"Bill Gates"

0:28Good morning, everybody. Come on, Janet. And for everyone else, welcome to Smartless. Smartless.

0:45Smartless.

0:51Smartless. Oh, yeah, I got a quick one. I got a quick dad joke. Here we go. What kind of bees make milk? Hmm. Will? I don't know. Boobies.

1:08Boo? Boobies. Boobies, yeah, I guess. Okay, I'll go with it. Sure. I think it's funny. Fuck, you wanted to say no so bad. You wanted to say no. I wanted to say no, that's not funny. You have violated the pun law. All right, another dad joke, please. Sure. Go ahead, Sean. My friend keeps saying, cheer up, man. It could be worse. You could be stuck underground in a hole full of water. I know he means well. Oh, I know he means well, right? Yeah. Well, I didn't hit it. No, no, I know, but you might need to for some of our listeners. What about this one? What about this? Did they italics the well in your book?

1:51No. No. Okay, go ahead. You know, a good elevator joke works on so many levels. Sure. Ah. He got me. He got me. Nice reading. Come on, that's good. Okay. It's pretty good. Guys, I've said it before and I'll say it again. We three fools are incredibly lucky at times on this show to be able to ask some questions and hear some answers from folks who wouldn't otherwise spend even a second with us. Today is one of those days. Oh, I like that. Our next guest is one of the most important people to have been born in our generation. He is responsible for some of the most transformative ideas, technologies, and events the world has ever known and probably ever will.

2:32These discoveries, advancements, and innovations have made parts of our lives and the world around us far different than anyone could have even ever imagined just 40 years ago. His work has brought him enormous wealth, which is enabling him to once again change and help our planet and our lives in ways that are exciting, confusing, and in some ways, life-saving. Please welcome Mr. Bill Gates. Oh my gosh. Wow. Bill Gates. Yeah. What? Hello, Mr. Gates. Hey, guys. Wow. How lucky are we that we've got you now? This is so cool. We've got questions. Yeah, we've got questions. First of all, it looks like you're sitting in a high chair.

3:06I am. Oh. Well, this is a guy who probably does. Well, I was going to say, the guy does a lot of podcasts. I was thinking, why are you? I know you've got a very, thank God you've got a book coming out. I cannot wait to read it. But is that the only reason you're talking to us dummies? I mean, you've got so much important stuff to do. It's true. Sparing an hour for us is generous, but maybe foolish. It's relaxing. So far. So we're not making you nervous at all. That's good. So far. Good. Jason, I also can't wait for you to not read his book. But Bill Gates, welcome to the podcast. And I say that not because he won't be interested.

3:47He barely knows how to read. And I will say, it is so exciting having you here as somebody who has been responsible for not just innovations, but just the impact that what you have done over the years has been incredible. And not just in technology, et cetera, and really being on the cutting edge of that for years, but all the philanthropic work you've done. I didn't know you were going to be here today, but I've been a big fan of your work in the philanthropic area. You've been a leader in that. You've really set a tone. So I applaud you and I thank you. And I wish more people would take your cue.

4:26Yeah. Well, he's setting a great example. I think they will. I hope they will. Yeah, we really do. Are they? I mean, I know you did something. What is it called? The Giving Pledge. Yeah. The Giving Pledge. Yeah. With Warren Buffett, right? Exactly. Are men and women following along with that? Yeah, we have about 250 people who've made the commitment to give away the majority of their wealth. And we get together and learn from each other because philanthropy is actually a little confusing. You don't have like a rating system or profit. And it brings you into a new area. And so we can inspire each other.

5:05And hopefully anybody who's got lots of money feels like pitching in. Yeah. Yeah. And because wasn't it, I think Warren Buffett said, because if you can't figure out how to live off of$500 million, there's a problem. Isn't that part of that pact? That's right. I think I read that somewhere. I know, which is funny because I was thinking about writing him a letter and asking him if he'd give me 500 million to see if I could do that. Yeah, just a little experiment. Do you know what I mean, as an experiment. So, Mr. Gates, I'd like to ask you, if it's possible, Jason, sorry, I don't mean to hijack this, but...

5:35Be my guest. I've got some questions here if you run out. I'm sure at risk of you having said this a million times before, would you talk a little bit about the genesis of Microsoft? off? Because I don't know if I've ever really heard a clear story of how it came to be, how you had the idea for it, and how it came into fruition. Yeah, I was super lucky. You know, my parents found me a little confusing in terms of I was very good at some things and not good at other things. So, they sent me to a private school, and that school got a computer. So when I was 13, I had my first exposure and I got kind of obsessed with figuring it out, what it could do.

6:24And so even during high school, together with a friend, Paul Allen, I got thousands of hours of time learning how to write software. So forgive me for interrupting, what year was that that you got first exposed to the computer? And where? That's 1968. I'm up in Seattle, Washington at an excellent private school. And then Paul's reading, and he sees that a computer is going to be done on a chip, the microprocessor made by people like Intel, and that those chips are going to get twice as good every year or two. And so I say to Paul that that's exponential improvement, Then computers will be almost free and they'll need a lot of software.

7:10We should do that software. And he follows, when I go back to Harvard, because my parents wanted me to go to college, he follows me there to kind of bug me and say, well, this revolution is going to happen. Let's get going. And finally, when the first personal computer comes out in late 1974, I drop out and Paul and I found the company. And you told Steve Ballmer to stay behind, finish his education because you're going to need him later. Yeah. In fact, he shows up about four years into the company and he's the other person who plays an unbelievable role. I did manage to catch him in the middle of business school.

7:50So I got him to drop out of business school. There you go. So you see these computers in sort of the late 60s that you're first exposed to are, by comparison, of course to today, but maybe even to the computers in the mid-70s, rudimentary at best probably? Yeah, also very expensive. And so, you know, we – only big companies and the government have them. And so we would have to sneak in at night to get access. and, you know, we kept saying to people, these things are going to be cheap, but they didn't, you know, they didn't agree. And so we got to be the very first people. And then you have people like Steve Jobs at Apple where they're doing the hardware, the Apple II, and we're doing the software.

8:38So the Apple computer came with our software. Oh, it did. Yeah, and was it, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I, for some reason, always thought that one of the major things that for small brains like me, that really was like, oh, because I remember computers, there was the coding thing. And then all of a sudden, one day, there was, I think it was Windows, which was just point and click stuff. And it was like, oh, this is a whole different thing. Was that not you, Mr. Gates? Yes, absolutely. So the idea of the graphics interface where you use images, not just characters, that's pioneered at Xerox, which made a lot of money on copying machines.

9:22And they didn't manage to make a good product. So it's actually Apple with the Macintosh and Microsoft with Windows that takes this idea of graphics interface and takes it to the masses. and now everybody knows that's the way you use computers. You just point and click. But what we don't know is that what you're pointing on underneath that is a bunch of code that you're activating when you hit a click. Yeah, it's actually pretty complicated underneath, which is why we had to hire lots of smart engineers and write a lot of code. But I will say, I kind of have two questions, which is A, so you learn on these rudimentary huge computers that only the government and educational institutions have, etc.

10:09So you and Paul Allen realized that, okay, this is the future. Are there people who can teach you how to do the stuff you did or did you have to figure a lot of that stuff out yourselves as you were going? We pretty much had to figure it out. I mean, we did hire a few adults who knew things like finance and accounting. But because we were at the forefront of a revolution, this idea of, okay, how do you manage these people? How do you price this stuff? And we decided we'd sell all over the world. So I have to build a team in Japan and Europe and deal with all the languages. I have to say it was super fun.

10:51And because we were right, these computers got so popular, we made enough money. We just kept hiring more and more people. and eventually built Windows and Office, which had Excel spreadsheet and Microsoft Word. I remember all that. So by the late 90s, we are doing well, and it's kind of a standard way that people use personal computers. Sorry, Sean, just on that last little bit of the code stuff, and you touched on that, so that Apple products came with your software built in. And then you guys split and it became kind of like the, and forgive me for the comparison, it became like the VHS Betamax.

11:38It was either or. It was like you either did this or you did that. Was there ever a discussion between you and Steve Jobs about, hey, let's continue in this partnership using your, et cetera, et cetera. Did you guys, or was there a moment that you split? Um, because we're always pure software, uh, the only competition is that they, Apple does its own operating system, which competes with Windows. But we write software on the Macintosh. In fact, we had as many people as Steve Jobs did when he's doing the Macintosh, because we do our word processor, we do our spreadsheet. Uh, and it was amazing because, you know, Steve did the Mac.

12:24Uh, that was wonderful. Then he leaves Apple. Apple's being very mismanaged. When he comes back, I reach a deal with him where we actually invest in Apple and commit to do our software. And then he runs that company so well that going from the verge of failure, it actually becomes the most valuable company in the world, even slightly more valuable than Microsoft. That's amazing. So we ended up working together. And then in the last few years when he was sick, we got to reflect on our lives and talk to each other quite a bit. We were kind of competitors. I mean, he would criticize Windows pretty brutally, but that's okay.

13:06But his skill set, which was kind of design and user interface, he was not an engineer. And so, you know, my skill is very much as an engineer. so we appreciated each other. Was there a lot of competition though? There had to be, when you're sitting in your garage or wherever you were with Paul designing this and coming up with this and all that stuff, back then you didn't have the, people didn't know what you were doing, right? Everybody knows what everybody's doing now and so you had this kind of secrecy so you could protect yourself but as it grew and became the thing that it became, How do you protect yourself, and how did you protect yourself from competitors, and was Apple the only competitor?

13:56Because Microsoft wasn't about any one piece of software, not just Windows, not just Office. We were doing Xbox, which had games. We thought of ourselves as a software factory, and we wanted to be faster than anyone else and have lower-priced software than anyone else. And so the other people doing software found it pretty intimidating that we moved at that speed. And that's why when Steve does the Macintosh, he comes to us and say, hey, are you willing to bet on this? Can we work on this together? It got quite competitive. Eventually, other great companies like Google come along, and they're also very good at hiring smart people.

14:43and there's been room, you know, if you think of what are the most valuable companies in the world today, it's all these companies that ushered in this digital revolution. Right, yeah, I was going to say, because now you have, instead of Google, Microsoft, and Apple, you have 200 AI companies now because people see the future much more quickly now than they did then. Sean, tell Mr. G, You're an Ask Jeeves guy, right? Like that's been your whole. Yeah, an Ask Jeeves. Mr. Gates, do you remember having conversations with Paul or Steve or any of your contemporaries at the time? Do you remember sitting there having conversations with them and allow yourself the imagination for what the future could bring?

15:34And were there any things that were worrisome or exciting like you hear about the conversations that are happening now regarding AI, where we're kind of on the doorstep of another big move. Do you remember having those concerns back then? Were there any? Yeah, so the digital revolution with PCs and internet, we thought of as very empowering. And so you could say we were kind of naive in thinking this was all good. In fact, when we worried, we were worried about what we call the digital divide, that having access was so valuable that we should make sure that schools in the inner city and poor countries had the internet and the PC.

16:19It's only when social networking comes along that this kind of, oh, isn't it always for the good to give people new capabilities, we realized, wow, you know, the social criticism, the waste of time that in some ways we were playing to human weaknesses that you seek out outrage and that kind of can drive people apart. And now that we've seen that those advances aren't always good, now with AI, which is far more powerful than social network, we're going, wow, how do we shape this thing to get the good, which is definitely there, but avoid the bad stuff? And it's a little bit scary right now. Well, a little bit of trying to put the genie back in the bottle, A, unfortunately, with the social networks and also just with phones in general and their impacts.

17:14You know, as a father of three boys under the age of 16 and younger, I would ask you, and I know your kids are a little bit older, and look, I don't like answering hypothetical questions myself, but I'm going to ask you a hypothetical, which is, and feel free to not answer it. If your kids were teenagers again, if they were adolescents, if they were 11, 12, 13, 14, would you let them have access to social media? Yeah, my youngest, I stopped her from having a cell phone until she was 14. And she was quite upset because the other kids had access. It works a lot better if groups of parents or even the school come in and saying, hey, during the school day, this is pretty distracting.

18:02And Australia is now trying to pass a set of rules. You know, there's a book by Jonathan Haidt called The Anxious Generation. Yeah, we've read it. I've read it. Okay, good, good. You know, and his point that we're kind of overprotecting kids in the real world and underprotecting them in the digital world, I think he's got a super good point there and we've got to step up on that. I took his advice and I said to my boys, to my teenage boys, I said, I will give you a lot of freedoms in the real world that are commensurate with your reduction in your time in the digital world. And I will give you much more leeway to do stuff and spend time in real time and give you a later curfew on the weekend, you know, sort of 1130, if you will, or whatever that is.

18:48If you guys, if I see a market reduction in your time online. But what I dream about, this is what I'm getting to. What I dream of is six months of no social media on this planet. And what would that do in a sort of a social, in a reset? Imagine a world where we didn't have that. I personally think that we would be in a much better place. Yeah, when you see how polarized we are and that, you know, even I, if there's some article criticizing somebody I don't like, I'm like, oh, yeah, I want to be outraged against the people I think have shortcomings. And so, you know, you want an algorithm that brings us together.

19:36And, you know, maybe a moratorium would help us get there. Yeah. And we will be right back.

19:46And now back to the show. So my, you know, as a kid who grew up in the 70s, as a Gen Xer, you know, your rise and your significance in the world coincided with sort of my teenage years and understanding that kind of thing. And it felt like the first time that we had things like the, you know, the Fortuneless or the Forbes or the richest people in the world. And your name was in and out of the top of that for many, many years. And I can't imagine just how absurd that must be on a certain level. Did you have those moments of like, not even pinch me, but of like, is this me? It feels almost abstract.

20:31How bizarre. Did you have that at all? Or just leave me alone. Well, it's definitely wild. You know, at a young age, you know, I was in my 30s when I become the richest person. And my parents, fortunately, you know, their values helped anchor me. And they were always saying, okay, you know, to whom much is given, much is expected. You know, so I did start in my 40s to really study philanthropy, you know, Rockefeller, Carnegie. What had they done? And try and figure out, you know, could I be as careful about giving it back? And then in my 50s, I retired from Microsoft and moved over to do foundation work full time.

21:23But yes, it's bizarre. are having close friends who really know you, who can laugh about your success, I think, you know, does help keep you grounded. That transition to philanthropy, I'm sure there are many parts of it that are even more complicated than your life beforehand. Many, many challenges. Can you speak about those? I'm sure there's a lot of it that is much more enjoyable too, probably most of it. How is that feeling, that transition? Well, I loved being an individual contributor in my 20s and then managing Microsoft in my 30s where you're just very hands-on and you can say, my product is selling well or this one is not, how do we fix that?

22:13And so it's a real switch where you're not having that immediate market feedback to go and say, hey, why do children die? How many children die? Can we reduce that? And then I had to learn about poor countries and vaccines. But I have to say it's been, you know, as fulfilling, you know, in the turn of the century, we have 10 million children dying every year. And because we got out new vaccines and worked with partners, that's now down below 5 million a year. And if we keep doing our work well, including governments caring about poor countries, we can cut that in half again to two and a half million.

22:55Sorry. Have you found a way to make it an attractive idea for countries to come on and partner with you that goes beyond just the obvious ethical and moral pull of it? Is there a GDP component that you can dangle in front of some of these more capitalistic-minded countries that get them to the table a little bit better? Yeah, that's a super good point. Of course, the moral argument of the golden rules, helping people everywhere, is our strongest argument. But that alone isn't going to get us there. You know, we had some of the generals in the U.S. Army saying, hey, if you don't help these countries out, then we'll have to go to war and, you know, you'll have to increase our budget.

23:48So that the foreign aid budget, by creating stability, it avoids the awful war. And also, you know, if you lift people up economically, like Asia today, you know, buys a lot of American stuff, movies, drugs, jets, software, you know, you name it. So our mutual success, you know, has been amazing. You know, the two countries we defeat in World War II, we're generous enough to them that they become the second and third biggest economy. And we engage in mutually beneficial trade. You know, Japan shows us how to make quality products. And now we want to extend that, you know, and get, you know, Asia's doing well.

24:33India's getting rich. And eventually they don't need aid if you help them out. And so you only have mostly countries in Africa that still really deserve this kind of support. Are you finding that you're having the same kind of messaging language success as you try to encourage them to come along with environmental adjustments as well, that it's mutually beneficial from a business standpoint, etc.? Yeah, so, you know, environmentally, a lot of these poor countries are very beautiful. And, you know, we all have to deal with climate change. Sadly, it's these African countries that didn't contribute to that problem at all because they're outdoor farmers near the equator.

25:18They're the ones that are suffering the most. The countries we need to really change their emissions are these middle-income countries. So China, Brazil, now India. And they expect us to help them by inventing really inexpensive ways to go green. And so the biggest hope for the environmental stuff is innovation. If the green stuff is really expensive, even the rich countries are kind of saying, hey, don't make me buy an electric car if it costs more. Don't make me buy an electric heat pump. And so, you know, it's going to have to be all of us saying we're in this together. It's one planet, but also a lot of innovation because nobody can agree if it's expensive, who should pay for it.

26:08Right. A friend of mine who's sort of a friend of ours, a friend of the show, Willie, our buddy, he mentioned that with this big round of deregulation that supposedly is on its way, that there may be a good spin to it in that the amount of innovation that is needed to really make a big move in an environment, a part of that, it's necessary for private to be spending money. there as well as just federal money. And so by deregulating, you give those companies more money to spend in R &D for these environmental things. Is that just spin for the business sector? And I'll let you guess what business he's in.

26:54He's a great guy. What do we think about that? Is that spin or is there some validity to that? No, there's definitely some validity. For example, if you want to build an electricity transmission line, you often have to go through almost a decade of approvals. And of course, that line, if anybody blocks it, then it doesn't work at all. And so we need to have more collective action as we try and change, you know, move away from coal, electricity to other things, which is sun and wind and nuclear and a variety of things. We don't want to get rid of all the regulations because part of the reason the U.S.

27:34is so beautiful, we've preserved lands, we've cleaned up our waters better than any other country. But it is absolutely fair to say that many of these environmental reviews are delaying projects that we need in order to solve climate change. Gotcha. So government could get out of the way a little bit because we've got to work fast, right? But not completely? Yes. So we're going to have to strike that balance. Well, it's so hard not to be cynical when you have things like, and you were just touching on the idea, Jason, it was probably baked into your question, which is this, that, yeah, of course, there is, you know, what you call the ethical or moral pull, but it always comes down to economics, right?