Famous son, bill gates, who according to forbes is the richest man in the world. In an exclusive interview, ill talk to him about the strengths and weaknesses of the u. S. Economy, education reform, innovation, and why he recently drank wastewater. With a smile on his face. Its water. Also, the inventor, dinosaur hunter, chef and polymath extraordinaire nathan murfold on using technology to help the poor. This might be the coolest keg on earth. Literally. Then the youngest female selfmade billionaire in the world. She got there with blood, sweat and tears. Well, just one drop of blood. Ill explain. And what the worlds oldest democracy, the United States of america, can learn from some young upstarts about elections. But first, heres my take. Here in seattle, you can really sense the importance of the two most powerful forces that have transformed the world in recent decades. Globalization and the information revolution. These two great engines have been chugging away, integrating a share into the global system and ushering in a digital age that is now invading every corner of life. Countries or cities that could adapt like seattle have benefited dramatically. Those that could not like detroit have been crippled. But either way, the train has kept on rolling. Ive been very clear, mr. President , im not a fan of fast track. Democratic opposition to fasttrack trade authority for president obama is blind to the fundamental reality of this era. You cant turn off the machine. You cant stop china from growing and trading. You cant prevent africa from deepening its integration into the global system. These forces are already at work, powerfully entrenched and will keep moving. The potential trade deal with asia, the transpacific partnership, could, however, shape these trends in a direction that is compatible with american interests and ideas. Thats why congressional, mainly democratic, opposition has been so misguided. For those who worry that after tpp america would have to compete against lowwage countries, its too late. Its been too late for decades. As Zachary Karabell notes, we are already living in a free trade world. The average tariff in the developed world is now about 3 . Thats it. And in the past three decades, developing countries have cut their tariffs substantially as well. Chinas average tariff is less than 10 today. Down from around 40 in 1985. The United States has one of the worlds most open economies. Any trade deal like the tpp is going to open other economies like those of japan or vietnam far more than it will america. And the nature of the opening and the new rules will reflect american interests and ideas. In an essay in Foreign Affairs in 1993 on nafta, a young and then relatively obscure economist, paul krugman, explained that nafta wasnt going to have much of an impact on the vast American Economy one way or the other, it was really about Foreign Policy. The economic effects of nafta have been heavily debated, but the Foreign Policy consequences are clear. And clearly positive. Re antiamerican countries in the world. Today, mexico is a country transformed. Unambiguously allied with the United States. Its president is totally comfortable being described as a close ally of the United States. Mexico has become a core component of a closely intertwined north American Economy that is the worlds most vibrant regional bloc. Many factors led to this transformations, but nafta was chief among them. If something similar were to happen with tpp in asia, the effects would be global. The world we live in is one of rising nations but declining global norms. The struggle is on to write new norms, new rules for trade, cybersecurity, intellectual property and much more. Lets hope we dont look back 20 years from now when new rules have been written by china and wish we had been more active and assertive when we had a chance. For more, go to cnn. Com fareed and read my Washington Post column this week. And lets get started. Joining me now, bill gates. Bill, a pleasure to have you on. Great to be here. So give me your sense of where the American Economy is these days. A lot of people say yes, we do have a recovery. Yes, compared to the rest of the world, the United States is doing well. But were just not getting the kind of growth we used to and that something has changed. That this is the new normal. Youre not going to get back to 3 , 4 , 4. 5 . Well, gdp growth doesnt capture mass improvements that take place, particularly digital innovation. Its not quite as negative a picture as it appeared gdp look will give you. Explain that. You think theres stuff going on thats improving quality of life that isnt being measured properly. Thats right. When you use wikipedia, it is contributing zero dollars to gdp whereas when you used to buy the world book or Encyclopedia Britannica that used to show up in gdp. So the fact that those services, listening to music, finding videos, the price deflator doesnt capture the quality of these services. Particularly ones where the price goes down so quickly that it essentially doesnt get seen by that measurement. So you wouldnt trade places if you made, you know, inflation adjusted the same amount 50 years ago, your life would be way worse than it is at the current level. But lets take that and just be very specific because a lot of people say middleclass wages have stagnated for the last 15 or 20 years depending on how you measure it. But youre saying, well, a middleclass person shouldnt trade places with somebody 20 years ago because his life or her life has immeasurably improved. Thats right. We dont capture in the numbers that the youd much rather choose, say, 40,000 a year now than the equivalent 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 40 years ago. Your ability to read books, to find information, to stay in touch with your friends, thats not at all reflected in that income level. Now, theres a few things that have gotten more expensive the privacy a college education, which most people you should look at the State University tuition. The cost of medical coverage, either paying for it or insuring against it, thats gone up. But overall, it understates how much things have improved. It doesnt mean we shouldnt worry about middleclass incomes, but the comparisons overstate the lack of progress. The American Economy is basically very strong. Ironically here, the position of our currency as a reserve currency means that the dollars relatively stronger than it should be which holds back export growth, that would be even more robust. But even despite that drag from our unique position, its basically a fairly positive story. What do you think about those who say, look, the economy is overtaxed, overregulated, you need big structural reform, that thats whats going to unleash productivity in this economy . Well, the most highest Economic Growth decade was the 1960s. Income tax rates were 90 . I mean, the idea that theres some direct connection that all these innovators are on strike because tax rates are at 35 and on corporations, thats just such nonsense. Corporate profit as a percent of u. S. Gdp, the tax, corporate profit tax, is 2 . It used to be 4 . Thats at a time where corporate profits are at an alltime high. So yes, your nominal rate is very high, but for a variety of reasons, including overseas deferments, accelerated depreciation, whats actually being paid is way less. So the notion that changing that nominal rate will unlock something, you know, overstates how you improve things. Right now the president ial campaign has sort of begun, and one of the big issues that youre seeing on the republican side is the issue of the common core. These standards in the tests. And jeb bush has reiterated his support for them. Your Foundation Gives an enormous amount of money and i know youve spent a lot of time looking at this issue. What do you think of the common core . Well, the common core is a fantastic piece of work. And if you really just take that issue and say is the way they define the math progression through the grades and what the basic knowledge should be is that well done, the answer is absolutely. Its fantastically better than what came before where things were out of order. Some states didnt teach you enough to be able to take the College Entrance exam. And so you were disadvantaged there. Some states had things that were done in a different form than they appear on the College Entrance exam. So you get lower scores just because the notation and the way it was taught was different. In the past, the u. S. Designed math textbooks by committee. And our textbooks are twice as big as other countries textbooks. And what it led to is we try to teach too much every year and we dont teach it well. And so other systems are just blowing us away in math. As we switch, like in kentucky, which was the first to adopt the common core, theyve seen substantial gains in their math learning. So its a very good design. It means you can go up to websites and look at their material and then have it match what youre learning. If your kids move, like say military families, what theyll be learning in sixth grade will be aligned so it wont be confused and different. So common core is an amazing piece of work. When we come back, more with bill gates. Im going to ask him why he drank water that was made from human waste. When we come back. He glucose metabolism in a dogs brain begins to change. ray id like to see her go back to her more you know social side. She literally started changing. It was shocking. Shes much more aware. jan she loves the food. ray the difference has been incredible. She wants to learn things. vo purina pro plan bright mind promotes alertness and mental sharpness in dogs 7 and older. Purina pro plan. Nutrition that performs. [ male announcer ] you wouldnt ignore signs of damage in your home. Are you sure youre not ignoring them in your body . Even if youre treating your Crohns Disease or Ulcerative Colitis an occasional flare may be a sign of damaging inflammation. And if you ignore the signs, the more debilitating your symptoms could become. Learn more about the role damaging inflammation may be playing in your symptoms with the expert advice tool at crohnsandcolitis. Com. And then speak with your gastroenterologist. He says shes an undisciplined overwaterer. She claims hes a cruel underwaterer. With miraclegro moisture control potting mix, plants only get water when they need it. Fight ended. Or shifted . Miraclegro. Life starts here. The staff at this beautiful resort. Will stay with you forever. Especially if you dont leave. You got it booking right. Booking. Com booking. Yeah right now, verizon is offering unlimited talk and text. Plus 10 gigs of shareable data. Yeah, 10 gigantic gigs. For 80 a month. And 15 per line. More data than ever. For more of what you want. On the network thats 1 in speed, call, data, and reliability. So you never have to settle. 80 a month. For 10 gigs. And 15 per line. Stop by or visit us online. And save without settling. Only on verizon. Just stay calm and move as quietly as possible. No sudden movements. Google search bodega beach house. And we are back with bill gates. Bill, you recently did something very strange. You drank a glass of water that had been produced from human feces. Why . Well, sanitation is very important. Its very important for health. Its very important for quality of living. And the way sanitation is done in richer countries is very expensive. We have piping of water in, we make it dirty and then pipe it back out and we do complex processing. Thats not likely to be affordable, say, in all of india. And so if we could take some process and take human waste and get rid of its smell and make sure that it couldnt cause disease, then it would be just like normal garbage. And for very low cost, in fact, that could be moved out of the household. Or we could just burn it as some part of reinvented toilet. So the r d to figure out how do you get caltech, m. I. T. , all these top universities to look at the chemistry, the physics and build this reinvented toilet the foundation has funded that type of advanced research. And were seeing really good progress. And the way it worked, as i understand it, is that the waste is taken, its essentially heated to a high level. The water evaporates. You can then separate the liquids from the solid. That water is then distilled and purified. And then you drank it. Exactly. All the water we drink has been in lots and lots of different places. The key is its been purified right before we have to drink it. And in this plant, it is a very, very pure output. In fact, you know, its a valuable output. Did you could you tell anything different from the taste . No. Once water is boiled and filtered very effectively, its nice, wonderful water. I had a bottle of this stuff in my car, and my kids would pick it up and say, really, dad . So they found it fascinating. But in fact, what we have to think about is that most people dont have sanitation. In fact, mody in india has a Great Campaign to say lets get toilets, lets clean up the ganges. So a lot of energy has been brought to this area that really isnt often discussed. And it can be improved. When you look at this issue of water, does this have an applicability to rich countries . We are reading all about droughts in california. Is there a way we have lots of water on earth. Is that the solution . Is that going to be the technological fix to the problem of drought in california . Yeah, over time, youll use energy to do desalinization. So water shortage is about the cost of energy. Because the problem with desalination is its just very expensive and very energy intensive. It just uses energy. Like many of the things of modern life energy is a prime input. So if we could have breakthroughs in energy, that would help us a lot to both desalinate the water and transport it to where we need it. Where do you think we are in the sort of green revolution . Solar costs have plummeted, but the price of oil has also plummeted. Where does that leave us . Well, solar prices are still not competitive with, say, natural gas, electricity production. Now, in a narrow sense, they will be competitive. That is, during the middle of the day when the sun is shining. But when you buy power, what youre really buying is reliability. You want 24houraday, even if its been cloudy for four or five days, you want your hospital to have electricity. You want somebody in an Apartment Building not to freeze to death. And so taking these intermittent sources and adding them in means that we either need peakers, things that come in supplementing, or we need massive storage. And so we do not have an economic way of converting the Energy System to a zero co2 system. Only through big innovation in storage and so getting the costs down will we have that. Thats what we need. And it could come from solar. It could come from nuclear. Theres a variety of technologies that might provide that solution. We need to fund thousands of entrepreneurs to drive those costs down. Because otherwise, middleincome countries arent going to pay some huge premium for their energy. And do you feel like we are at the cusp of an Energy Revolution . Well, im hopeful. I keep encouraging governments to raise their energy r d budgets. And its disappointing, given the importance of energy for the poorest in the world and this imperative that we get zero co2 emission, that the r d budgets havent gone up more. Im funding some new work in nuclear. Theres a lot being funded in storage. Im involved in some of those. The solar space has gotten lots and lots of funding. So theres good things happening, but i think we should be trying to accelerate that because rather than subsidize this stuff when its not economic, funding the r d to get it to be economic, that is the only real solution. Bill gates, always a pleasure. Next on gps, from seattle, how great would it be if u. S. Election campaigns were shorter, had no negative tv ads, and didnt require a billion dollars to win . Well show you some global lessons on elections next. Wim better. Like a custom screener on your desktop, that updates to all your devices. And you can share it with one click. Wow. How do you find the time to do all this . Easy. We combined every birthday and holiday into one celebration. different holidays being shouted back to work, guys i love this times of year. For all the confidence you need. Td ameritrade. You got this. This new tempurflex feels like a dream boat. To sleep on. Well, its got the spring and bounce of a traditional mattress, but then it also adjusts to my body. Ahhhh. This new bed it just wraps you up and cuddles you, but you can still move around. Now that i have a tempurflex, i can finally get a good nights sleep. Change your sleep. Change your life. Change to tempurpedic. To sleep happy guaranteed, and zero percent apr financing. Visit mattress firm, americas number one tempurpedic retailer. Out of 42 vehicles based on 6 different criteria, why did a panel of 11 automotive experts name the Volkswagen Golf motor trends 2015 car of the year . Well give you four good reasons. The Volkswagen Golf. Starting at 19,295, theres an awardwinning golf for everyone. Its more than a network and the cloud. Its reliable uptime. And multilayered security. Its how you stay connected to each other and to your customers. With centurylink you get advanced technology solutions, including an industry leading broadband network, and cloud and hosting services all with dedicated responsive support. With centurylink as your trusted Technology Partner youre free to focus on growing your business. Centurylink. Your link to whats next. With xfinity from comcast you can manage your account anytime, anywhere on any device. Just sign into my account to pay bills manage Service Appointments and find answers to your questions. You can even check your connection status on your phone. Now its easier than ever to manage your account. Get started at xfinity. Com myaccount welcome back to a special edition of gps from seattle. Now for what in the world. There are still more than 540 days until the next president ial election. You can see the media running behind me here to chase the scooby van. Already exhausted by the hillary watch and the everexpanding tribe of republican contenders . Well, then perhaps youd be happier in Great Britain where candidates for parliament this year only campaigned officially for less than six weeks. That included the candidates running for Prime Minister like David Cameron and ed miliband. There wasnt a single negative advertisement on television because all political ads on tv are banned by law. And each Political Party was allowed to spend around 30 million, just a fraction of what u. S. President ial nominees normally do. May god bless these United States. Reporter britain has much stricter rules on Campaign Spending than the u. S. But the last time i checked, it was still a vibrant democracy. In fact, many other democracies have such spending limits. Thats what we believe in. Thats what we will deliver. Reporter and its not Just Campaign finance where the u. S. Is an outlier. Consider voter turnout. America ranks 31st out of the 34 developed countries in the oecd according to pew. With just over half of its votingage population turning out in 2012. Other countries like south korea, denmark and sweden have turnout rates above 80 . According to the International Institute for democracy and electoral assistance, the u. S. Barely beats out wartorn afghanistan. One reason why the u. S. Lags behind in turnout might be that other countries make it a lot easier to vote. Nations like france hold elections on weekends so voters dont have to worry about missing work. America still votes on a tuesday, thanks to a law from 1845 that catered to travelers on horseback. It might be time for an update. Then theres voter registration. In the u. S. , only 65 of the voting population is registered. Much lower than other countries according to pew. Other nations like israel and italy register voters automatically when they receive their i. D. Cards from the government, for example, while in the u. S. Citizens must register themselves. So how about how americans vote . Is that antiquated, too . Certainly. Estonia has had online voting since 2007 with nearly a third of its voters casting web ballots in this years parliamentary elections. While there have been some concerns about the systems vulnerability to hacking, it definitely makes voting easier. Switzerland is also moving towards voting via cyberspace. But the best way to ensure voter turnout might be to require people to vote by law. Several countries including australia, belgium and turkey do just that. And those nations have impressive turnout numbers, as one would expect. America is the worlds oldest constitutional democracy. But it could probably learn a few best practices from some of its younger brethren across the globe. Next on gps, the problem. How to keep critical medicines like vaccines cold in parts of africa that are blistering hot where electricity is notoriously unreliable. The solution came from one of the smartest men i know. Youll meet him next. Not in this room you dont. You got it booking right. Booking. Com booking. Yeah. If you have moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis like me and youre talking to your rheumatologist about a biologic. This is humira. This is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. This is humira giving me new perspective. Doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. Humira works for many adults. It targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers including lymphoma have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Talk to your doctor and visit humira. Com this is humira at work this is amazing. I love this car. Real people are discovering surprising things at chevy. This is a road trip car. Were sold. Its so pretty. Theyre goodlooking cars. It feels great. Perfect. This is not what i would expect from a chevy at all. Get more than you expect, for less than you imagined at the chevy memorial day sale, going on now. Get cash back for 15 of the msrp on select 2015 models in stock the longest. Thats over fourthousand dollars on this chevy equinox. Find new roads at your local chevy dealer. My constipation and belly pain feel like a raging storm. Ive tried laxatives but my symptoms keep returning. My constipation feels like a heavy weight that keeps coming back. Vo linzess can help. Oncedaily linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. Linzess is thought to help calm painsensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. Linzess helps you proactively manage your symptoms. Do not give linzess to children under 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. It may harm them. Dont take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. Get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain especially with bloody or black stools. The most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. If its severe stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. Other side effects include, gas, stomacharea pain and swelling. Bottom line, ask your doctor about linzess today. The switch to tmobile is on. Even verizon customers are seeing the light. Tmobile has americas fastest 4g lte network from the bay area to the big apple. And more data capacity per customer. Need one more reason . Get two lines of unlimited 4g lte data for a hundred bucks save without settling on americas fastest 4g lte network we talk a lot about innovation here on gps, but im fascinated by innovation in action. So while in seattle, i went to visit a man with whom i love to talk about everything. Nathan myhrvold got his ph. D. In physics, studied with Stephen Hawking and then for years was the chief Technology Officer at microsoft. He now runs a Company Called intellectual ventures. There he gets to indulge his passions. He spent time, money and brain power on such diverse subjects as bread baking, nuclear power, and dinosaurs. His company is working on all three plus much more. One of his latest projects was spurred by a challenge from bill gates, who asked myhrvold to help solve a tough problem how to keep fragile medicines cold in hot climates in developing countries where constant electricity is far from a guarantee. The team tinkered and tinkered until they found a solution. Reporter nathan, a pleasure to have you on again. Well, its a pleasure to be here. Reporter this sounds like a simple problem. You know, why dont you put it in a thermos. Explain why this was hard and how you solved it. Well, you know, it turns out that when you find really hard problems in society, theres a reason why theyre hard. And sometimes its a technical reason. Often its a mixture of technical reasons, political reasons. So as an example, if africa had a reliable power grid, this wouldnt be a problem. Theyd have refrigerators just like we do here. The trouble is africa doesnt have that. And every year children die because they dont get the right medicines at the right time. And one of the reasons they dont get the right medicines is because the medicine went bad. The generator went out. Everything spoiled. They had to throw it out. Or it didnt reach them or something else. And besides the cost of the lost vaccines, which is considerable in a country that has little resources, the human cost in terms of the lives of those children and others that are affected is immense. So why couldnt you solve it with some other thing . Well, people tried. They tried for a really long time. And theres a combination of the fact that the its very difficult circumstances. So you can, for example, make a solarpowered refrigerator, and companies have, and that can work. The trouble is the solar panels are fragile. They might get broken in the truck getting out there. They might get stolen. They might get repurposed. The fancy solar panel refrigerator and electronics might break, and theres nobody there to fix it. Theres all of these problems that will frustrate a purely technological solution. So we decided that the best way to solve this was to say what is the most robust thing we can possibly imagine . And that was a totally passive system. So we said, could you make something that would hold vaccines at the right temperature, just above the Freezing Point . For months, maybe, with no power at all. Wow. Now, that sounds crazy, but of course the thermos model does this at a small scale. The trouble is the thermos model isnt good enough. But if you go through all the equations, it turns out we thought, hey, maybe you could make a thermos model that would be good enough. And a couple years later, lots of prototypes, millions of dollars of experiments, we have one that works. So these are the devices that hold these vaccines that kind of look like beer kegs. Yeah. Thats the first prototype over there. And then progressively, we built more and different prototypes all changed in some way. They got a little better looking over time. We had to heat treat those early ones. Thats why they discolored that way. And heres one actually that weve cut in half because it failed in a test in africa, and we wanted to find out why. Reporter and this is, then, the final version. Yeah, here is the final product. So its basically a big thermos. One person can lift it. Reporter wow. So its easy to get around. You can strap it on the back of even a motorcycle. Theres a system for doing that. Reporter no energy at all, and no batteries, no electricity, no nothing. No batteries, no nothing. Theres a tiny battery in here for the display, and it also has a builtin cell phone. So it will send Text Messages out to say im running low on ice help me help me reporter but theres dry ice in there. No. Regular water ice. Regular water ice. So if we open it up, we can reach inside and pull up. Reporter theres the vaccines. Vaccines. Reporter and it is very cold. Its cold. Oh, for sure, its cold. Reporter and you could use this all over africa, all over south asia, parts of latin america, anywhere where you have large rural populations that dont have access to really good power supplies. Thats right. The world has tons of people that work and live in an area that has either no power or very flaky power. And with flaky power if the, you know, generator goes out, if the power lines go down, the vaccine goes bad. And its not just that you lose the vaccine, which is very expensive. But in fact, you kill kids. Even in this country. When human organs are moved around, enormously valuable, a kidney or a heart, you have to keep it cold. Today they use little, you know, handheld coolers to do that, which is okay unless weather grounds your plane for two days in an airport somewhere, or theres some other logistical nightmare, and then you fall back on doing these. Reporter so you charge this with ice. Mmhmm. Reporter the capital city of an african country, and it goes out into the villages. How long can it stay cool . It depends on how hot it is outside. So we test it up to about 110 degrees fahrenheit, which is really hot. Now, most places are not 110 degrees day and night for a long time. But if it was 110 day and night, it would last for six or eight weeks. In a cooler area, it could actually last for months. In west africa these devices, a modified version, were used as the means for getting the experimental ebola vaccines in. There was no way that they could have provisioned these experimental vaccines if they didnt have some way to keep stuff cold. And there just wasnt anything in the area that would work. Reporter so this is the silent hero of the response to ebola. Theres a lot of heroes in the ebola story. Im not going to take full credit. But we did our part with our little thing, yes. Thanks to Nathan Myhrvold for inviting us into his lab. Well bring you more with him in coming weeks. Up next, the worlds youngest selfmade female billionaire. How did she make her money . All from a drop of blood. Ill explain when we come back. He says shes an undisciplined overwaterer. She claims hes a cruel underwaterer. With miraclegro moisture control potting mix, plants only get water when they need it. Fight ended. Or shifted . Miraclegro. Life starts here. My constipation and belly pain have my stomach feeling all knotted up. Ive tried laxatives. But my symptoms keep returning. My constipation feels like a pile of bricks. That keeps coming back. Linzess can help. Oncedaily linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. Linzess is thought to help calm painsensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. Linzess helps you proactively manage your symptoms. Do not give linzess to children under 6 and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. It may harm them. Dont take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. Get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain especially with bloody or black stools. The most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. If its severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. Other side effects include gas, stomacharea pain and swelling. Bottom line, ask your doctor about linzess today. There is an ancient rhythm. [ ] that flows through all things. Through rocky spires. [ ] and oceans swell. [ ] the endless. Stillness of green. [ ] and in the restless depths of human hearts. [ ] the voice of the wild within. I used to think of entrepreneurs as kind of old, grizzled people, and now im the old, grizzled person and the entrepreneurs are all young and an extraordinarily goodlooking group of entrepreneurs. That was president obama on monday welcoming the newest class of president ial ambassadors for global entrepreneurship. Among the group and among the youngest of the group is my next guest, elizabeth holmes, the founder and ceo of a Company Called pherenos. There are many striking agerelated superlatives about holmes, but perhaps the most striking is that according to forbes she is the youngest selfmade female billionaire in the world. How did holmes make her money . Well, she and her team have revolutionized one of the most common medical tests in the world. Youve probably gone to the doctor for what seemed to be a simple blood test only to have vial after vial of blood drawn. Well, pherenos have reduced that to just a few drops. Ill let her explain. People dont like big needles being stuck in their arms. And so part of our work has been reporter so because they dont like that, they tend to not have their blood tested often enough . Exactly. Exactly. Reporter i mean, your basic thesis is that if we could have much more testing of blood, we would find out about these diseases or potential diseases much earlier. Exactly. Reporter so why do we give so much blood . I think everyone whos ever had a blood test does wonder, why do you need so much blood to, you know, figure out your cholesterol or whatever it is . The whole system has been designed around that. So since really the 1960s when the clinical Lab Infrastructure began to develop, weve had this infrastructure thats very similar to what you see in mainframe computing where you have highly centralized, very big analytical instruments which require that much blood. And therefore, people have had to take tubes and tubes every time they do a blood draw. Because you cant, one, the chemistries that have been designed without it. Reporter and how did you make it, though . That you can find all this out so easily with one drop of blood . We focused on four core areas. One was exactly the small sample size. One was making it incredibly inexpensive to do this testing so that any person could afford it and being transparent about our prices. And reporter what are your prices compared to medicare reimbursement rates . They start at 50 off of medicare reimbursement rates, and they go down to 90 off of medicare reimbursement rates. Yeah, which means people can do, you know, a cholesterol test for 2. 99 or really expensive specialty tests for tens of dollars as opposed to thousands. And we made that possible through advances in technology which we have applied toward redeveloping the chemistry, redeveloping the hardware, redeveloping the software that is used in the traditional infrastructure. Reporter and your argument would be, as i understand it, that your tests are actually more accurate than the large sample. Why . Human processing of samples. That today in the lab industry is cause of 93 of the errors. Through technology you can automate many of the processes and decentralize and distribute the infrastructure so that you can mitigate the variance that comes from human processing. Youve got to show us the size of these samples. Sure. So this is the little tubes that we collect the samples in. We call them the nanotainer. Theyre about this big. So thats one drop or thats one drop of blood would go into that . What about the rest of that box . This is a sample. Thats a single sample. This is a single sample. So this would contain 16 samples. Of 16 different people. Right. And the heart of this again, is the more often you can have your blood tested the more likely it is that you will catch variations oddities that would signal to a doctor that you have a condition, you have a disease, you have something that can be handled much earlier than the physical symptoms. Exactly. 40 to 60 of americans dont even go to get their Lab Tests Done when theyre told by a physician to go do so. And physicians generally dont order lab tests unless someone is symptomatic for a given condition, because to get insurance to pay for the test the to be able to justify it on the lab form with the code that effectively talks about what symptoms you have. So by the time a Doctor Orders the test it means that youre generally at risk for something. And youre not even seeing people engaged. But if we can make the Testing Process wonderful, we can get people to begin engaging. And the more they engage the more you can start to see this data in a preventive context as opposed to a reactive context. Have you had your own blood tested this way . All the time. How often . Well im a little extreme, but i do at least once a week. Ms. Holmes glad to have you on. Next on gps snoorks behind me through the rain and fog, you can make out the sprawling city of seattle. Most people would not have predicted the seattle of today. Plus bill gates gives a book introduction when we come back. And stay awake during the day. Non24 is a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 of people who are totally blind. Talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 8448442424. Or visit my24info. Com. The beautiful sound of customers making the most of their united flight. Power, wifi and streaming entertainment. Thats. Seize the journey friendly. The Volkswagen Golf was just named motor trends 2015 car of the year. So was the 100 electric egolf. And the 45 highway mpg tdi clean diesel. And last but not least the High Performance gti. Looks like were gonna need a bigger podium. The Volkswagen Golf family. Motor trends 2015 cars of the year. We got the new tempurflex and its got the spring and bounce of a traditional mattress. You sink into it, but you can still move it around. Now that i have a tempurflex, i can finally get a good nights sleep. When i flop down on the bed, and its just like, ah, this is perfect. Wherever you put your body it just supports you. Like little support elfs are just holding you. I can sleep now through the night vo change your sleep. Change your life. Change to tempurpedic. The nonprofit women on 20s have selected the woman to go on the 20 bill. A petition was submitted this week to president obama. It brings me to my question of the week. When was the last time a portrait changed on u. S. Paper currency . Was it 1812 1865 1929 or 1945 . Stay tuned and well tell you the correct answer. For this weeks book of the week we have a comic novel recommended from a very special guest star. My book of the week recommendation is the rosie project. Its a great story. Youll learn about dealing with people and i found it so much fun and educational. Thanks bill. Sounds like a great read. Now for the last look. In the 1970s, two menie erected erected a billboard near seattle that read will the last person leaving seattle turn out the lights. This city who enjoyed a booming economy in the post world war ii era hit a recession like the rest of the country. Boeing cut their work force by half which greatly affected the economy. That billboard was only up for a short period of time but to this day it is invoked often in discussions about seattles economy. As the Seattle Times notes it denotes to other countries, cities, even the planet. Today, of course the city of seattle is thriving. Unemployment is below the national average, microsoft, starbucks, costco tmobile nordstrom, amazon and other giants call the greater seattle area home. According to the United StatesCensus Bureau seattle has a high population. 80 of the population is farm born and the city often called americas gateway to asia is seen as a truly Global Innovation hub. The Real Estate Market is hot, and the minimum wage now 11 an hour will soon jump to 15 an hour. Something people hope will aid the citys wide income gap. So the lights stayed on and for many the city thrived. Today a more appropriate billboard might read will the next person to come to seattle invent a way to keep the lights on without warming the planet. They might do it right here. The correct answer to the gps challenge question is c. Although the u. S. Has over the years added fancy bells and whistles like 3d ribbons and border marks, the usdc hasnt changed any portraits on bills since 1939 when Andrew Jackson landed on the 20 bill. The women of 20s hopes to have her on the 20 bill by 2020 the 120th anniversary of womens suffrage. I will see you next week. Happening now in the newsroom the impact of a u. S. Special ops raid into syria that killed a top money man of isis. This is the one that creates the revenue so they can conduct these operations. How big a blow is this to isis . And amtrak still not running five days after that deadly derailment. Engineers spending the weekend installing new speed controls as investigators try to figure out whether the train was hit by an unknown object. Plus more than two dozen twisters hit the