WEBVTT

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Chris Anderson: So, this is an
interview with a difference.

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On the basis that a picture
is worth a thousand words,

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what I did was, I asked Bill and Melinda

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to dig out from their archive

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some images that would help explain

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some of what they've done,

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and do a few things that way.

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So, we're going to start here.

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Melinda, when and where was this,

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and who is that handsome man next to you?

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Melinda Gates: With those big glasses, huh?

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This is in Africa, our very first trip,

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the first time either of us had ever been to Africa,

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in the fall of 1993.

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We were already engaged to be married.

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We married a few months later,

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and this was the trip where we really went to see

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the animals and to see the savanna.

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It was incredible. Bill had never taken that much time

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off from work.

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But what really touched us, actually, were the people,

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and the extreme poverty.

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We started asking ourselves questions.

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Does it have to be like this?

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And at the end of the trip,

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we went out to Zanzibar,

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and took some time to walk on the beach,

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which is something we had done a lot

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while we were dating.

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And we'd already been talking about during that time

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that the wealth that had come from Microsoft

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would be given back to society,

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but it was really on that beach walk

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that we started to talk about, well,

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what might we do and how might we go about it?

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CA: So, given that this vacation

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led to the creation of

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the world's biggest private foundation,

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it's pretty expensive as vacations go. (Laughter)

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MG: I guess so. We enjoyed it.

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CA: Which of you was the key instigator here,

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or was it symmetrical?

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Bill Gates: Well, I think we were excited

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that there'd be a phase of our life

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where we'd get to work together

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and figure out how to give this money back.

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At this stage, we were talking about the poorest,

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and could you have a big impact on them?

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Were there things that weren't being done?

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There was a lot we didn't know.

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Our naïveté is pretty incredible,

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when we look back on it.

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But we had a certain enthusiasm

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that that would be the phase,

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the post-Microsoft phase

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would be our philanthropy.

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MG: Which Bill always thought was going to come

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after he was 60,

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so he hasn't quite hit 60 yet,

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so some things change along the way.

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CA: So it started there, but it got accelerated.

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So that was '93, and it was '97, really,

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before the foundation itself started.

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MA: Yeah, in '97, we read an article

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about diarrheal diseases killing
so many kids around the world,

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and we kept saying to ourselves,

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"Well that can't be.

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In the U.S., you just go down to the drug store."

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And so we started gathering scientists

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and started learning about population,

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learning about vaccines,

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learning about what had worked and what had failed,

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and that's really when we got going,

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was in late 1998, 1999.

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CA: So, you've got a big pot of money

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and a world full of so many different issues.

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How on Earth do you decide what to focus on?

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BG: Well, we decided that we'd pick two causes,

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whatever the biggest inequity was globally,

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and there we looked at children dying,

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children not having enough nutrition to ever develop,

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and countries that were really stuck,

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because with that level of death,

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and parents would have so many kids

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that they'd get huge population growth,

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and that the kids were so sick

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that they really couldn't be educated

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and lift themselves up.

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So that was our global thing,

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and then in the U.S.,

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both of us have had amazing educations,

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and we saw that as the way that the U.S.

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could live up to its promise of equal opportunity

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is by having a phenomenal education system,

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and the more we learned, the more we realized

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we're not really fulfilling that promise.

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And so we picked those two things,

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and everything the foundation does

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is focused there.

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CA: So, I asked each of you to pick an image

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that you like that illustrates your work,

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and Melinda, this is what you picked.

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What's this about?

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MG: So I, one of the things I love to do when I travel

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is to go out to the rural areas and talk to the women,

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whether it's Bangladesh, India,
lots of countries in Africa,

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and I go in as a Western woman without a name.

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I don't tell them who I am. Pair of khakis.

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And I kept hearing from women,

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over and over and over, the more I traveled,

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"I want to be able to use this shot."

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I would be there to talk to them
about childhood vaccines,

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and they would bring the conversation around to

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"But what about the shot I get?"

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which is an injection they were
getting called Depo-Provera,

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which is a contraceptive.

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And I would come back and
talk to global health experts,

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and they'd say, "Oh no, contraceptives

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are stocked in in the developing world."

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Well, you had to dig deeper into the reports,

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and this is what the team came to me with,

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which is, to have the number one thing

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that women tell you in Africa they want to use

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stocked out more than 200 days a year

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explains why women were saying to me,

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"I walked 10 kilometers without
my husband knowing it,

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and I got to the clinic, and there was nothing there."

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And so condoms were stocked in in Africa

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because of all the AIDS work that the U.S.

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and others supported.

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But women will tell you over and over again,

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"I can't negotiate a condom with my husband.

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I'm either suggesting he has AIDS or I have AIDS,

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and I need that tool because then I can space

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the births of my children, and I can feed them

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and have a chance of educating them."

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CA: Melinda, you're Roman Catholic,

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and you've often been embroiled

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in controversy over this issue,

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and on the abortion question,

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on both sides, really.

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How do you navigate that?

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MG: Yeah, so I think that's a really important point,

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which is, we had backed away from contraceptives

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as a global community.

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We knew that 210 million women

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were saying they wanted access to contraceptives,

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even the contraceptives we have
here in the United States,

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and we weren't providing them

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because of the political controversy in our country,

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and to me that was just a crime,

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and I kept looking around trying to find the person

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that would get this back on the global stage,

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and I finally realized I just had to do it.

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And even though I'm Catholic,

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I believe in contraceptives

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just like most of the Catholic
women in the United States

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who report using contraceptives,

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and I shouldn't let that controversy

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be the thing that holds us back.

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We used to have consensus in the United States

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around contraceptives,

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and so we got back to that global consensus,

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and actually raised 2.6 billion dollars

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around exactly this issue for women.

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(Applause)

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CA: Bill, this is your graph. What's this about?

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BG: Well, my graph has numbers on it.

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(Laughter)

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I really like this graph.

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This is the number of children

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who die before the age of five every year.

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And what you find is really

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a phenomenal success story

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which is not widely known,

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that we are making incredible progress.

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We go from 20 million

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not long after I was born

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to now we're down to about six million.

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So this is a story

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largely of vaccines.

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Smallpox was killing a couple million kids a year.

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That was eradicated, so that got down to zero.

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Measles was killing a couple million a year.

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That's down to a few hundred thousand.

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Anyway, this is a chart

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where you want to get that number to continue,

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and it's going to be possible,

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using the science of new vaccines,

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getting the vaccines out to kids.

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We can actually accelerate the progress.

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The last decade,

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that number has dropped faster

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than ever in history,

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and so I just love the fact that

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you can say, okay, if we can invent new vaccines,

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we can get them out there,

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use the very latest understanding of these things,

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and get the delivery right, that
we can perform a miracle.

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CA: I mean, you do the math on this,

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and it works out, I think, literally

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to thousands of kids' lives saved every day

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compared to the prior year.

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It's not reported.

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An airliner with 200-plus deaths

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is a far, far bigger story than that.

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Does that drive you crazy?

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BG: Yeah, because it's a silent thing going on.

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It's a kid, one kid at a time.

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Ninety-eight percent of this

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has nothing to do with natural disasters,

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and yet, people's charity,

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when they see a natural disaster, are wonderful.

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It's incredible how people think, okay,

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that could be me, and the money flows.

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These causes have been a bit invisible.

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Now that the Millennium Development Goals

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and various things are getting out there,

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we are seeing some increased generosity,

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so the goal is to get this well below a million,

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which should be possible in our lifetime.

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CA: Maybe it needed someone

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who is turned on by numbers and graphs

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rather than just the big, sad face

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to get engaged.

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I mean, you've used it in your letter this year,

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you used basically this argument to say that aid,

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contrary to the current meme

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that aid is kind of worthless and broken,

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that actually it has been effective.

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BG: Yeah, well people can take,

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there is some aid that was well-meaning

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and didn't go well.

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There's some venture capital investments

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that were well-meaning and didn't go well.

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You shouldn't just say, okay, because of that,

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because we don't have a perfect record,

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this is a bad endeavor.

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You should look at, what was your goal?

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How are you trying to uplift nutrition

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and survival and literacy

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so these countries can take care of themselves,

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and say wow, this is going well,

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and be smarter.

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We can spend aid smarter.

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It is not all a panacea.

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We can do better than venture capital, I think,

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including big hits like this.

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CA: Traditional wisdom is that

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it's pretty hard for married couples to work together.

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How have you guys managed it?

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MG: Yeah, I've had a lot of women say to me,

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"I really don't think I could work with my husband.

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That just wouldn't work out."

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You know, we enjoy it, and we don't --

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this foundation has been a coming to for both of us

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in its continuous learning journey,

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and we don't travel together as much

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for the foundation, actually, as we used to

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when Bill was working at Microsoft.

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We have more trips where
we're traveling separately,

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but I always know when I come home,

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Bill's going to be interested in what I learned,

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whether it's about women or girls

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or something new about the vaccine delivery chain,

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or this person that is a great leader.

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He's going to listen and be really interested.

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And he knows when he comes home,

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even if it's to talk about the speech he did

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or the data or what he's learned,

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I'm really interested,

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and I think we have a really
collaborative relationship.

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But we don't every minute together, that's for sure.

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(Laughter)

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CA: But now you are, and we're very happy that you are.

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Melinda, early on, you were basically

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largely running the show.

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Six years ago, I guess,

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Bill came on full time, so moved from Microsoft

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and became full time.

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That must have been hard,

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adjusting to that. No?

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MG: Yeah. I think actually,

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for the foundation employees,

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there was way more angst for them

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than there was for me about Bill coming.

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I was actually really excited.

00:11:12.256 --> 00:11:13.875
I mean, Bill made this decision

00:11:13.875 --> 00:11:16.558
even obviously before it got announced in 2006,

00:11:16.558 --> 00:11:18.260
and it was really his decision,

00:11:18.260 --> 00:11:20.146
but again, it was a beach vacation

00:11:20.146 --> 00:11:21.450
where we were walking on the beach

00:11:21.450 --> 00:11:23.714
and he was starting to think of this idea.

00:11:23.714 --> 00:11:26.326
And for me, the excitement of Bill

00:11:26.326 --> 00:11:29.035
putting his brain and his heart

00:11:29.035 --> 00:11:31.382
against these huge global problems,

00:11:31.382 --> 00:11:33.710
these inequities, to me that was exciting.

00:11:33.710 --> 00:11:37.444
Yes, the foundation employees had angst about that.

00:11:37.444 --> 00:11:39.119
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:39.119 --> 00:11:41.235
CA: That's cool.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:41.235 --> 00:11:42.919
MG: But that went away within three months,

00:11:42.919 --> 00:11:43.846
once he was there.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:43.846 --> 00:11:45.511
BG: Including some of the employees.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:45.511 --> 00:11:46.784
MG: That's what I said, the employees,

00:11:46.784 --> 00:11:48.906
it went away for them three
months after you were there.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:48.906 --> 00:11:51.226
BG: No, I'm kidding.
MG: Oh, you mean, the employees didn't go away.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:51.226 --> 00:11:53.127
BG: A few of them did, but —

00:11:53.127 --> 00:11:54.960
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:56.903
CA: So what do you guys argue about?

00:11:56.903 --> 00:11:59.560
Sunday, 11 o'clock,

00:11:59.560 --> 00:12:00.981
you're away from work,

00:12:00.981 --> 00:12:03.494
what comes up? What's the argument?

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:03.494 --> 00:12:05.139
BG: Because we built this thing

00:12:05.139 --> 00:12:08.258
together from the beginning,

00:12:08.258 --> 00:12:09.904
it's this great partnership.

00:12:09.904 --> 00:12:11.758
I had that with Paul Allen

00:12:11.758 --> 00:12:13.669
in the early days of Microsoft.

00:12:13.669 --> 00:12:16.481
I had it with Steve Ballmer as Microsoft got bigger,

00:12:16.481 --> 00:12:19.485
and now Melinda, and in even stronger,

00:12:19.485 --> 00:12:21.371
equal ways, is the partner,

00:12:21.371 --> 00:12:23.128
so we talk a lot about

00:12:23.128 --> 00:12:25.256
which things should we give more to,

00:12:25.256 --> 00:12:27.800
which groups are working well?

00:12:27.800 --> 00:12:29.053
She's got a lot of insight.

00:12:29.053 --> 00:12:30.700
She'll sit down with the employees a lot.

00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:32.816
We'll take the different trips she described.

00:12:32.816 --> 00:12:36.433
So there's a lot of collaboration.

00:12:36.433 --> 00:12:38.409
I can't think of anything where one of us

00:12:38.409 --> 00:12:41.679
had a super strong opinion

00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:43.515
about one thing or another?

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:43.515 --> 00:12:46.317
CA: How about you, Melinda, 
though? Can you? (Laughter)

00:12:46.317 --> 00:12:47.533
You never know.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:47.533 --> 00:12:49.059
MG: Well, here's the thing.

00:12:49.059 --> 00:12:50.798
We come at things from different angles,

00:12:50.798 --> 00:12:52.730
and I actually think that's really good.

00:12:52.730 --> 00:12:54.738
So Bill can look at the big data

00:12:54.738 --> 00:12:57.750
and say, "I want to act based
on these global statistics."

00:12:57.750 --> 00:12:59.616
For me, I come at it from intuition.

00:12:59.616 --> 00:13:01.549
I meet with lots of people on the ground

00:13:01.549 --> 00:13:03.529
and Bill's taught me to take that

00:13:03.529 --> 00:13:06.152
and read up to the global data and see if they match,

00:13:06.152 --> 00:13:07.241
and I think what I've taught him

00:13:07.241 --> 00:13:08.669
is to take that data

00:13:08.669 --> 00:13:10.283
and meet with people on the ground to understand,

00:13:10.283 --> 00:13:12.667
can you actually deliver that vaccine?

00:13:12.667 --> 00:13:15.868
Can you get a woman to accept those polio drops

00:13:15.868 --> 00:13:17.198
in her child's mouth?

00:13:17.198 --> 00:13:18.756
Because the delivery piece

00:13:18.756 --> 00:13:20.959
is every bit as important as the science.

00:13:20.959 --> 00:13:23.481
So I think it's been more a coming to over time

00:13:23.481 --> 00:13:24.776
towards each other's point of view,

00:13:24.776 --> 00:13:28.046
and quite frankly, the work is better because of it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:28.046 --> 00:13:30.319
CA: So, in vaccines and polio and so forth,

00:13:30.319 --> 00:13:34.118
you've had some amazing successes.

00:13:34.118 --> 00:13:35.350
What about failure, though?

00:13:35.350 --> 00:13:37.041
Can you talk about a failure

00:13:37.041 --> 00:13:39.137
and maybe what you've learned from it?

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:39.137 --> 00:13:41.705
BG: Yeah. Fortunately, we can afford a few failures,

00:13:41.705 --> 00:13:43.842
because we've certainly had them.

00:13:43.842 --> 00:13:48.216
We do a lot of drug work or vaccine work

00:13:48.216 --> 00:13:51.492
that you know you're going to have different failures.

00:13:51.492 --> 00:13:53.719
Like, we put out, one that got a lot of publicity

00:13:53.719 --> 00:13:55.020
was asking for a better condom.

00:13:55.020 --> 00:13:56.514
Well, we got hundreds of ideas.

00:13:56.514 --> 00:13:59.708
Maybe a few of those will work out.

00:13:59.708 --> 00:14:03.087
We were very naïve, certainly I was, about a drug

00:14:03.087 --> 00:14:05.703
for a disease in India, visceral leishmaniasis,

00:14:05.703 --> 00:14:07.354
that I thought, once I got this drug,

00:14:07.354 --> 00:14:08.710
we can just go wipe out the disease.

00:14:08.710 --> 00:14:11.290
Well, turns out it took an injection

00:14:11.290 --> 00:14:12.926
every day for 10 days.

00:14:12.926 --> 00:14:15.313
It took three more years to get it than we expected,

00:14:15.313 --> 00:14:16.771
and then there was no way

00:14:16.771 --> 00:14:19.139
it was going to get out there.

00:14:19.139 --> 00:14:20.358
Fortunately, we found out

00:14:20.358 --> 00:14:23.520
that if you go kill the sand flies,

00:14:23.520 --> 00:14:25.642
you probably can have success there,

00:14:25.642 --> 00:14:27.497
but we spent five years,

00:14:27.497 --> 00:14:28.875
you could say wasted five years,

00:14:28.875 --> 00:14:30.882
and about 60 million,

00:14:30.882 --> 00:14:32.222
on a path that turned out to have

00:14:32.222 --> 00:14:36.387
very modest benefit when we got there.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:36.387 --> 00:14:39.831
CA: You're spending, like, a billion dollars a year

00:14:39.831 --> 00:14:41.766
in education, I think, something like that.

00:14:41.766 --> 00:14:45.790
Is anything, the story of what's gone right there

00:14:45.790 --> 00:14:48.246
is quite a long and complex one.

00:14:48.246 --> 00:14:52.168
Are there any failures that you can talk about?

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:52.168 --> 00:14:53.958
MG: Well, I would say a huge lesson for us

00:14:53.958 --> 00:14:55.206
out of the early work is we thought

00:14:55.206 --> 00:14:57.739
that these small schools were the answer,

00:14:57.739 --> 00:14:59.209
and small schools definitely help.

00:14:59.209 --> 00:15:00.733
They bring down the dropout rate.

00:15:00.733 --> 00:15:03.333
They have less violence and crime in those schools.

00:15:03.333 --> 00:15:05.479
But the thing that we learned from that work,

00:15:05.479 --> 00:15:08.013
and what turned out to be the fundamental key,

00:15:08.013 --> 00:15:10.077
is a great teacher in front of the classroom.

00:15:10.077 --> 00:15:11.684
If you don't have an effective teacher

00:15:11.684 --> 00:15:12.750
in the front of the classroom,

00:15:12.750 --> 00:15:14.906
I don't care how big or small the building is,

00:15:14.906 --> 00:15:16.560
you're not going to change the trajectory

00:15:16.560 --> 00:15:18.513
of whether that student will be ready for college.

00:15:18.513 --> 00:15:23.108
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:23.108 --> 00:15:25.418
CA: So Melinda, this is you and

00:15:25.418 --> 00:15:28.972
your eldest daughter, Jenn.

00:15:28.972 --> 00:15:30.871
And just taken about three weeks ago, I think,

00:15:30.871 --> 00:15:32.455
three or four weeks ago. Where was this?

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:32.455 --> 00:15:34.211
MG: So we went to Tanzania.

00:15:34.211 --> 00:15:35.053
Jenn's been to Tanzania.

00:15:35.053 --> 00:15:37.756
All our kids have been to Africa quite a bit, actually.

00:15:37.756 --> 00:15:39.971
And we did something very different,

00:15:39.971 --> 00:15:41.798
which is, we decided to go spend

00:15:41.798 --> 00:15:44.217
two nights and three days with a family.

00:15:44.217 --> 00:15:47.318
Anna and Sanare are the parents.

00:15:47.318 --> 00:15:50.352
They invited us to come and stay in their boma.

00:15:50.352 --> 00:15:51.851
Actually, the goats had been there, I think,

00:15:51.851 --> 00:15:53.250
living in that particular little hut

00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:55.921
on their little compound before we got there.

00:15:55.921 --> 00:15:57.419
And we stayed with their family,

00:15:57.419 --> 00:15:59.353
and we really, really learned

00:15:59.353 --> 00:16:01.206
what life is like in rural Tanzania.

00:16:01.206 --> 00:16:02.820
And the difference between just going

00:16:02.820 --> 00:16:04.539
and visiting for half a day

00:16:04.539 --> 00:16:06.001
or three quarters of a day

00:16:06.001 --> 00:16:08.399
versus staying overnight was profound,

00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:11.890
and so let me just give you one explanation of that.

00:16:11.890 --> 00:16:14.019
They had six children, and as I talked to Anna

00:16:14.019 --> 00:16:15.794
in the kitchen, we cooked for about five hours

00:16:15.794 --> 00:16:17.437
in the cooking hut that day,

00:16:17.437 --> 00:16:19.248
and as I talked to her, she had absolutely planned

00:16:19.248 --> 00:16:20.718
and spaced with her husband

00:16:20.718 --> 00:16:22.155
the births of their children.

00:16:22.155 --> 00:16:23.810
It was a very loving relationship.

00:16:23.810 --> 00:16:26.113
This was a Maasai warrior and his wife,

00:16:26.113 --> 00:16:28.022
but they had decided to get married,

00:16:28.022 --> 00:16:31.357
they clearly had respect and love in the relationship.

00:16:31.357 --> 00:16:32.968
Their children, their six children,

00:16:32.968 --> 00:16:35.487
the two in the middle were twins, 13,

00:16:35.487 --> 00:16:37.740
a boy, and a girl named Grace.

00:16:37.740 --> 00:16:39.313
And when we'd go out to chop wood

00:16:39.313 --> 00:16:41.748
and do all the things that Grace
and her mother would do,

00:16:41.748 --> 00:16:44.340
Grace was not a child, she was an adolescent,

00:16:44.340 --> 00:16:45.817
but she wasn't an adult.

00:16:45.817 --> 00:16:47.568
She was very, very shy.

00:16:47.568 --> 00:16:49.329
So she kept wanting to talk to me and Jenn.

00:16:49.329 --> 00:16:52.164
We kept trying to engage her, but she was shy.

00:16:52.164 --> 00:16:53.770
And at night, though,

00:16:53.770 --> 00:16:56.577
when all the lights went out in rural Tanzania,

00:16:56.577 --> 00:16:58.081
and there was no moon that night,

00:16:58.081 --> 00:16:59.803
the first night, and no stars,

00:16:59.803 --> 00:17:01.629
and Jenn came out of our hut

00:17:01.629 --> 00:17:04.446
with her REI little headlamp on,

00:17:04.446 --> 00:17:06.584
Grace went immediately,

00:17:06.584 --> 00:17:07.940
and got the translator,

00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:10.030
came straight up to my Jenn and said,

00:17:10.030 --> 00:17:11.263
"When you go home,

00:17:11.263 --> 00:17:12.438
can I have your headlamp

00:17:12.438 --> 00:17:14.168
so I can study at night?"

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:14.168 --> 00:17:15.250
CA: Oh, wow.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:15.250 --> 00:17:16.734
MG: And her dad had told me

00:17:16.734 --> 00:17:18.821
how afraid he was that unlike the son,

00:17:18.821 --> 00:17:20.483
who had passed his secondary exams,

00:17:20.483 --> 00:17:22.013
because of her chores,

00:17:22.013 --> 00:17:23.451
she'd not done so well

00:17:23.451 --> 00:17:25.255
and wasn't in the government school yet.

00:17:25.255 --> 00:17:27.790
He said, "I don't know how I'm
going to pay for her education.

00:17:27.790 --> 00:17:29.616
I can't pay for private school,

00:17:29.616 --> 00:17:32.195
and she may end up on this farm like my wife."

00:17:32.195 --> 00:17:33.324
So they know the difference

00:17:33.324 --> 00:17:34.349
that an education can make

00:17:34.349 --> 00:17:37.346
in a huge, profound way.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:37.346 --> 00:17:38.767
CA: I mean, this is another pic

00:17:38.767 --> 00:17:42.173
of your other two kids, Rory and Phoebe,

00:17:42.173 --> 00:17:46.311
along with Paul Farmer.

00:17:46.311 --> 00:17:47.925
Bringing up three children

00:17:47.925 --> 00:17:50.927
when you're the world's richest family

00:17:50.927 --> 00:17:53.223
seems like a social experiment

00:17:53.223 --> 00:17:56.795
without much prior art.

00:17:56.795 --> 00:17:58.330
How have you managed it?

00:17:58.330 --> 00:18:00.545
What's been your approach?

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:00.545 --> 00:18:03.178
BG: Well, I'd say overall

00:18:03.178 --> 00:18:04.940
the kids get a great education,

00:18:04.940 --> 00:18:05.838
but you've got to make sure

00:18:05.838 --> 00:18:07.540
they have a sense of their own ability

00:18:07.540 --> 00:18:09.529
and what they're going to go and do,

00:18:09.529 --> 00:18:11.902
and our philosophy has been

00:18:11.902 --> 00:18:13.124
to be very clear with them --

00:18:13.124 --> 00:18:14.669
most of the money's going to the foundation --

00:18:14.669 --> 00:18:19.010
and help them find something they're excited about.

00:18:19.010 --> 00:18:20.405
We want to strike a balance where they have

00:18:20.405 --> 00:18:22.198
the freedom to do anything

00:18:22.198 --> 00:18:25.538
but not a lot of money showered on them

00:18:25.538 --> 00:18:28.667
so they could go out and do nothing.

00:18:28.667 --> 00:18:31.645
And so far, they're fairly diligent,

00:18:31.645 --> 00:18:34.853
excited to pick their own direction.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:34.853 --> 00:18:40.421
CA: You've obviously guarded their 
privacy carefully for obvious reasons.

00:18:40.421 --> 00:18:42.615
I'm curious why you've given me permission

00:18:42.615 --> 00:18:44.240
to show this picture now here at TED.

00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:45.377
MG: Well, it's interesting.

00:18:45.377 --> 00:18:47.218
As they get older, they so know

00:18:47.218 --> 00:18:50.227
that our family belief is about responsibility,

00:18:50.227 --> 00:18:52.342
that we are in an unbelievable situation

00:18:52.342 --> 00:18:53.960
just to live in the United States

00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:55.651
and have a great education,

00:18:55.651 --> 00:18:57.699
and we have a responsibility
to give back to the world.

00:18:57.699 --> 00:18:58.752
And so as they get older

00:18:58.752 --> 00:18:59.772
and we are teaching them --

00:18:59.772 --> 00:19:02.132
they have been to so many
countries around the world —

00:19:02.132 --> 00:19:03.264
they're saying,

00:19:03.264 --> 00:19:05.016
we do want people to know that we believe

00:19:05.016 --> 00:19:06.517
in what you're doing, Mom and Dad,

00:19:06.517 --> 00:19:08.478
and it is okay to show us more.

00:19:08.478 --> 00:19:11.130
So we have their permission to show this picture,

00:19:11.130 --> 00:19:12.845
and I think Paul Farmer is probably going to put it

00:19:12.845 --> 00:19:15.300
eventually in some of his work.

00:19:15.300 --> 00:19:16.902
But they really care deeply

00:19:16.902 --> 00:19:19.327
about the mission of the foundation, too.

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:19.327 --> 00:19:21.249
CA: You've easily got enough money

00:19:21.249 --> 00:19:23.840
despite your vast contributions to the foundation

00:19:23.840 --> 00:19:25.474
to make them all billionaires.

00:19:25.474 --> 00:19:26.991
Is that your plan for them?

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:26.991 --> 00:19:29.327
BG: Nope. No. They won't have anything like that.

00:19:29.327 --> 00:19:31.262
They need to have a sense

00:19:31.262 --> 00:19:37.798
that their own work is meaningful and important.

00:19:37.798 --> 00:19:41.270
We read an article long, actually,
before we got married,

00:19:41.270 --> 00:19:43.915
where Warren Buffett talked about that,

00:19:43.915 --> 00:19:46.164
and we're quite convinced that it wasn't a favor

00:19:46.164 --> 00:19:49.418
either to society or to the kids.

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:49.418 --> 00:19:51.486
CA: Well, speaking of Warren Buffett,

00:19:51.486 --> 00:19:54.150
something really amazing happened in 2006,

00:19:54.150 --> 00:19:57.110
when somehow your only real rival

00:19:57.110 --> 00:19:58.662
for richest person in America

00:19:58.662 --> 00:20:00.032
suddenly turned around and agreed to give

00:20:00.032 --> 00:20:02.625
80 percent of his fortune

00:20:02.625 --> 00:20:04.342
to your foundation.

00:20:04.342 --> 00:20:06.078
How on Earth did that happen?

00:20:06.078 --> 00:20:08.056
I guess there's a long version
and a short version of that.

00:20:08.056 --> 00:20:09.438
We've got time for the short version.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:09.438 --> 00:20:13.193
BG: All right. Well, Warren was a close friend,

00:20:13.193 --> 00:20:17.850
and he was going to have his wife Suzie

00:20:17.850 --> 00:20:19.405
give it all away.

00:20:19.405 --> 00:20:22.846
Tragically, she passed away before he did,

00:20:22.846 --> 00:20:26.444
and he's big on delegation, and

00:20:26.444 --> 00:20:28.602
— (Laughter) —

00:20:28.602 --> 00:20:30.013
he said —

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:30.013 --> 00:20:30.868
CA: Tweet that.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:30.868 --> 00:20:34.029
BG: If he's got somebody
who is doing something well,

00:20:34.029 --> 00:20:38.486
and is willing to do it at no charge,

00:20:38.486 --> 00:20:40.864
maybe that's okay. But we were stunned.

00:20:40.864 --> 00:20:42.960
MG: Totally stunned.
BG: We had never expected it,

00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:44.525
and it has been unbelievable.

00:20:44.525 --> 00:20:47.665
It's allowed us to increase our ambition

00:20:47.665 --> 00:20:51.282
in what the foundation can do quite dramatically.

00:20:51.282 --> 00:20:52.786
Half the resources we have

00:20:52.786 --> 00:20:55.670
come from Warren's mind-blowing generosity.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:55.670 --> 00:20:56.554
CA: And I think you've pledged that

00:20:56.554 --> 00:20:58.344
by the time you're done,

00:20:58.344 --> 00:21:00.222
more than, or 95 percent of your wealth,

00:21:00.222 --> 00:21:02.117
will be given to the foundation.

NOTE Paragraph

00:21:02.117 --> 00:21:03.271
BG: Yes.

NOTE Paragraph

00:21:03.271 --> 00:21:07.020
CA: And since this relationship, it's amazing—

00:21:07.020 --> 00:21:10.386
(Applause)

00:21:10.386 --> 00:21:13.023
And recently, you and Warren

00:21:13.023 --> 00:21:14.903
have been going around trying to persuade

00:21:14.903 --> 00:21:16.879
other billionaires and successful people

00:21:16.879 --> 00:21:18.402
to pledge to give, what,

00:21:18.402 --> 00:21:24.160
more than half of their assets for philanthropy.

00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:26.575
How is that going?

00:21:26.575 --> 00:21:29.747
BG: Well, we've got about 120 people

00:21:29.747 --> 00:21:32.185
who have now taken this giving pledge.

00:21:32.185 --> 00:21:34.791
The thing that's great is that we get together

00:21:34.791 --> 00:21:36.900
yearly and talk about, okay,

00:21:36.900 --> 00:21:38.865
do you hire staff, what do you give to them?

00:21:38.865 --> 00:21:40.092
We're not trying to homogenize it.

00:21:40.092 --> 00:21:41.140
I mean, the beauty of philanthropy

00:21:41.140 --> 00:21:43.147
is this mind-blowing diversity.

00:21:43.147 --> 00:21:44.310
People give to some things.

00:21:44.310 --> 00:21:46.989
We look and go, "Wow."

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But that's great.

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That's the role of philanthropy

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is to pick different approaches,

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including even in one space, like education.

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We need more experimentation.

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But it's been wonderful, meeting those people,

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sharing their journey to philanthropy,

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how they involve their kids,

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where they're doing it differently,

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and it's been way more successful than we expected.

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Now it looks like it'll just keep growing in size

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in the years ahead.

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MG: And having people see that other people

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are making change with philanthropy,

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I mean, these are people who have

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created their own businesses,

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put their own ingenuity behind incredible ideas.

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If they put their ideas and their brain

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behind philanthropy, they can change the world.

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And they start to see others doing it, and saying,

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"Wow, I want to do that with my own money."

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To me, that's the piece that's incredible.

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CA: It seems to me, it's actually really hard

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for some people to figure out

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even how to remotely spend that much money

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on something else.

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There are probably some billionaires in the room

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and certainly some successful people.

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I'm curious, can you make the pitch?

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What's the pitch?

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BG: Well, it's the most fulfilling thing

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we've ever done,

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and you can't take it with you,

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and if it's not good for your kids,

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let's get together and brainstorm

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about what we can be done.

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The world is a far better place

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because of the philanthropists of the past,

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and the U.S. tradition here, which is the strongest,

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is the envy of the world.

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And part of the reason I'm so optimistic

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is because I do think philanthropy

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is going to grow

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and take some of these things

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government's not just good at
working on and discovering

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and shine some light in the right direction.

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CA: The world's got this terrible inequality,

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growing inequality problem

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that seems structural.

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It does seem to me that if more of your peers

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took the approach that you two have made,

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it would make a dent

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both in that problem and certainly

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in the perception of that problem.

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Is that a fair comment?

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BG: Oh yeah. If you take from the most wealthy

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and give to the least wealthy, it's good.

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It tries to balance out, and that's just.

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MG: But you change systems.

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In the U.S., we're trying to
change the education system

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so it's just for everybody

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and it works for all students.

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That, to me, really changes

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the inequality balance.

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BG: That's the most important.

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(Applause)

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CA: Well, I really think that most people here

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and many millions around the world

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are just in awe of the trajectory

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your lives have taken

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and the spectacular degree to which

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you have shaped the future.

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Thank you so much for coming to TED

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and for sharing with us and for all you do.

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BG: Thank you.
MG: Thank you.

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(Applause)

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BG: Thank you.
MG: Thank you very much.

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BG: All right, good job. (Applause)