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00:00So what do you think some people do not believe that there is such a thing as climate change. You know they must not take them off science courses or something. I don't know if you met with President Trump. You could convince him on Paris to maybe get back enders beyond your capabilities to do that. I . Someone else should do that. So are you worried about the power of A.I. to disrupt our civilization that put people out of work . Those kind of things. The increased productivity that will come from me I will create dilemmas . Would you fix your time please. People wouldn't recognize me if my time was fixed but it just seemed to sway . All right . I don't consider myself a journalist and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though I have a day job running a private equity firm . How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . For about 20 years or so you've been the wealthiest man in the world but because you've given away so much money. Recently Jeff Bezos became wealthier than you think if you had stayed in college and gotten your college degree . I mean you don't feel inadequate now because the only the second wealthiest man in the world is that right. No I mean it's a sign that I haven't given the money away fast enough to drop out of the top 10. You know the market's been strong . Actually the market has been strong Microsoft is up 35 percent this year. So to what do you attribute that . The company is doing super well. Such an ad dollars. A great CEO . You know the whole dream of the importance of software has really come true. The five most valuable companies in the world are these technology companies. Microsoft has a good share of that. I get to spend about a sixth of my time now it's over at Microsoft. So recently you said that the biggest mistake you've made professionally was that Microsoft should have had the Android technology. Why was that the biggest mistake . When you're in a field you know we were in the field of doing operating systems for personal computers. We knew the mobile phone would be very popular. And so we were doing what was called Windows Mobile. We missed being the dominant mobile operating system by a very tiny amount. We were distracted during Irene and Trust trial. We didn't assign the best people to do the work. So it's the the biggest mistake I made in terms of something that was clearly within our skill set. We were clearly the company that that should have achieved that. Here are two main areas of focus our K12 education ISE states and health care in the least wealthy parts of the world. Recently you've decided to make another effort not necessarily through your foundation but through breakthrough energy to try to do something about climate change. Why are you so worried about climate change. Well the climate change is a problem that gets worse every year. And yet what you have to do on a global basis is very dramatic and reshaping the entire physical economy that we have. And so it's a very complex problem and it's a problem that fits where I see my value added which is looking at something through the lens of innovation not just the R and D part but the creation of products and the deployment of products . And so helping educate people about okay what what are the sources of these greenhouse gases and how do you get on a path of innovation so that you can get global adoption and actually bring emissions down dramatically because that part of your foundation you're doing this outside your foundation. Okay . The the part where you mitigate and you help the poor countries with better seeds and better policies partly through development aid that is through the foundation that mitigation part the part where you invent new ways of making fuels electricity cement steel meet. That is done directly by me with a lot of investments including the fund that you mentioned the so-called Breakthrough Energy Ventures is a fund that I . Assembled a group of 22 people to put money into companies that are trying to commercialize the breakthrough. All right. But that's a fund of one billion dollars right. You put in 250 million. So can one billion dollars really make that much of a difference. A billion . It's actually been very catalytic. So far they have 20 investments. Late next year we'll probably raise another billion to a billion and a half. You know this is all about innovation. Some right now the premium if you said OK you have to make steel with no emissions. That steel would cost you four times what steel does today. Your electric bill would more than double . If we just take the technology we have today. So yes supporting those companies and drawing other investors in one thing Breakthrough Energy has done has gotten a lot of cool investors. Green investing didn't go very well in the first round. And so it looked like a field that might evaporate to some degree because B these come in and being able to bring a depth of understanding to these things not only they've been able to invest the first billion will be fully committed within the next year. But we've gotten other investors so that's gone quite well. And in the technologies they only invest in companies who have a chance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a half a percent each company. And you know they've found 20 and I'm sure they'll find another 20 . Now I'm the smallest investor in that fund I think. So am I going to get my money back and make a return or what do you want me to say. I'd say it's of the things you invest in. It's probably one of the higher risk things. It is being done on a commercial basis. You know we're likely to have a few significant successes. So it's not philanthropic in the sense that you can deduct it . But the the time frame of the return. Right. And the riskiness of returns are fairly high. So we do expect him to make a profit out of that fund. So why do you think some people do not believe that there is such a thing as climate change. What is propelling them to say there's no climate change. Is it scientific evidence or some other political reason. I won't mention anybody. But there are some people who don't think that there is climate change. Well you know they must not take him off science courses or something. I don't know if the climate is a complex issue . And you know just understanding how you do the abatement requires a lot of in-depth study in the United States since become somewhat of a partisan issue which is unfortunate you know might make it harder to achieve the type of agreements we need here here in the United States. But you know we have two problems. We have the people who deny climate and then we have the people who think it's easy to solve and we need to help educate both of those groups. But in the history of human civilization is there any evidence that people will do things that will affect their great great grandchildren but that they won't see the benefit from. Well the United States actually of all governments has been willing to take on very difficult problems like cancer and make gigantic investments knowing that the real payoff would be many decades down the road . You know when that was first being pushed you know people are saying hey this is important. Climate change is like that where you've got to take a long term perspective. And government at its best is when it's taking that long term perspective and funding the basic R and D in the policies that lead to to scale deployment. You worry that there's too much power and too much data in the hands of these technology companies. Well technology's become so central that government has to think OK what does that mean about elections . What does it mean about bullying . Now a large part of the carbon we have in the atmosphere now is caused by the electricity grid which is about 25 percent or so . Exactly. So twenty four percent it comes from agriculture and forestry. Why is that causing such a big increase in carbon . Well the math category is a variety of things. When you clear land you're taking in the carbon that stored seeing the trees or plants there. And you're releasing all of that like burning the land sea in Indonesia for palm oil plantations . Another thing is that cows and other grass eating species have a digestion system that emits methane. And methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas. And so cows alone account for about 6 percent of global emissions. And so we need to change. Cows just cows alone. How are we gonna do that . Well actually of all the categories the one that is gone better than I would have expected five years ago is this work to make what's called artificial meat. And so you have people like impossible or beyond meat both which I invested in. You eat it as well and you like it that. Absolutely. You can go to Burger King and buy the impossible burger. All right. Is it healthier for you or just healthier for the average. It's slightly healthier for you in terms of less cholesterol. It's of course dramatic reduction in methane emissions. You know animal cruelty manure management and the pressure that meat consumption puts on land use. What about electric cars. You think that's a solution. It absolutely. They if you look at the transport sector that's 10 percent of passenger cars . With a bout a another factor of two to three in batter improvement which is possible the mainstream for passenger cars can become electric. So you have to make that transition . You've got to scale it up. You've got to make sure electricity is is zero emission. But for trucks and planes there's almost no chance the batteries will be good enough. And so there you'll still need to create liquid fuels either with electricity or biofuels some way. Fuels are amazing. You know the energy density of gasoline is 30 times the energy density of the best battery we can make. And so if you look at like a a container ship that crosses the ocean having your fuel be 30 times less efficient would mean that 90 percent of the weight you're carrying would be the batteries instead of the cargo. And so trucks and planes and boats electrification is unlikely to work in those cases . So we need ways of making fuels that are our zero carbon. When you talk to heads of state about this they roll their eyes and say we're happy to meet you. Can I have a selfie with you. And so forth. But do they really do anything. And what are you trying to get heads of state to do. Well in the Paris climate conference . One of the things that was missing most of focus on R and D . And so actually France said yes we want that to be for the first time at a cop. A real issue that gets discussed. And so what was called mission innovation which Prime Minister Modi got to pick that name. That idea of a commitment of over 30 governments to double their energy R D was a significant milestone that came out of that conference in order to get that commitment. I had to make the commitment that there would be breakthrough energy that would take things out of those labs and help get them into the marketplace. So there's been some progress. Climate is complicated enough that you know you don't want. You want a broad set of people in the government to understand the complexities and in terms of the R and D work that needs to be done. Unless the US is deeply engaged it's unlikely to happen because so much of the world's capacity to do that innovation is here in the United States pulled out more or less of the Paris accord though not technically so for another year or so. Is that of concern to you. And do you think this is going to hurt the effort to change climate change around the world. Yeah it's a huge step backwards. Even if you meet all the current commitments in that climate accord you're still way over two degrees of warming. And most countries are behind the commitments they made. Those commitments were a set of reductions where you would compare your to 20 30 emissions to your 2005 emissions. And there's a little bit of that that's easy. The shift from coal to natural gas which is a one time thing is a lot of that . And yet the world is falling short. And so to have people like the United States say OK that's even that's not important. It just shows how daunting this is going to be. There's no way we'll get there without the US coming back in in a strong way . You think if you met with President Trump you could convince him in Paris to maybe get back enders that beyond your capabilities to do that . I. Someone else should do that . All right. Now the largest companies in the world in the United States today are technology companies Apple Facebook Google Microsoft and so forth . Are you worried that there's too much power and too much data in the hands of these technology companies. And are you surprised the government hasn't done something more than they've done today about this . Well technology's become so central that government has to think OK what does that mean about elections. What does it mean about bullying. What does it mean about wiretapping authorities that led to find out what's going on financially or drug money laundering things like that. So yes the government needs to get involved. I for the early years of Microsoft grade the people that I didn't have an office in Washington D.C. And eventually I came to regret that statement because I was kind of almost like Tom Keene Washington D.C. . And so now the technology companies partly because of the lesson of Microsoft . Of course you know they could have seen that lesson through AT & T or IBM or Kodak or a lot of innovators as well. They're very engaged. There will be more regulation of the tech sector things like privacy. I'm sure though. And there should be at some point federal regulation that relates to that. The fact that now this is the way people consume media has really brought it into a realm that you know we need to shape it so that the benefits outweigh outweigh the negatives. You have three children seem to be well adjusted and you've kept them out of the newspapers and so forth . How do you avoid spoiling kids like that. I think that's a huge problem . So if you were 20 years old today and you wanted to start a new company drop out of Harvard. What company or what area would you want to started in. Well this is a great time to be doing innovation because the tools of innovation are so much better . There are lots of things in biology that are very interesting . There are lots of things in energy that are interesting given my background. I would start in a company that whose goal would be to teach computers how to read so that they can absorb and understand all the written knowledge of the world. That's an area where a high has yet to make progress and it will be quite profound when we achieve that goal. So are you worried about the power of A.I. to disrupt our civilization and put people out of work. Those kind of things. The increased productivity that will come from me I will create dilemmas about what should people do with that extra time and you've got to consider that a good thing even though it will be an interesting set of adjustments that have to take place. You assess the two most urgent issues where K12 in the United States and health in the less developed areas. How did you pick those two. Any regrets about picking those two. And have you made progress on either of those two. Well global health is our biggest area. And there. The progress has been really unbelievable not just because of our work but our partners that include the U.S. government spending on pet far the European donors who really stepped up on these health issues. One of the metrics of importance is the number of children in the world to die before the age of 5. When we got started in the year 2000 that was over 10 million a year. Now it's about 5 million a year. And so you know it's just mind blowing and people aren't that aware of it is you'd like them to be the those deaths because of getting out vaccines and understanding a bit more about nutrition. Those deaths have been cut in half. Now the goal is to cut them in half again by 2030. Our U.S. education work that is not just K through 12 that includes higher ed as well . They're the key metrics dropout rates math and verbal achievement. Those metrics have moved essentially not at all. And even as the U.S. is spending more resources on education we spend by far more than any any country in the world. And yet our results are quite a bit worse than almost all the other rich countries and even some middle income countries. You know even Vietnam now is passing us in terms of that math result. So the they're the field as a whole and our work has not had the impact we hoped for. So today people come to you all the time for money. I assume everywhere you go people say by the way I have this thing you should invest and buy. I have a couple of myself I've mentioned later. Now just know a couple of things. You should invest in the things you give money to. So how do you resist. You have some person who says no for you or how do you do that. Let many people many people say no. Well once you pick what you care about if somebody has something that can make a difference in global health we're super interested in and we have staff of fifteen hundred people. And if it's to do with global health some of those people come out and talk through with you whatever your innovation is and how we can partner with you on that. So that's clearly in our area. If it is something that can substantially improve K through 12 education then we are going to be very interested in it. If people are asking outside of those things then you know fortunately you can say no because FOCUSSES is key to philanthropy. So people have recognized over the years that raising children is difficult. Jackie Kennedy famously said if you mess up raising your children nothing else matters. You have three children seems to be well adjusted and you've kept them out of the newspapers and so forth. How do you avoid spoiling kids like that. I think that's a huge problem . You know obviously . Our kids have benefited from having a great education and our opportunity to travel and you know so they're very lucky in that sense making sure that the visibility or the way people treat them is not unnatural. There are some challenges that come with that. So far they've handled it well. You know Melinda is the one who deserves any or certainly almost all the credit for the kids so far doing very well in our kids. We said to them that that you know the money is going to the foundation . And so they don't think of themselves as sort of aristocratic . But what are they or do you tell them that they say can you give me a little bit or something. Or they don't they don't ask for some. They'll get a little bit. How much money has your foundation given away today. About 40 billion dollars. 40 billion. Yeah. We're now up to giving 6 billion dollars a year . So finally if people are watching now and they say all right I want to do something about climate change but I'm just one person. I don't have the resources. Bill Gates says. What can any average person do to have some impact on climate change in your view. Well certainly they can take. Things like these new meat products or how they buy electricity and they can help drive up the scale of the. The green solutions. The most important thing at this stage is their political voice. There's going to be a need to put substantial resources into this effort and . We need. We'll need a bipartisan solution. And just send the right signal to the market. You actually don't. If you just win one year and then it gets repealed that doesn't help at all . The key is what people see. The policies will be over the next 30 years on a consistent basis. And that means it's a much higher bar than just a one time victory .

The David Rubenstein Show: Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair and Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates talks about global warming, carbon emissions, regulating big tech, and why he thinks Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat can help the environment. He appears on "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations." The show was recorded on June 24 in Washington. (Source: Bloomberg)

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