know, what am I doing saying that I'm better or that would be awful or and then you know, some of the things do fit my social skills. We were slow to develop that ability to concentrate for you know, hours on end, you know, read more books than the other kids, you know, which ended up being a strength that's very characteristic of that type of mind. So you know, it wasn't like some deficit for me, even though some things I had to work hard to to get decent.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: And the fact you acknowledge that you're you talk about your neurodiversity and you say it was also a superpower, right, I mean talk about that some of these qualities that might be seen as you know, as I said, on the spectrum or differently abled or whatever, actually work to your advantage.
00:12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that term nerd, you know, you never know that it's being used as a positive or a negative. When I was growing up, it was kind of a negative about you know, young boys like me who would uh just go off and obsess about programming or any kind of technical thing, and that you know we were boring, uh and not important, you know, then eventually became oh you're a nerd. Wow.
00:12:57
Speaker 1: I think it's a compliment. I think it means like a brainiac, but probably not not a player. You know what I'm saying.
00:13:05
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's I'm ready.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: You'll accept that.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: Definitely. It's definitely specializing and wanting to read a lot about something, which in my case included learning how to write software. At a time where computers were very expensive and it was very rare for people to have time on them. Through a series of experiences, each of which kind of built on the last, I got feedback about, Okay, here's how you write even better software. So even by the time I graduate from high school, I've had thousands of hours and with my intense focus, you know, I knew a lot about software and simultaneously the magic of these chips microprocessors making computing go from being very expensive almost free. Uh. You know, with the help of Paul Allen, we can see, Hey, the software stuff is going to be the key ingredient. He wanted to do a company. We actually did the hardware, but I insisted we just do the software, and that you know, we were in the right place at the right time, and and you know built because of that. Other people just didn't didn't see what we saw.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Before you to Harvard, you had a defining moment in your life. You say, unlike a lot of successful people, you had a relatively easy childhood. I mean taking out the part of giving your mom a hard time. But you know, you suffered the loss of your very, very good friend, and you write about it quite movingly. Kent Evans. He was killed in a mountain climbing accident when the two of you were sixteen years old, and I'm curious if you could talk about the impact that had and how it changed your perspective.
00:15:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when the computer arrives at this school, Lakeside School, there's four of us, My best friend Ken Toy talk to every night, and these too older boys, one of whom was Paul, who we stayed there even after it wasn't exciting anymore. We were just really obsessed.
00:15:56
Speaker 1: You would say, out to your house to go to the computer lab.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah nights, yeah, yeah. And so Kent, you know, was very outward looking. You know, he had looked up what did generals make, what did ambassadors make? What did professors make? Uh? You know, he got me reading Fortune magazine, you know, and so he had this sense of, Okay, what we need to think now on what we're going to be doing later. And that was a revelation to me. And I'd been a bit of a goof off and he encouraged me not to be so lackadaisical because he was very diligent in everything he did. You know. So we were thinking, okay, we're gonna go out there and solve big problems together. And he signed up for a mountain climbing class in our junior of high school. Uh. He was less coordinated than I was, so nobody expected that, but his parents kind of went along because Kent had strong views about things, and you know, he we talked on a Friday night like we always did, and he was going to be gone for the weekend. And then that Sunday, they head master of the school called me and said that not only kn't been injured, but he'd actually died, which you know, when you're at that age, okay, grandparents maybe, but you know, people your own age are kind of invulnerable, and so that was quite a shock. You know. The only thing that got me, you know, back thinking for was, you know, when I would spend time with Kent's parents. You know, it was kind of an irreparable loss for them. They he was amazing to them and to me, and so you know, I was lucky that all those things Kent had taught me, you know, I could go back and do. In fact, I that summer I had committed to do a very complicated piece of soft for school scheduling. So I called Paul, who'd gone off for a first year of college, and then he came back and that's sort of where he and I spent a lot of time together, and you know, eventually that led to us founding Microsoft about three years.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a scene in the book where Paul Allen bursts into your dorm room at Harvard holding the January nineteen seventy five issue of Popular Electronics with this headline project breakthrough world's first mini computer kit to rival commercial models, And he said to you it's happening without us. That was a real kick in the pants for both of you, wasn't it.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd made I'd help Paul get a job back in Boston. So he was on leaven We were just brainstorming all the time about this insight, about how magical these chips were and what they would do and you know, different ideas, and just stunned that other people didn't see how big this would be. But still thinking through, Okay, what was our role in all of it? And so yeah, when he bought that magazine at Harvard Square and you know, it's a cold Boston winter, and we said, okay, we are going to be in on the ground floor. And now it's happening. And so even though I loved my time at Harvard, you know, that's when I had to make the plan. Okay, I'm about to.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: Go on unless your mom bummed out that you quit Harvard.
00:19:32
Speaker 2: Well I didn't quit. I mean you go on leave. You know, so if your company fails, you know, they don't like shun you. Oh you had a failed company, or oh you were gone for a year. It would have been fine. You know, I didn't have you know, kids to support or anything like that. And you know, my computer skills were quite valuable, so I didn't think of it as risky at all. She might have been a bit worried about it, because she always wondered if I was taking the wrong turn that she needed to advise me on. But you know, we started small, and then a few years later, at the end of the book is when I'm nineteen seventy nine, I've decided to move Microsoft back to Seattle, and you know, we only have about eighteen people, but we're on our way to be sort of the software.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: And the book ends when you're around twenty three. You get into your Porsche. Nice nice ride for a college kid. By the way, oh, I was a used nine eleven, and you headed back to Seattle, as you said, to build Microsoft. But now fifty years later you've said you're thinking of quote digital empowerment as an unadulterated good has changed, And I'm curious back then, Bill, if you ever envisioned technology being as transformative and as negative a force in society in some cases that it's become.
00:21:15
Speaker 2: In the early days, it felt like a pure, unadult, traded good thing that you could type documents and do spreadsheets and communicate with people all over the world, and it was just Okay, humans do good things, and now we're going to do them faster and better. And so that naivete I keep that literally until social networking comes along. In fact, we thought the biggest problem with computers was that not everybody had access, So we need to make them even cheaper and get them into the inner city and get them into developing countries. So this digital divide was something that I worked on, you know, putting computers in libraries, and Microsoft also did a lot on that. Only later did the idea that some of these technologies can actually accentuate human weakness, and you can get people who believe crazy things that normally would have to kind of give it up because they can't find each other. But now, boy, they have found each other. You know, for crazy idea A, they've got a quorum. For crazy idea B, they've got a quorum, and all day long they're enjoying being off in that you know, sort of non nonfactual but self reinforcing group. You know. So yes, it's only maybe ten years ago that that became clear.
00:22:48
Speaker 1: So is disinformation the biggest peril? Do you think to modern technology or what about sort of I'm sure you've read Jonathan Height. I just forgot his name. Wait, thank you, SJO Anxious generation? What most concerned you about technology? And while we're on the subject, how do you feel about AI? Is that something you're excited about or more concerned about?
00:23:14
Speaker 2: Well, I'm extremely excited about it, but it's a little bit scary in terms of how we're going to end up using it. It is way beyond anything that's come before. You know, the revolution I was part of is about computing going from being expensive to basically being free. Okay, what do you do with it? Now? It's about intelligence going from being scarce and you have to go to college and learn all these things because we have a shortage of engineers or doctors or whatever, and now intelligence will be essentially free. We're not there yet. We don't have robots. The accuracy of these machines h still kind of surprise us. That they make mistakes that are very different than the kind of mistake humans make. So there's refinement, but it's happening quite quickly. So when you think about today's problems, you know, climate Alzheimer's, HIV, vaccine, AI is phenomenal in that it will accelerate those advances. You know, we will have medical advice for people in poor countries, will have great advice for farmers about when to plant what to plant, better than even rich farmers have today. But overall for society as it you know, changes job markets and hopefully frees up time. Exactly who benefits or how government adjusts to it, and how you know, people with negative intent use these new tools, I'd say it's a cloudier future. And and so AI brings wonderful advances and some challenge for humanity. You know. Harari in nexas says that we need to put AI aside and learn how to get along with each other, and then we should turn to this wonderful magic box since we'll be mature enough to use it the right way. You know, that's not likely to happen. So we've got, you know, a need to get everybody involved in thinking through how do we want to shape.
00:25:39
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great segue to my next question. I thought we could talk about politics because there's nothing really going on in that department. What did you think when you saw this whole row of tech bros at the inauguration front and Center. What did you say to yourself when you witness that?
00:26:00
Speaker 2: You know they make their own decisions.
00:26:04
Speaker 1: You must have thought something though when you saw that.
00:26:09
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't have predicted it. And yet, you know, when you have a new administration, you know they're gonna wield a lot of authority, including over those companies. You know, I'm I'm not really in their game anymore. My focus is the foundation work. So you know my mindset isn't quite Okay, let's defend.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Were you invited for the inauguration?
00:26:40
Speaker 2: I bet I could have been there, I mean, I think so, but it was fine. I had been there recently for Jimmy Carter's funeral.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: That's it. Yeah, okay. These same tech billionaires made major contributions to Trump's inauguration fund. Meta, Amazon, Google, your very own Microsoft all donated one million dollars. Sam Altman and Tim Cook both reportedly also made one million dollar donations personally. So did you donate anything to Donald Trump?
00:27:31
Speaker 2: I didn't. I thought it looked like a well funded inauguration.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: They don't need my money.
00:27:38
Speaker 2: No. I saved it for HIV and malaria eradication.
00:28:04
Speaker 1: You did, though, have a three hour dinner with Donald Trump. I know, I suddenly feel like Mike Wallace here. I don't mean to. I don't mean to anyway.
00:28:15
Speaker 2: Bill.
00:28:15
Speaker 1: I know you had dinner with Donald Trump. It was three hours long. It was at the end of December. You described that dinner as quite intriguing and wide ranging, and that he showed a lot of interest in the issues that you brought up. He's been president for just over two weeks, and as you well know, there's a lot of concern about a whole slew of things he's doing, from firing inspectors general at a variety of agencies to stop corruption, etc. To the mass deportation of immigrants, to blaming the tragic airplane crash in DC on DEI given the conversation and given your experience having this dinner with him, are you surprised at some of the actions he's taken so quickly?
00:29:01
Speaker 2: Well, things are moving fairly quickly. And you know, the area that I have real expertise in includes the foreign assistants, the USAID work, and things like pepfar where the US government has been incredibly generous and saved tens of millions of lives. And so when I saw President Trump, you know, I said, let's maintain this generosity and let's accelerate innovation. And we don't have an HIV vaccine, we don't have an HIV cure. If some of the same things that were done in Project Warp Speed during the pandemic could be applied in those areas, the chance of getting great new tools is pretty exciting. And so I asked for his support in that and said that, you know, in the meantime, we should continue to provide those medicines. What's happened so far in terms of personnel and grants may disrupt that. And so you know, I'll be a strong voice saying, you know, even if you have to, you know, change the name of the organization. You know, maybe there's ten percent of these programs you don't support. Let's not take the incredible talent and impact and through very abrupt actions largely by people who don't know this agency and may have just heard about you know, one percent here, you know, went to something they don't like. So the next few months, you know, I expect to provide the best advice I can because I think the US should be proud of what it's done, starting with President Bush. But on a bipartisan basis up until now.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: Will you call Elon muss because as the head of DOGE or whatever that agency is, he's made moves, as you know, to shut down USAI D He says, quote with the blessing of President Trump, and on his platform X he called the government agency evil and a viper's nests of radical left Marxist who hate America America, adding that it was time for it to die. We got so many questions Bill for you on threads, my followers, And do you think that Elon Musk, or for that matter, Donald Trump, after you all had that three hour dinner and talked about the important work that organizations like this do, do you think anybody's going to listen.
00:31:42
Speaker 2: I'm very hopeful that the Secretary of State Mark Rubio, who was in Africa and saw this great work, and President Trump will work to preserve the bulk of what's there. Whether that named agency stays in place, you know, whether every program does. But you know, an abrupt ending of that work would really put to the test. You know, is it in the value of Americans to take half percent of the budget and keep tens of millions of Africans alive or have we sort of overnight decided that that half a percent shouldn't be spent that way? And it is a political question. You know, I have a clear point of view. I know great people in that area.
00:32:29
Speaker 1: It's not just Africa, by the way, it's all over the world.
00:32:32
Speaker 2: It is it is. It's mostly the benefits of that work of USAAD broadly are our global The HIV work because of the nature of the epidemic is about eighty percent in Africa. And the things USAID funds I fund with billions of dollars, and you know, I'm very careful to make sure that money is well spent. And so I think naively people hear the most random purnade things and think, okay, it's all like that. So I have a challenge to say to Americans, is this in your value system? And you know, does it benefit our security or our moral example to keep these programs going? And you know, I think people at both parties will find this a deeply moral and important thing to keep strong.
00:33:32
Speaker 1: Now, comment on some of the other moves that Trump has made with Inspectors General kind of using weaponizing DEI I'm just curious how you're feeling, is you're watching all of this unfold.
00:33:46
Speaker 2: Well, in some ways, you know, there's not that much that wasn't predicted mentioned during the campaign, And although.
00:33:55
Speaker 1: He distanced himself from Project twenty twenty five and now, according to Time magazine, two thirds of the things he's done are actually in adherence with Project twenty twenty five.
00:34:06
Speaker 2: You know, I'm you know, there are people in the Democratic Party who will speak out on these things. I'm you know, I'm taking my fortune and trying to partner with governments, and the US government being very key, so I'll mostly speak out about those areas where I have you know, real experience. I've gotten to visit the projects, I've gotten to meet the heroes, and I'm still you know, hoping we can strengthen rather than we can that those those projects.
00:34:41
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about RFK Junior, because obviously that's kind of in your laying. His nomination passed the Senate Finance Committee to advance to the floor bill. Do you think he should be Secretary of Health and Human Services, given especially your incredible work with vaccines and given some of his, uh, you know, past statements about not only their efficacy but about their safety.
00:35:12
Speaker 2: You know, I I've only had one meeting with him, which actually goes back to the first Trump administration, and you know, it looks like he will get confirmed. Uh, he'll be in charge of some other parts of the government that do amazing work. You know, we have the best drug regulator, the FDA, we have the best health research the NIH. He'll be in charge of those things. And uh, you know, so I hope to find common cause, including you know, working to have more vaccines. You know, we we don't have a vaccine for TB or HIV in malaria, and there's some incredible work that even in the next four years with Lucke, we'll get a number of those tools.
00:36:06
Speaker 1: You have predicted that the chance of another pandemic in the next four years is between ten and fifteen percent, and that we're absolutely not prepared for it. I'm curious why you think global leaders are not taking this threat seriously enough. This has sort of been the case for pandemics for a while, even after COVID. Seems like we haven't put the infrastructure in place to deal with something like that happening in the future. And I'm curious why you think that's the case.
00:36:38
Speaker 2: Well, there are countries like China and India that are actually doing some great things.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe than in this country.
00:36:44
Speaker 2: We would make them more ready for the next pandemic. US is kind of strange because we're still kind of arguing.
00:36:50
Speaker 1: About where the virus came from.
00:36:52
Speaker 2: You know, no, well that too, but even you know, okay, in the end, at the end of any emergency action like that, you realize, okay, now we've gone too far and the remedy is greater than the benefit. And so you know, when should we have known that? And whose fault was?
00:37:11
Speaker 1: That?
00:37:13
Speaker 2: The vaccine saved millions of lives and President Trump was involved in accelerating the availability of that vaccine, similar things should be standing by for the next pandemic, And so I'm hopeful that we'll sort of put that one behind us and come together around what preparation looks like. The world is more dependent on the US doing a good job on this than it should be, you know. It really the depth of medical experience, the size of the American budget, you know, and we need to do it on a cooperative basis. So with luck, we'll get our act together before the next one comes, because it could be far worse that pandemic you know, killed less than one percent. Now that's millions of people, but you could have one that would be you know, greater than ten percent.
00:38:13
Speaker 1: Could you see yourself getting more involved in pandemic preparedness and kind of trying to galvanize all these people who have such a depth of knowledge but don't seem to be particularly coordinated.
00:38:27
Speaker 2: Well, I wrote a book about how to avoid the next pandemic, but.
00:38:34
Speaker 1: I mean actually instituting sort of more of a plan or is that not really that interesting?
00:38:39
Speaker 2: Well, if the government was putting together a group of people on that, either I or you know, the the deep experts at the Gates Foundation would love to be part of that. You know, this is a multi country thing because the pandemic is likely to start in either a your Africa. And the best thing with the pandemic because you stop it. You have functional health systems in Africa that see it, detect it, and don't let it go global. And that's partly an additional benefit besides what I think should justify it by itself, which is the moral idea of saving lives. And so yes, if the world gets serious about this, you know I think about it. I have great people outside of the pharma companies, we have the greatest depth of vaccine expertise and so you know, whenever you want to think not just about the market incentives but societal benefit, that's where we have a team that can make a contribution.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, I have so many questions, but we're running out of time. But you mentioned you're going to be turning seventy. I guess in October, right. And my husband always says, I'm not even on the back nine. I'm on the back three, which is so so sweet of him. But as you as you approached the big seven to zero, I mean, what are you thinking about? What do you want to accomplish bill that you have yet to accomplish because you're always I think, striving to do more.
00:40:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of my time is being smart about giving the money away that I'm lucky enough to have and building a phenomenal team of people at the Gates Foundation. You know, global health is the thing we've picked, and so far it's gone very well, you know, because of our partner's generosity with the US government being top of that list, have allowed us to get childhood under five deaths from ten million a year. At the turn of the century now down to blow five million. If we stay the course, we will be able to cut that in half again. You know. So for me, eradicating polio where we're close but uh not there yet. Uh, then moving on to eradicate musles and malaria, and to get kind of an equity where child's life in these poor countries is also valued, where they get the nourishment to thrive. Uh. You know, it's very fulfilling work. And the innovation pipeline, that's a very positive story. The delivery pipeline where the world is getting distracted. Uh, and we need to renew our values and commitment to these things. That look that's looking tough at least in the near term, but uh, you know, the innovations are going to come and you know, eventually I think uh people will come back uh and and do this just on a your value based.
00:42:00
Speaker 1: You're never going to retire, You're never going to sit on a beach and drink pina coladas.
00:42:05
Speaker 2: Well, as long as I think my organizing teams and challenging teams really can help drive these things forward, that is the most fun thing for me to do. And you know, do I have ten more years or twenty more years of doing that hard to say, but for now I'm full speed ahead.
00:42:28
Speaker 1: Well Bill Gates. The book is called source Code My Beginnings. Thanks so much, Bill, fun talking to Thank you Fair, thank you, Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Hi everyone. I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question. Hi everyone, So happy to be here with mister Gates and all of you. Very exciting. He's made the rounds already. He's pretty much been everywhere, so we're very excited that we have sort of a private ish audience with him. And as you know, he is autographed a copy of his memoir for everybody here, so you guys will have fun reading it and talking about it on your various platforms. You book influencers. You I know myself about writing a memoir. How what an intense experience it is looking back on your childhood, looking back on everything that is influenced you as you grew And this is really about the first part of Bill's life. So I'm really excited Bill. I really enjoyed reading it, and it's the first of three volumes. Holy cal you have a lot to say, don't you.
00:01:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, first we were thinking I'll just write one, but then I wasn't covering things in a good way, so that really just didn't come together. And so it was eighteen months ago I thought maybe I'll just do my first twenty five years where I can really focus on my parents and the great luck I had with friends and when I was born.
00:01:41
Speaker 1: So it starts really with your childhood growing up in Seattle and goes all the way to your decision to leave Harvard to commit yourself full time to building Microsoft into one of the country's most consequential companies. I'm curious, what did you learn going back in time? What did you learn about yourself that you really didn't appreciate before.
00:02:03
Speaker 2: Well, I don't look back much because the future, you know, has lots of innovation and things that I'm kind of rushing and working hard to try and achieve nowadays, mostly through my foundation work. And so it was only as I was about to turn seventy later this year that I thought, no, it would be great to look back. And you know, I always thought of my parents is kind of amazing, each in kind of a different way. But that really grew for me as I went through this and talked to my sisters, made sure they had the same views about things. And there are various points where my parents really made great decisions about sending me to a therapist or a private school, or give me an immense amount of freedom and more than I'd say any kid gets today.
00:03:04
Speaker 1: I loved reading about your family tree, but I got especially a big kick out of your gammy what you called her your maternal grandmother, and she was kind of a card shark and a family that was apparently obsessed with card games. What kind of life lessons did you learn? I love the fact when you beat her finally, there wasn't a big celebration. I would have been such so obnoxious. I would have been jumping around and dancing and you know, making her feel really bad, But you kind of said it just sort of went by, but you were still very proud of that moment, right, Yeah.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: I mean she won a high percentage of the time, but she didn't really explain what her state machine was that you know, as cards go by in coachcard Rumney or gin or Bridge being the most complicated, but even hearts there's quite a bit of strategy. And so it took a number of years when I went from being, you know, mostly loser to mostly a winner. And I think she was a little chagrined that I caught on because she never really explained her secret.
00:04:12
Speaker 1: But weren't they that she really I mean, she really understood her opponent's hands. What was her secret? Because I love that you wrote. Card Plane taught me that no matter how complex or mysterious something seems, you often can figure it out. The world can be understood.
00:04:31
Speaker 2: Well in some of these games simply having an exact memory for what cards have gone by and you know what they've picked up. I actually wrote down mathematically optimal strategy for a number of.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: These things you did.
00:04:51
Speaker 2: And you know people weren't that interested in it, but the fact that if you thought hard enough they were is the best play. And that it's the subtlety of it. And so the person who's really spent the time, you know when you walk into the game you have an incredible edge.
00:05:14
Speaker 1: Your dad, Bill Junior, was a lawyer. Your mom, Mary, served on the boards of several corporations and nonprofit organizations. You were the middle kid. You had an older sister and a younger sister coincidentally the same as your kids, right, But looking back on your childhood, what quality do you think you got from each of your parents?
00:05:34
Speaker 2: Well, my dad was mostly just setting an amazing example. He was always calm, he always knew the answer, He never acted out of emotion. The world was a predictable place that you could always think things through my mom. I spent way more time with because my dad would go off to work in the morning, and you know, when he came back, we'd have dinner and talk about mostly what he was working on. But you know, all day long, my mom's saying, you know, get up here, get dressed, keep your elbows off.
00:06:09
Speaker 1: She was kind of a tiger mom, wasn't she a.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: Little bit uh? You know, she did it kind of in an implicit way where when she'd speak about other parents, she'd say, oh, they must be so disappointed, you know, their son didn't go to college or that, you know, he never learned his table manners. And I said to my mom, you know, you you told me to go to Harvard, and she said, I know, I never said that, But then I explained, no, you really did say it. You didn't have to in this indirect way of you know, what what your values were. So that was an intense relationship. You know. I I confused her a bit because I would, you know, stay in my room and read a lot. And there were period of years where I was a bit rebellious and not really thinking.
00:07:05
Speaker 1: You write a lot about the tension between the two of you. You say I could go days without speaking, emerging from my room only for meals in school. Call me to dinner, I ignored. You tell me to pick up my clothes. Nope, clear the table. Nothing built, no offense. But you sound like you were a real asshole.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: There were there were about two years where a lot of I thought.
00:07:30
Speaker 1: He would crack a smile at least at that. It's just like, I.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: Don't think I did any permanent damage. But eventually they sent me to a therapist and he, you know, really got my trust and gave me a bunch of books to read, and you know, just kind of explained that putting my energy against uh my parents, mostly my mom, you know, that was kind of a waste of my time and that there wasn't any you know, grand victory to be had there because they were on my side, and that really was super helpful, and so I gave up all that you know, non compliance.
00:08:18
Speaker 1: See also doctor Cressy was his name. He could get your parents some good advice and that was basically a little to their dismay. You know, you talk about in the book to give you more freedom, right to kind of let you be yourself, and you found that freedom through hikes with a group of how shall I say it, fellow nerds, and I was amazed that you got through one. I loved reading about this one miserably cold hike that you know, you guys were up to your knees or maybe even higher in snow. It was just horrible conditions and you got through it by writing code in your head for hours. Tell us about that and how kind of you had this alternative reality in a way that helped you cope.
00:09:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Pasitting Northwest where I grew up, there were a lot of great hikes, and through Boy Scouts, I got in with the group where we took a lot of hikes. I wasn't hiking so much that I love, but just having this different group of friends and kind of challenging ourselves all.
00:09:31
Speaker 1: Took on different roles, Like you were the fire builder, right.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: Right. I wasn't a great hiker. And in fact, the day where I did this software work, they had all out voted me to take the long route because they thought it was more scenic or something. And we carried these very heavy packs and I was pretty scrawny, so you know, in order to just not dwell on the rain or the switchbacks. You know, I started thinking through a very complex piece of what's called the Basic Interpreter that almost three years later, I drawn that knowledge for Microsoft's Area first product. But the idea of really good software, it's kind of elegant, how small and fast it can be. So I really put my mind to that, and you know, spent about five hours really making it one of the best piece of software I ever wrote.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: And that took your mind off the miserable condition.
00:10:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, then I didn't notice all those switchbacks that we were going up and down.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: You know. You also write that if you were growing up today, you'd likely be diagnosed as autistic, and I thought it was interesting that you said you often rocked when you were sort of concentrating, and it's something you still do today when you're deep in thought or focused on something. When did you realize that this might be the case, that you might beyond the spectrum in some way.
00:11:04
Speaker 2: Well, when I was growing up, that term just didn't exist. I mean, autism was a pretty narrow definition in terms of not ever developing full social skills. And it wasn't until I was an adult in a Q and A session and somebody said that, you know, maybe I was rocking at the time, and I thought, well, that's interesting. You know, I don't want to say no, because you know, what am I doing saying that I'm better or that would be awful or and then you know, some of the things do fit my social skills. We were slow to develop that ability to concentrate for you know, hours on end, you know, read more books than the other kids, you know, which ended up being a strength that's very characteristic of that type of mind. So you know, it wasn't like some deficit for me, even though some things I had to work hard to to get decent.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: And the fact you acknowledge that you're you talk about your neurodiversity and you say it was also a superpower, right, I mean talk about that some of these qualities that might be seen as you know, as I said, on the spectrum or differently abled or whatever, actually work to your advantage.
00:12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that term nerd, you know, you never know that it's being used as a positive or a negative. When I was growing up, it was kind of a negative about you know, young boys like me who would uh just go off and obsess about programming or any kind of technical thing, and that you know we were boring, uh and not important, you know, then eventually became oh you're a nerd. Wow.
00:12:57
Speaker 1: I think it's a compliment. I think it means like a brainiac, but probably not not a player. You know what I'm saying.
00:13:05
Speaker 2: Okay, well that's I'm ready.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: You'll accept that.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: Definitely. It's definitely specializing and wanting to read a lot about something, which in my case included learning how to write software. At a time where computers were very expensive and it was very rare for people to have time on them. Through a series of experiences, each of which kind of built on the last, I got feedback about, Okay, here's how you write even better software. So even by the time I graduate from high school, I've had thousands of hours and with my intense focus, you know, I knew a lot about software and simultaneously the magic of these chips microprocessors making computing go from being very expensive almost free. Uh. You know, with the help of Paul Allen, we can see, Hey, the software stuff is going to be the key ingredient. He wanted to do a company. We actually did the hardware, but I insisted we just do the software, and that you know, we were in the right place at the right time, and and you know built because of that. Other people just didn't didn't see what we saw.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Before you to Harvard, you had a defining moment in your life. You say, unlike a lot of successful people, you had a relatively easy childhood. I mean taking out the part of giving your mom a hard time. But you know, you suffered the loss of your very, very good friend, and you write about it quite movingly. Kent Evans. He was killed in a mountain climbing accident when the two of you were sixteen years old, and I'm curious if you could talk about the impact that had and how it changed your perspective.
00:15:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when the computer arrives at this school, Lakeside School, there's four of us, My best friend Ken Toy talk to every night, and these too older boys, one of whom was Paul, who we stayed there even after it wasn't exciting anymore. We were just really obsessed.
00:15:56
Speaker 1: You would say, out to your house to go to the computer lab.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah nights, yeah, yeah. And so Kent, you know, was very outward looking. You know, he had looked up what did generals make, what did ambassadors make? What did professors make? Uh? You know, he got me reading Fortune magazine, you know, and so he had this sense of, Okay, what we need to think now on what we're going to be doing later. And that was a revelation to me. And I'd been a bit of a goof off and he encouraged me not to be so lackadaisical because he was very diligent in everything he did. You know. So we were thinking, okay, we're gonna go out there and solve big problems together. And he signed up for a mountain climbing class in our junior of high school. Uh. He was less coordinated than I was, so nobody expected that, but his parents kind of went along because Kent had strong views about things, and you know, he we talked on a Friday night like we always did, and he was going to be gone for the weekend. And then that Sunday, they head master of the school called me and said that not only kn't been injured, but he'd actually died, which you know, when you're at that age, okay, grandparents maybe, but you know, people your own age are kind of invulnerable, and so that was quite a shock. You know. The only thing that got me, you know, back thinking for was, you know, when I would spend time with Kent's parents. You know, it was kind of an irreparable loss for them. They he was amazing to them and to me, and so you know, I was lucky that all those things Kent had taught me, you know, I could go back and do. In fact, I that summer I had committed to do a very complicated piece of soft for school scheduling. So I called Paul, who'd gone off for a first year of college, and then he came back and that's sort of where he and I spent a lot of time together, and you know, eventually that led to us founding Microsoft about three years.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a scene in the book where Paul Allen bursts into your dorm room at Harvard holding the January nineteen seventy five issue of Popular Electronics with this headline project breakthrough world's first mini computer kit to rival commercial models, And he said to you it's happening without us. That was a real kick in the pants for both of you, wasn't it.
00:18:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd made I'd help Paul get a job back in Boston. So he was on leaven We were just brainstorming all the time about this insight, about how magical these chips were and what they would do and you know, different ideas, and just stunned that other people didn't see how big this would be. But still thinking through, Okay, what was our role in all of it? And so yeah, when he bought that magazine at Harvard Square and you know, it's a cold Boston winter, and we said, okay, we are going to be in on the ground floor. And now it's happening. And so even though I loved my time at Harvard, you know, that's when I had to make the plan. Okay, I'm about to.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: Go on unless your mom bummed out that you quit Harvard.
00:19:32
Speaker 2: Well I didn't quit. I mean you go on leave. You know, so if your company fails, you know, they don't like shun you. Oh you had a failed company, or oh you were gone for a year. It would have been fine. You know, I didn't have you know, kids to support or anything like that. And you know, my computer skills were quite valuable, so I didn't think of it as risky at all. She might have been a bit worried about it, because she always wondered if I was taking the wrong turn that she needed to advise me on. But you know, we started small, and then a few years later, at the end of the book is when I'm nineteen seventy nine, I've decided to move Microsoft back to Seattle, and you know, we only have about eighteen people, but we're on our way to be sort of the software.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: And the book ends when you're around twenty three. You get into your Porsche. Nice nice ride for a college kid. By the way, oh, I was a used nine eleven, and you headed back to Seattle, as you said, to build Microsoft. But now fifty years later you've said you're thinking of quote digital empowerment as an unadulterated good has changed, And I'm curious back then, Bill, if you ever envisioned technology being as transformative and as negative a force in society in some cases that it's become.
00:21:15
Speaker 2: In the early days, it felt like a pure, unadult, traded good thing that you could type documents and do spreadsheets and communicate with people all over the world, and it was just Okay, humans do good things, and now we're going to do them faster and better. And so that naivete I keep that literally until social networking comes along. In fact, we thought the biggest problem with computers was that not everybody had access, So we need to make them even cheaper and get them into the inner city and get them into developing countries. So this digital divide was something that I worked on, you know, putting computers in libraries, and Microsoft also did a lot on that. Only later did the idea that some of these technologies can actually accentuate human weakness, and you can get people who believe crazy things that normally would have to kind of give it up because they can't find each other. But now, boy, they have found each other. You know, for crazy idea A, they've got a quorum. For crazy idea B, they've got a quorum, and all day long they're enjoying being off in that you know, sort of non nonfactual but self reinforcing group. You know. So yes, it's only maybe ten years ago that that became clear.
00:22:48
Speaker 1: So is disinformation the biggest peril? Do you think to modern technology or what about sort of I'm sure you've read Jonathan Height. I just forgot his name. Wait, thank you, SJO Anxious generation? What most concerned you about technology? And while we're on the subject, how do you feel about AI? Is that something you're excited about or more concerned about?
00:23:14
Speaker 2: Well, I'm extremely excited about it, but it's a little bit scary in terms of how we're going to end up using it. It is way beyond anything that's come before. You know, the revolution I was part of is about computing going from being expensive to basically being free. Okay, what do you do with it? Now? It's about intelligence going from being scarce and you have to go to college and learn all these things because we have a shortage of engineers or doctors or whatever, and now intelligence will be essentially free. We're not there yet. We don't have robots. The accuracy of these machines h still kind of surprise us. That they make mistakes that are very different than the kind of mistake humans make. So there's refinement, but it's happening quite quickly. So when you think about today's problems, you know, climate Alzheimer's, HIV, vaccine, AI is phenomenal in that it will accelerate those advances. You know, we will have medical advice for people in poor countries, will have great advice for farmers about when to plant what to plant, better than even rich farmers have today. But overall for society as it you know, changes job markets and hopefully frees up time. Exactly who benefits or how government adjusts to it, and how you know, people with negative intent use these new tools, I'd say it's a cloudier future. And and so AI brings wonderful advances and some challenge for humanity. You know. Harari in nexas says that we need to put AI aside and learn how to get along with each other, and then we should turn to this wonderful magic box since we'll be mature enough to use it the right way. You know, that's not likely to happen. So we've got, you know, a need to get everybody involved in thinking through how do we want to shape.
00:25:39
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great segue to my next question. I thought we could talk about politics because there's nothing really going on in that department. What did you think when you saw this whole row of tech bros at the inauguration front and Center. What did you say to yourself when you witness that?
00:26:00
Speaker 2: You know they make their own decisions.
00:26:04
Speaker 1: You must have thought something though when you saw that.
00:26:09
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't have predicted it. And yet, you know, when you have a new administration, you know they're gonna wield a lot of authority, including over those companies. You know, I'm I'm not really in their game anymore. My focus is the foundation work. So you know my mindset isn't quite Okay, let's defend.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Were you invited for the inauguration?
00:26:40
Speaker 2: I bet I could have been there, I mean, I think so, but it was fine. I had been there recently for Jimmy Carter's funeral.
00:26:59
Speaker 1: That's it. Yeah, okay. These same tech billionaires made major contributions to Trump's inauguration fund. Meta, Amazon, Google, your very own Microsoft all donated one million dollars. Sam Altman and Tim Cook both reportedly also made one million dollar donations personally. So did you donate anything to Donald Trump?
00:27:31
Speaker 2: I didn't. I thought it looked like a well funded inauguration.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: They don't need my money.
00:27:38
Speaker 2: No. I saved it for HIV and malaria eradication.
00:28:04
Speaker 1: You did, though, have a three hour dinner with Donald Trump. I know, I suddenly feel like Mike Wallace here. I don't mean to. I don't mean to anyway.
00:28:15
Speaker 2: Bill.
00:28:15
Speaker 1: I know you had dinner with Donald Trump. It was three hours long. It was at the end of December. You described that dinner as quite intriguing and wide ranging, and that he showed a lot of interest in the issues that you brought up. He's been president for just over two weeks, and as you well know, there's a lot of concern about a whole slew of things he's doing, from firing inspectors general at a variety of agencies to stop corruption, etc. To the mass deportation of immigrants, to blaming the tragic airplane crash in DC on DEI given the conversation and given your experience having this dinner with him, are you surprised at some of the actions he's taken so quickly?
00:29:01
Speaker 2: Well, things are moving fairly quickly. And you know, the area that I have real expertise in includes the foreign assistants, the USAID work, and things like pepfar where the US government has been incredibly generous and saved tens of millions of lives. And so when I saw President Trump, you know, I said, let's maintain this generosity and let's accelerate innovation. And we don't have an HIV vaccine, we don't have an HIV cure. If some of the same things that were done in Project Warp Speed during the pandemic could be applied in those areas, the chance of getting great new tools is pretty exciting. And so I asked for his support in that and said that, you know, in the meantime, we should continue to provide those medicines. What's happened so far in terms of personnel and grants may disrupt that. And so you know, I'll be a strong voice saying, you know, even if you have to, you know, change the name of the organization. You know, maybe there's ten percent of these programs you don't support. Let's not take the incredible talent and impact and through very abrupt actions largely by people who don't know this agency and may have just heard about you know, one percent here, you know, went to something they don't like. So the next few months, you know, I expect to provide the best advice I can because I think the US should be proud of what it's done, starting with President Bush. But on a bipartisan basis up until now.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: Will you call Elon muss because as the head of DOGE or whatever that agency is, he's made moves, as you know, to shut down USAI D He says, quote with the blessing of President Trump, and on his platform X he called the government agency evil and a viper's nests of radical left Marxist who hate America America, adding that it was time for it to die. We got so many questions Bill for you on threads, my followers, And do you think that Elon Musk, or for that matter, Donald Trump, after you all had that three hour dinner and talked about the important work that organizations like this do, do you think anybody's going to listen.
00:31:42
Speaker 2: I'm very hopeful that the Secretary of State Mark Rubio, who was in Africa and saw this great work, and President Trump will work to preserve the bulk of what's there. Whether that named agency stays in place, you know, whether every program does. But you know, an abrupt ending of that work would really put to the test. You know, is it in the value of Americans to take half percent of the budget and keep tens of millions of Africans alive or have we sort of overnight decided that that half a percent shouldn't be spent that way? And it is a political question. You know, I have a clear point of view. I know great people in that area.
00:32:29
Speaker 1: It's not just Africa, by the way, it's all over the world.
00:32:32
Speaker 2: It is it is. It's mostly the benefits of that work of USAAD broadly are our global The HIV work because of the nature of the epidemic is about eighty percent in Africa. And the things USAID funds I fund with billions of dollars, and you know, I'm very careful to make sure that money is well spent. And so I think naively people hear the most random purnade things and think, okay, it's all like that. So I have a challenge to say to Americans, is this in your value system? And you know, does it benefit our security or our moral example to keep these programs going? And you know, I think people at both parties will find this a deeply moral and important thing to keep strong.
00:33:32
Speaker 1: Now, comment on some of the other moves that Trump has made with Inspectors General kind of using weaponizing DEI I'm just curious how you're feeling, is you're watching all of this unfold.
00:33:46
Speaker 2: Well, in some ways, you know, there's not that much that wasn't predicted mentioned during the campaign, And although.
00:33:55
Speaker 1: He distanced himself from Project twenty twenty five and now, according to Time magazine, two thirds of the things he's done are actually in adherence with Project twenty twenty five.
00:34:06
Speaker 2: You know, I'm you know, there are people in the Democratic Party who will speak out on these things. I'm you know, I'm taking my fortune and trying to partner with governments, and the US government being very key, so I'll mostly speak out about those areas where I have you know, real experience. I've gotten to visit the projects, I've gotten to meet the heroes, and I'm still you know, hoping we can strengthen rather than we can that those those projects.
00:34:41
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about RFK Junior, because obviously that's kind of in your laying. His nomination passed the Senate Finance Committee to advance to the floor bill. Do you think he should be Secretary of Health and Human Services, given especially your incredible work with vaccines and given some of his, uh, you know, past statements about not only their efficacy but about their safety.
00:35:12
Speaker 2: You know, I I've only had one meeting with him, which actually goes back to the first Trump administration, and you know, it looks like he will get confirmed. Uh, he'll be in charge of some other parts of the government that do amazing work. You know, we have the best drug regulator, the FDA, we have the best health research the NIH. He'll be in charge of those things. And uh, you know, so I hope to find common cause, including you know, working to have more vaccines. You know, we we don't have a vaccine for TB or HIV in malaria, and there's some incredible work that even in the next four years with Lucke, we'll get a number of those tools.
00:36:06
Speaker 1: You have predicted that the chance of another pandemic in the next four years is between ten and fifteen percent, and that we're absolutely not prepared for it. I'm curious why you think global leaders are not taking this threat seriously enough. This has sort of been the case for pandemics for a while, even after COVID. Seems like we haven't put the infrastructure in place to deal with something like that happening in the future. And I'm curious why you think that's the case.
00:36:38
Speaker 2: Well, there are countries like China and India that are actually doing some great things.
00:36:42
Speaker 1: But I guess maybe than in this country.
00:36:44
Speaker 2: We would make them more ready for the next pandemic. US is kind of strange because we're still kind of arguing.
00:36:50
Speaker 1: About where the virus came from.
00:36:52
Speaker 2: You know, no, well that too, but even you know, okay, in the end, at the end of any emergency action like that, you realize, okay, now we've gone too far and the remedy is greater than the benefit. And so you know, when should we have known that? And whose fault was?
00:37:11
Speaker 1: That?
00:37:13
Speaker 2: The vaccine saved millions of lives and President Trump was involved in accelerating the availability of that vaccine, similar things should be standing by for the next pandemic, And so I'm hopeful that we'll sort of put that one behind us and come together around what preparation looks like. The world is more dependent on the US doing a good job on this than it should be, you know. It really the depth of medical experience, the size of the American budget, you know, and we need to do it on a cooperative basis. So with luck, we'll get our act together before the next one comes, because it could be far worse that pandemic you know, killed less than one percent. Now that's millions of people, but you could have one that would be you know, greater than ten percent.
00:38:13
Speaker 1: Could you see yourself getting more involved in pandemic preparedness and kind of trying to galvanize all these people who have such a depth of knowledge but don't seem to be particularly coordinated.
00:38:27
Speaker 2: Well, I wrote a book about how to avoid the next pandemic, but.
00:38:34
Speaker 1: I mean actually instituting sort of more of a plan or is that not really that interesting?
00:38:39
Speaker 2: Well, if the government was putting together a group of people on that, either I or you know, the the deep experts at the Gates Foundation would love to be part of that. You know, this is a multi country thing because the pandemic is likely to start in either a your Africa. And the best thing with the pandemic because you stop it. You have functional health systems in Africa that see it, detect it, and don't let it go global. And that's partly an additional benefit besides what I think should justify it by itself, which is the moral idea of saving lives. And so yes, if the world gets serious about this, you know I think about it. I have great people outside of the pharma companies, we have the greatest depth of vaccine expertise and so you know, whenever you want to think not just about the market incentives but societal benefit, that's where we have a team that can make a contribution.
00:39:51
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, I have so many questions, but we're running out of time. But you mentioned you're going to be turning seventy. I guess in October, right. And my husband always says, I'm not even on the back nine. I'm on the back three, which is so so sweet of him. But as you as you approached the big seven to zero, I mean, what are you thinking about? What do you want to accomplish bill that you have yet to accomplish because you're always I think, striving to do more.
00:40:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of my time is being smart about giving the money away that I'm lucky enough to have and building a phenomenal team of people at the Gates Foundation. You know, global health is the thing we've picked, and so far it's gone very well, you know, because of our partner's generosity with the US government being top of that list, have allowed us to get childhood under five deaths from ten million a year. At the turn of the century now down to blow five million. If we stay the course, we will be able to cut that in half again. You know. So for me, eradicating polio where we're close but uh not there yet. Uh, then moving on to eradicate musles and malaria, and to get kind of an equity where child's life in these poor countries is also valued, where they get the nourishment to thrive. Uh. You know, it's very fulfilling work. And the innovation pipeline, that's a very positive story. The delivery pipeline where the world is getting distracted. Uh, and we need to renew our values and commitment to these things. That look that's looking tough at least in the near term, but uh, you know, the innovations are going to come and you know, eventually I think uh people will come back uh and and do this just on a your value based.
00:42:00
Speaker 1: You're never going to retire, You're never going to sit on a beach and drink pina coladas.
00:42:05
Speaker 2: Well, as long as I think my organizing teams and challenging teams really can help drive these things forward, that is the most fun thing for me to do. And you know, do I have ten more years or twenty more years of doing that hard to say, but for now I'm full speed ahead.
00:42:28
Speaker 1: Well Bill Gates. The book is called source Code My Beginnings. Thanks so much, Bill, fun talking to Thank you Fair, thank you, Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app, or visit us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
