Because you have given away so much money, he recently became wealthier. You would think of you would have stayed in college, you do not feel inadequate . Is that correct . It is a sign i have not given the money away fast enough to drop out of the top 10. Microsoft is up 35 percent this year. The company is doing super well. The whole dream of software has really come true. The five most valuable companies in the world are the Technology Companies. Microsoft has a good share of that. I get to spend about six of my time over at microsoft. Recently said the biggest mistake you made professionally was that microsoft should have had the android technology. When youre in a field, we were doing operating system. Personal computers. Winter the mobile phone will be very popular. We were doing windows mobile. We missed being the dominant operating system by very tiny amounts. We do not assign the best people to do the work. The biggest mistake i made in terms of something that was clearly within our skill set. We were clearly the company that should have achieved that. We allow this motorola designed to win. The for the momentum to go to android. It became the dominant not apple mobile phone operating system globally. Today the market is the highest in the country. How much better could you have been . It is on account of indirect thing. In imperfect way, will reflect what the company is doing. We will be far more valuable if we had got the Global Operating system competition. Android is a huge asset for google. Originally had a chance to interview your wife. She was the culture of the foundation you are set up. She described how you met. She said that your poster in a parking lot and you asked her for a date and in three weeks we can have a day. She said that was not spontaneous in the. They should give you her number. Is that true . That is close to true. I had a dinner that night. It got done at about 10 pm. I said lets meet after 10 pm. Apparently that was spontaneous and of. Lets talk about my what you mostly want to focus on. What youre doing in the Climate Change area. We will talk about it later. Your two main areas of focus. Healthcare in the least healthy parts of the world. Recently decided to make another effort. To Breakthrough Energy to try to do something about Climate Change. Why are you so worried about Climate Change . It is a problem that gets worse every year. What you have to do on a global basis is very dramatic in reshaping the entire physical economy that we have. The greatest suffering will be farmers in poor countries. That is the droughts and the flights. It will cause the problems we are to have malnutrition. And deprivation. It will cause him to get substantially worse. Is a very complex problem. If its where i see my but you have. Lets get something to the lens of innovation. Not just the research and Development Part but the creation of products and deployment of products. Having to educate people. What are the forces of these Greenhouse Gases . How you get on a path of innovation so you can get Global Adoption and actually bring omissions down dramatically. I have that now as the priority to articulate that along with the other two that you mentioned. Are you doing this outside your foundation . The part where you mitigate and help the poor countries with better seeds and policy. Policy development agency. That is to the foundation. The part where you invent new ways of making field electricity. That is done directly by me. Including funds that judge. It is a fun that i assembled a group of 22 people. To put money into companies that are trying to commercialize. That is a font of 1 billion. You put in 250 million. It really make that much of a difference . It has been very catalytic. Will probably raise another one point billion. This is all about innovation. To define. We need to make these dramatic changes. Right now the premium. If you said you have to make still with no emissions. That will cost you four times what it does today. Your electric bill will more than double. If we just take the technology we have today. Yes, supporting those companies and other investors, may have gotten a lot. Green investing did not go very well in the first round. That is like a field that may evaporate. Because they come in, only have they been able to invest, there will still be fully committed within the next year. That has gone quite well. The technology only invest in companies who have a chance of reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions. Each company. Im the smallest investor. Am i going to get my money back . Of the things you invest in. It is probably one the highest risk things. It is being done on a commercial basis. Likely to have a few significant success. The timeframe of the return. There fairly high. We do expect to make a profit out of fine. What is propelling them to say there is no Climate Change . Is it Scientific Evidence . I will not mention anybody but there are some people who do not think there is Climate Change. They must not have taken the science course. The climate is a complex issue. Just understanding how you do it requires a lot of indepth study. It has become somewhat of a part of the issue. It is unfortunate. It may make it harder to achieve this type of agreement that we need. Here in the United States. We have the people who denied climate. We have the people who think it is easy to fall. We need to help educate both of those groups. We used to be called global warming. Why was it changed . The problems caused by the Greenhouse Gases is worse than just the average temperature going up. It causes there to be extreme precipitation. That is more drought. People thought just got warming please. Big deal. I will turn up my air conditioner. The idea that sea level rise. It is probably a better term. In history, is there any evidence that would affect their great grandchildren but they will not see the benefit from . If you try to eliminate carbon in the atmosphere you cannot do it in your atmosphere. Maybe if we change our policies 100 just now, there may be a reduction. Very rarely do people want to help the great unborn grandchildren. How will you motivate people to do something. The United States has been willing to take on very difficult signs. And make gigantic investments. Knowing that the real payoff would be many decades down the road. When that was first being pushed, people were saying that was important. Climate change is like that. You take a longterm perspective. Government at its best is what it is taking that longterm perspective. The policies that lead to deployment. If we do nothing, where the oceans rise up . Is it going to be under water in 20 or 30 years. The uncertainties in these models are still very high. For example, by 2100, the question of if we have one meter or two meters. That is within the level of uncertainty. They have gone out. The only took the most concern though is conservative you. Now, the understanding is that is at least a meter. Significant possibilities that it is two meters. A lot of it is caused by the electricity grid. 24 percent comes from agriculture. Wise that causing such a big increase . The math category is a variety of things. You are taking the carbon stored. You are releasing all of that. Another thing, the grass eating species have a digestion system that emits methane. Methane is a very powerful Greenhouse Gas. Cows alone account for about six percent of global emissions. We need to change. Just cows alone. Of all the categories, the one that has gone better than i would have expected is this work to make this meat. You have people like impossible. Both of which i invested in. You go to burger king and by the impossible burger. In a slightly healthier for you. In terms of less cholesterol. It is a dramatic reduction in methane emissions. Animal cruelty. Manure management. The pressure that Meat Consumption puts on land use. The main reason we need to increase the output of the rest of this entry is not the population increase. It is that as countries get richer, they eat more meat. Is a very inefficient way of creating calories. It is super helpful. With respect to solar, is it a solution of our college . If the sun was shining 24 hours a day, it does summer. That 25 percent, you have a solution. The price the comedown of that. People may think that is a total solution to that electric sector. It has to be reliable. Has to work during the 10 day period. You have no soul and no wind for 10 days period. The need to have baseload generations. To have a miracle in storage 20 can say that energy is very hard. The final solution to Climate Change. A lot of things that you try today. Natural gas heating. Buildings or homes. They will shift over to use electricity. One of the necessary elements to get electricity to zero. The electric sector will have to more than double in size. Transportation and buildings and industrial applications that have used hydrocarbons correctly will shift over to electricity. That has been in the news lately. With respect to what we may have done in russia. Are you worried that the United States could be subject to being locked up by some type of cyber terrorism . They are things like the internet and the electric good that modern society is very dependent on. As we grow the electric sector, will have to take that very seriously. The u. S. Is not built to withstand the transmission. Even some very obvious projects for highvoltage lines. That would take it into tennessee. There is a real policy problem with transmission. Is a necessary piece of the eventual solution. He had been in the new technology. Better Nuclear Plants . It is the many locations an important part of the solution. To have energy that is available on demand. Todays Nuclear Plants, the safety characteristics. They just do not make them competitive. The 2 being built, that would be a very expensive electricity. Thirdgeneration is way too expensive. The question is, can we create a new generation of advanced nuclear whose economics are twice as good. Safety is much better. The answer is, yes weekend. We do not have a new generation. A much better understanding of how to do that. It is a question. What about fusion . Fusion is very exciting. It is very difficult to do. There is about seven companies that are messing around with fusion. Put money into the mit related one. That technologically is very difficult. No one has gone to the energy break even when you have to create 10 million degrees of temperature. To do that and get the output is a huge scientific challenge. Definition be funded. Does not require intervention. Requires a lot. What about electric cars . If you look at the transform sector, passenger cars with about two or three in better improvement which is possible, the mainstream capacitor cars can become electric. You have to make that transition. You have to make sure electricity is zero mission. Trucks and planes, there is almost no chance the batteries will be going to. There you will still need to create liquid fuel. In the way electricity or biofuels. The Energy Density of gasoline is 30 times the Energy Density of the best better we can make. If you look at a container ship, crosses the ocean, having your fuel be 30 times less efficient with me that 90 percent of the weight youre caring would be the batteries instead of the cargo. It is unlikely to work in those cases. When you talk about this, they said we were happy to meet you . Did they really do anything . What he tried to get them to do . In the pair climate conference. One of the things that was missing was the focus on art and d. This and we want that to be for the first time. A real issue that gets discussed. It was called mission innovation. That i do. The commitment of over 30 governments to double the r d was a significant milestone that came out of that conference. I had to make a commitment there will be Breakthrough Energy. It would help get them into the marketplace. There has been some progress. It is complicated enough. The want a broad set of people to understand the complexities. In terms of the work that needs to be done, it is unlikely to happen. So much of the worlds capacity to do that innovation is here in the United States. You think this is going to hurt the effort. Is a huge step backwards. If you meet all the current commitments. In that climate accord, you are still went over to degrees. Most countries are behind the commitments they made. Those were a set of reductions. 30 omissions to 2005 emissions. There is a little bit of that that is easy. It is a onetime thing. It is a lot of that. Yet, the world is falling short. To have people like the United States say that it is even unimportant. It shows you how daunting this is going to be. There is no way will get there without them coming back. If you met with tim dietz and convincing . Is that beyond your capabilities. Somebody else should do that. Let me go back for a moment. You famously dropped out of harvard. You then started your company. I think you said that she thought the computer revolution was occurring. You actually were wrong. If you had stayed, it would have made a big difference. The urgency that i felt. That somebody would do a great job. Probably end up not being true. I could have waited two or three years. Anyway, i felt a sense of urgency. I still get to take courses and learn things. Things like the learning company. It is not like i missed some part of my education. Your father and mother said are you sure you know what you want to do . What would you say . I would have to say yes. The dropping out is not a decision. If you start a company and it does well. If you do not have kids that you need to support, it is a very low risk thing. Particularly in the culture of the United States. Building is not a black mark for the rest of your life. When you are starting microsoft there was a lot of other software companies. You are not number 1 at the beginning. What was it that enabled you to beat everyone else in the Software Business . Bill gates or someone else . What was the main factor that made you the most successful. We were actually the first. There were companies. They were all single product companies. They got ahead of us in terms of cells. About 1991, we did become the largest. We were in engineering company. How you use tools to develop proper. We were not about a single product. They did so well with the product. The gross sales but ours. As soon as the interface caught on, it was windows, we became far larger than the other Software Company. Subsequently, google and apple. Amazon had become also extremely successful. In the 90s, we were the strongest. The Largest Companies in the United States Technology Companies. You worry there is too much power and too much data in the hands of these . Are you surprised the government has not done something more about this . It has become so simple. Government has to thing. What is that mean about elections. What does it mean about bowling. Was a man about wiretapping authorities that led to find out what is going on financially. Drug or moneylaundering. Yes, the government needs to get involved in the trades to people that do not have an office in washington dc. Eventually i came to regret that statement. It was kind of almost like something washington dc. Now, the Technology Companies because of the left of microsoft, they could have seen that lesson through at t or ibm or a lot of innovators as well. They are very engaged. The will be more regulation of the text factor. There should be some sort of regulations that relate to that. Has really brought an end to a realm. We need to separate so the benefits outweigh the negative. Is that when facebook was coming along you try to purchase it. Do you regret not paying a higher price . We bought a small part of facebook. That was a super successful investment. What mark did was not within our ambit. Unlike mobile operating systems, because of our engineering culture, we were destined to be the leader in that. There is a Company Started in seattle. There were supposed to be selling books. The started web services business. How did microsoft miss that business . Were you surprised that you were kind of beating to that game by company that was not really a Software Company . The natural companies to do the cloud would have been the classic enterprise vendors. Oracle. Sat. They really are not there at all. It is a surprise. It is a huge credit. That they got out in front. They did the best product. Today, microsoft is a strong number 2. A huge distance to number 3. It is a source of strength for microsoft. There are Many Companies including microsoft she felt bad that the did not get ahead of amazon. If you were 28 years old today and you want to start a new company today. What area would you want to stop in. This is a great time to be doing innovation. There are lots of things in biology that are very interesting. There are lots of things in energy that are interesting in i was starting Artificial Intelligence Company Whose goal would be to teach computers how to read so they can absorb and understand all of the written knowledge of the world. That is an area where they have yet to make progress. It will be quite profound when we achieve that goal. Are you worried about the power to disrupt our civilization . The increased productivity that will come will create dilemmas. About what should people do with that extra time. You have to consider that a good thing. Even though it will be interesting set of adjustments that have to take place. Most people over the last 200 years. They do not usually work that hard when they got to be 60 or so. You sent to be working pretty hard. What motivates you to work so hard. I love my work. I get to meet scientist. I get to go out in the field. I do think your habits are sort of set in your 20s or 30s. I do not believe in weekends back then. Not to mention vacations. I am very lazy compared to myself in my 20s. I was a true fanatic. All i believed in was working on software. Night and day. For that my 20s i was perfect. I do not have a wife or family at all. I am very lucky that my foundation or the parttime work i do, i see that extending for decades into the future. Have a good understanding of innovation, i think shaping innovation in many of these areas. There is a unique role that i can help play. Pretty famous of the last quarter of a century. Can you go to a restaurant and people not bother you . People are pretty nice about that. Especially if im with my family. Do people stare at you . Sure. That is okay. You sport now is tennis. You play with some of the best players . Do you get a lot of points off of those players . Not if they airplane. You have given up golf. That is one of your other sports. Is the plan will be. Are you still a big bridge player . I love playing bridge. Is a game that the players are aging quite a bit. It has not caught on. It is unfortunate. Since it is a great game. When you want to go purchase something. And going to a Department Store and purchase anything . For a while, but did not do that much. It is something one of my daughters enjoys doing. Helping pick close for me. We go out and go shopping together. Is a neat activity. Your wife tommy when you dropped her daughter off at college, she is graduating now. The roommate did not know that she was going to be the roommate. You went to lowes to purchase things. Wasnt unusual for you to going to lowes . People stare at you . It was kind of hard to assemble some of the stuff. I wanted augmented reality to help show me how to put the pieces together properly. People are very nice. Is it on a trip with your family . Identity quite a bit of reading. You tried to read 50 books per year. Do you comment on those books . Probably 15 per year under serious reviews of. There are so many fantastic books. I have one coming out, would you review that . Lets go back to your foundation. I ask people all the time. Assays opposing had a problem with bill gates. You have 100 billion. Then you say i give you 100 billion and to go purchase a yacht or plane. Have 9. 5 billion left. You have that problem. You assess the two most urgent issues. How did you pick those 2 . Did you make progress on any of those 2 . It is our biggest area. It has been really unbelievable. Not just because of our work. Our partners. The u. S. Government spending. The european donors. They really stepped up on this issue. One of the metrics of importance as the number of children in the world who died before the age of five. When we got started, that was over 10 million per year. Now it is about 5 million per year. It is just mind blowing. People are not as aware of that issue. Because of giving out vaccines and understanding a bit more about nutrition. They have been cut half. Now it is to cut them in half again by 2030. We do have a pipeline of new vaccines. New tools. Particularly nutrition. Because of the hardships we have had. Because of the innovation. They have been more successful than we expected. Our educational work. It is not just k12. And includes Higher Education as well. They are the team metrics. The dropout rates. They have moved essentially not at all. Even if the u. S. Is spending more resources on education. We spent far more than any country in the world. Yet they are quite a bit worse. Almost all the rich countries. Even some middle income countries. Even vietnam. They are passing us in terms of their mass results. Did not have the impact we have hope for. Have something called common cord. That is very controversial. In the United States, there were some very strange things. Our textbooks were twice the size of the other countries. Three times the size of singapore. That came about because of this process with the companys always one adoption of new textbooks. Anyway, they just got thicker and thicker. The u. S. Would tend to try to teach too much instead of really cementing the basic knowledge. The idea was to say what math did you learn in which various grades. Make sure my high school graduation. You have reasonable math skills. Admits that you would have this alignment. The worlds most logical thing. It was to protect. In one stage. Is different than in another state. And largely succeeded. Almost as if it was a subtle thing. Can you describe your relationship . Is a little older than you ultimately give you a large part of his fortune. How did that come about . I was lucky enough to meet him. In 1991. I do not think i wanted to meet him. I did not think of buying and selling the stocks as a value added. I am were involved in the innovation. When i met one, the fact that he had this model of how the world work. He just asked me, why cant i put you out of business. It was a very smart question. Because of the time was 10,000 times our size. Yet, we would go on the software to surpass ibm. It was the dominant computer company. When you develop the software, they should have purchased it from you. That would have helped them. They will not have really change things. What has happened in computing work are really thinking about the microprocessor. Very different ways they did with the mainframe. It is kind of innovative. Looking at computing personal computing. Technologies that came out of that not dominate everything. He developed a relationship. He became a bridge player. I have an extra hundred billion dollars. It was unbelievable. That he chose a substantial part. That he is giving substantial money to. A High Percentage that went to our foundation. And basically doubled our ambition. Going after medication. We added sanitation. Because of the incredible resources. We asked them. He said no. He is it unbelievable person. I have learned immense amount from. People come to you all the time for money. By the way i have this thing you should invest in. A couple things you should invest in. How do you resist . How do you do that . Once you pick what you care about, somebody has something that can make a difference, we are super interested. We have staff of 1500 people. Some of those people come out and talk to see what those innovations are and how we can partner with you on that. Is clearly in our area. It is something that can improve education. We are going to be very interested. People are asking those things. Force me to say no. The focus is too. People recognize over the year. She famously said if you mess up raising your children, nothing else matters. You have three children. You have kept them out of newspapers and so forth. How do you do that . We should take all of our money and put it against u. S. Education and global health. There will be problems in the future that i will understand very well. There will be rich people in the future. More rich people than there are today. They should use their intelligence and understanding. Having a polyp my money left over to go after does not make any sense. We are now up to giving 16 a year. I think you did not retire from microsoft to about 50 or so. Until the year 2000, i had not done significant philanthropy. I had given a few 100 million. In the year 2000, i put 20 billion into the foundation. That is when we got serious. I worked parttime on the Foundation Work from 2000 to 2009. That has worked out well for me. Some of these issues. Do you have any regrets . He has something that did not work out. I am supermarket. The experience at microsoft. All of it has had its phenomenal. The work at the foundation. No regrets about anything . I would not go back and change anything. For example, the antitrust lawsuit against microsoft, was bad for the company. It created a lot of things. In a way it was a lesson for me. It probably accelerated my retirement by five or six years. Which overall for me probably was a good thing. I do not think it was a principled set of activities. That is another story. The greatest pleasure of your life is, when you are doing what . Other than being interviewed by me. The greatest pleasure of your life. Time with kids. Time with scientists. Time when i am reading and things are making sense. Going out and seeing the impact of the foundations work. Meeting with scientists who think we can make breakthroughs to help solve climate. These are super interesting problems. Having a broad set of system thinking applied to these problems, is going to be necessary to orchestrate the resources and policies behind them. I love my work. Your children are not married, i think. The you look forward to having grand children . Absolutely. Will you teach them software . I do not think of microsoft as a dynastic organization. If people are watching now and they say i want to do something about Climate Change, but i am one person and dont have the resources. What can an average person do to have some impact on Climate Change in your view . Certainly, they as a consumer can take things like these new Meat Products or how they buy electricity. And they can help drive up the scale of the green solution. The most important thing at this stage, is their political voice. There is going to be a need to put substantial resources into this effort. We will need a bipartisan solution. And to send the right signal to the market, if you just win one year and it gets repealed, that does not help at all. The key is, what people see, the policies will be over the next 30 years on a consistent basis. That means its a higher bar than just a onetime victory. You started the giving pledge with melinda and warren buffett. Right now if you were to convey one message to people about philanthropy, what would you ask the average person to do . The best thing is to pick a couple of causes that you believe in deeply. And find organizations that you can get involved in. The social services and local communities. Charter schools in local communities. A host of high impact things. The dollars you give to global needs actually will have substantially more impact per dollar. You can save a life for 1000. If you find measles or polio eradication, those things are pretty mind blowing in terms of the difference they can make. Philanthropy is not based on comparing every cause and picking the most impactful. It has to be something that connects with you personally. Even the climate area, whether its advocacy or high risk investing, there is lots that people can do. That will increase the chances of success. I want to thank you for taking time. We have two gifts. One is this. We know you are a puzzle fan. We had a puzzle made up of washington, d. C. [ applause ] thank you. [ applause ] cspan washington journal. Live every day. With news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up tuesday morning, to members of the House Foreign Affairs committee discussed the ongoing tensions between the u. S. And iran. First, Pennsylvania Republican congressman scott perry. Then we are joined by virginia congresswoman spam burger. Also from aarp Public Policy institute, lee purvis will discuss their new report on specialty Prescription Drug prices and how the increases have affected consumers and employers. Watch washington journal thursday and friday. Join the conversation both mornings with your phone calls. Facebook comments and tweets. Tuesday live testimony from tsa administrator. On current vulnerabilities at his agency. You will be joined by fellow government officials. Appearing live before the House Oversight and reform committee. That hearing is set to start a 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan three. On wednesday hearing on the office of special counsels recommendation, the President Trump fire white house counselor Kellyanne Conway for numerous alleged violations of the hatch act. That is a federal law limiting certain Political Activities by executive branch employees. That hearing also held by the House Oversight and reform committee. It gets underway live wednesday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan three. I am a white male and i am prejudice. There was something i would not taught but its something i learned. I dont want to be forced to like people. I like to be led to like people through example. What can i do to change . To be a better american. That was a remarkable moment. I did not realize until i stepped off the set. There were more calls after that. How powerful it was. There is something in his voice that touched me and you could hear it. Its so authentic as he searches for the words to Say Something to a National Audience that most of us will not admit in our homes. I am prejudice. Sunday night on q a. Heather mcgee, president of the Public Policy organization was a guest on cspans washington journal and august 2016 when a man called. She talks about that interaction and a follow up with him. Part of the reason for that, you have to remember this is august. We had this sort of racially charged summer with president Donald Trumps campaign, with black lives matter and the police shootings. And the tragic events in baton rouge and dallas. It was really a time when people felt like all they were seeing on tv about race was bad news. And here was, first, a white man admitting that he was prejudice. Which for people of color, we kind of said finally. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan q a. Pakistani ambassador to the u. S. , asad majeed khan, discusses Foreign Policy , tourism and Foreign Investment in pakistan. Taking place at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace, this is about 90 minutes
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