The David Rubenstein Show: Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates

[Music] so what did your family thing did they say there's something wrong with this young man he wants to just do computers I was kind of considered a little strange have you ever thought how your life could be better off if you had gotten your Harvard degree I'm a weird dropout because I take college courses all the time what about Steve Jobs in those days what was your relationship with him we were both there at the very beginning you're the wealthiest man in the world for 20 years or more is that more of a burden than a pleasure to be the wealthiest man in the world would you fix your time please well people wouldn't recognize me at might I was fixed but okay just leave it this way 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 you built one of the great technology companies the world on one of the great companies in the world and now you're building and operating one of the great foundations in the world how do you compare the challenge of building Microsoft to the challenge of now running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation I think they have more in common than people might expect and the idea that you find what an innovation is going to be really stick to it build a team behind that have some setbacks and successes that you know kind of a theory of change now my Microsoft work was when I was very young I started when I was 17 and that was my primary focus until I was 53 when I made the transition and for the early part of that I was kind of maniacal I wasn't married no kids I didn't believe in weekends until I was about 30 I didn't believe in in vacations at all so it was incredibly fulfilling to write the code and be hands-on you know stay up all night so for my 20s and 30s I think the Microsoft thing was perfect I didn't have the breadth of knowledge that would let me play my role at the foundation I think was good preparation and then after I you know met Melinda got married sort of have kids I was looking at the world more broadly thinking about where the well should go and I'd say they're equally difficult you always know you could be doing better that you should learn more that you know getting building the team and thinking about things in it in a better way so you see the positive results but you always want to do even better so let's talk about Microsoft for a moment so you started that when you were in high school and you were driven to be involved with computers were you alone were that many people knew about computers in those days it's a fairly special time because computers when I was young were super expensive and my friend Paul Allen and I actually snuck in two places at the University of Washington where they had computers that weren't being used at night and so we were fascinated by what the computer could do but very few people are getting exposure we had to go out of our way and we were lucky that we did it all and so then when the idea of moving the computer onto a chip that Intel would make and it would make the computer literally millions of times cheaper than the ones we were using so both more powerful and available to people on a personal level then the idea of okay it would be very different the software you needed the way the industry would work we were super lucky to be there when that was happening so what did your family think did they say there's something wrong with this young man he wants to just do computers they knew I was obsessed with computers that I would skip athletics that I go in overnight that I you know leave the house sometimes when they prefer I wouldn't go work at night on these things and so it was kind of considered a little strange and the big moment was when I said instead of going to part of my senior year that I wanted to go work for company writing software so they were great about allowing that to be my hobby you went to Harvard and you're dropped out have you ever thought how your life could be better off if you had gotten your Harvard degree well I I'm a weird dropout because I take college courses all the time I love learning company courses and things so I love being a student and there were smart people around and you know they fed you and they gave you these nice grades that made you feel smart so I I feel it was unfortunate that I didn't get to stay there but I don't think I missed any knowledge because you know whatever I needed to learn I would I was still in a learning mode so in the early days you know you were just a college dropout you were very young looking did you get taken seriously by businessmen who are much older for some people that youth are and geekiness was like eh should we trust them you know that's so weird we've never seen something like that before so yes we had to fight for acceptance I couldn't rent cars so I had to take cabs around because I was too young and you know probably some people were a little tough but then as we got a little bit of success people were fascinated by this deep belief we had in in software okay so when Microsoft is moving forward you decide to take the company public in 1986 six and at that point you are a billionaire I was doing close to it within a year of going public I think there's some important cover that says the deal that made Bill Gates 360 million or some weird thing like that all right how did it change your life or it didn't change your life at all well that whole period of time was amazing because I was hiring people as fast as I could I had brought in Steve Ballmer who was very good at that and and he was helping out you know we had a sense of urgency that we wanted to lead the way there was this graphic Center face thing with Windows that we wanted to do so I was super busy and the idea that I could hire so quickly and invest and build this worldwide company it was fascinating to me but I was really busy so you know if some friend had tried to call me you know I I would have had too much time for that I was really into building this company and I was going out and telling people about the magic of software which was good for Microsoft but also helping them understand the opportunities and the huge change agent that software and eventually software plus the internet would would become so I was having fun it was amazing but I always thought hey you know we're one step away from not you know leading here we got to got to keep doing better when you had the famous IBM contract you won the contract to produce their operating system why did they let you in effect own it and they had the license it was that a mistake on their part yeah this is before graphics interface when you still just have text on the screen and so the software ms-dos was a key thing so it got to be more of a high-end machine include as ms-dos they didn't see how big this machine would be and they their legal department didn't want to take responsibility for the source code they had a fairly limited license and that we understood that this was a seminal machine and other people who do similar machines so that was fairly advantageous to us they didn't see the values being in the software they thought that the hardware was the key and software was just a sort of necessary thing so they had realized the vision we had which was that software over time would be way more important than Hardware they would have negotiated probably a different deal you have a fair amount of money for anybody your age at that time certainly did you say I'll go splurge and buy a nice car I'll buy an airplane I'll buy a boat or you just didn't really care about that I bought one thing that was a tiny bit of a splurge what was that my first car that I owned was a Porsche 911 it was used but it was an incredible car and that was actually when I was down in Albuquerque and sometimes when I would want to think at night I just go out and drive around it at high speed and fortunately I I didn't kill myself doing that and what about Steve Jobs in those days what was your relationship with him in the early days and how did it change well we were both there at the very beginning the Apple one was a kik computer that Steve Wozniak designed and he worked with Steve and they came and offered it at various of these computer club meetings and we went to lots of computer club meetings so we were sort of colleagues in pitching the gospel of personal computing we were kind of competitors the the time we work together most intensely was after the IBM PC came out Steve had a group actually a small group at Apple that was doing the Macintosh and he came to us early on and asked us if we'd commit resource so we actually put more people on the project than Apple did and did the early application software that used that Mouse graphics interface and so it was a huge win Bowl for Microsoft and for Apple when the Macintosh became so successful when your mother first said I'd like you to come and have dinner with me and Warren Buffett will be here you should meet him you didn't seem that interested why was that well Warren I thought it was somebody who bought and sold securities which is a very zero-sum thing that's not curing disease or a cool piece of software and the idea of you know kind of looking at volume curves and that's why it was so shocking when I met him [Music] so your company grows it becomes successful becomes the most valuable company in the world at one point at what point do you say I've made a fair amount of money I don't need to do this anymore I want to do something else with my life 1995 is a big year where we ship product conveniently called Windows 95 and our software's doing well and we emerge we'd always have the greatest depth of engineering and we were slightly the biggest but we really emerges the successful company and and so I started thinking about wow you know there's a lot of value here at Microsoft what of other philanthropists done historically so during the 90s I'm thinking about that my mom tragically passes away in the same year as I get married 1994 my dad is volunteering to help out think about the philanthropy piece so it was in the year 2000 that I put twenty billion dollars into the foundation and you know then it became the the biggest foundation at that point you mentioned you got married in 1994 you married a Duke graduate how did you have time to lose somebody when you're running your company and how haven't much time to that take well she was an employee of Microsoft and we'd run into each other actually New York City City we ended up sitting together in a dinner and she's an amazing person and you know kind of caught me by surprise how much that engaged my attention even versus all this exciting Microsoft stuff I was doing so we you know dated on and off for about five years and then decided to get married so you have decided that your foundation would focus principally but other things as well but principally on health in Africa and K to 12 education United States is that right yeah health of all the poorest but big Africa's paradigm addict so how did you come to those conclusions that those are the two things you wanted to work on as opposed to everything else we talked about it a lot so that's the decision that Melinda and I made we wanted to take the greatest injustice in the world something that we could make a huge difference in and that's health now we brought that a bit by doing agriculture and sanitation's and other things and then we wanted to take a cause that would help the u.s. be as strong as it could and in that case trying to help improve educational opportunity is our big thing you and Melinda go into the field why do you feel you need to go into the field in Africa or Latin America any part of the world where you're giving away money and actually meet people that you're giving money to and learn well I've chosen to spend my time and Melinda spends her time building the foundation is an institution that really has an impact and I get a lot of enjoyment this is you know how I've taken everything I've learned from Microsoft and the position I'm in and helping to drive the strategy and go out and see what's going on with this work that's my full-time job and it's a wonderful job your foundation has a certain life it's not a perpetual foundation is that I think it's a 20 years after either you or your wife the last one to live dies that it would end is that how it works that's right the way that we're managing the institution and keeping it excellent and designing it to solve problems that can be totally solved so we work on malaria this foundation should be able to participate in getting rid of that all these infectious diseases that so disproportionately hurt the poor and really explain most the difference between why a poor child has a 50 times greater chance of dying than a child in a wealthy country in 30 or 40 years those problems should have been brought to an end and whatever the new problems philanthropy should go after the people who are alive then and picking great executives and building institutions and go solve they'll do a much better job and then we can just writing down a little guidance so it is a limited-time foundation it's okay he let there be a dialog when your mother first said I'd like you to come and have dinner with me and Warren Buffett will be here you should meet him you didn't seem that interested why was that well Warren I thought it was somebody who bought and sold securities which is a very zero-sum thing that's not curing disease or a cool piece of software and the idea of you know kind of looking at volume curves and it doesn't invent anything and so I thought my way of looking at the world what I wanted to figure out do and what he looked at that there wouldn't be much intersection and that's why it was so shocking when I met him he was the first person to really ask me about software and software pricing and why wasn't IBM with all of their strengths able to overwhelm Microsoft and what what was going to happen in terms of how software would change the world and you know he let me ask him about okay well why do you invest in certain industries and why are some banks more proper than others and he was clearly a broad systems thinker and so it started a conversation that has been fun and enriching and you know an incredible friendship that was completely unexpected and he taught you how to play bridge or did you already know I know how to play bridge but I had done it just our family had done it and then because Warren it was a chance to spend time with Lauren I renewed my bridge skill at first very poorly but both golf and bridge were things that we did in our hour hours that we got to goof off together you've given up on golf well Warren gave up on golf a few years ago and so my primary excuse to play golf has gone away so I'm I'm golfing not much now tennis is become my my primary sport Warren Buffett called you one day and said by the way I'm going to give you most of my money were you surprised when he said he wanted to give you all this money from his wealth to your foundation that was a a complete surprise because Warren is the best investor and he's built this unbelievable company and he was giving me advice about all the things I was doing I was learning so much from him but his wealth was devoted to a foundation that his wife was in charge of and so tragically she passed away and so then he had to think that is his initial plan wouldn't make sense and and much to my surprise he decided that a part of the wealth a little over 80% of it would come to our foundation so it was a huge honor a huge responsibility you know an incredible thing because it let us raise our level of ambition even beyond what we would have done without that that you know in my most definitions the most generous gift of all time and you started with Warren and Melinda The Giving Pledge what is that about and how is that work well Warren was brainstorming with us about how did philanthropists figure out what to do and what how could they kind of help share with each other without giving up the diversity what they did and so he got us to do some dinners with people who are already doing amazing philanthropy and talk about how they built staff and picked causes and not that they would give to the same things but that they would the quality and even the the how early people get engaged would be enhanced by the people getting together and making a public commitment to give the majority of their wealth away and so that's become the Giving Pledge group you're the wealthiest man in the world for 20 years or more how does it affect your life daily people come up to you all the time and ask for money or they expect you to buy them things we've gotten tired of it you [Music] when you were doing Microsoft the beginning you were doing the coding yourself and you could presumably no more than coding they just about anybody but now if you have so many other responsibilities when Microsoft develops a new piece of software are you able to really talk to the software engineers in the same level that you could 20 years ago well I'm certainly nowhere near as hands-on as I was when I would either write the code or look it over and hire all the programmers and in my career this evolution of being an individual performer than a manager or manager managers and then setting broad strategy you have to get used to the fact you don't have as much control but I try and understand enough about software that the trade-offs were making about what feature should we put in what the basic design should be I still enjoy those discussions and even today over at Microsoft we get to talk about ok what should the next office do you know how can Windows be better how's the user interface going to change when we have speech and handwriting and those things so I'm able to participate but it is a way more complex field and you know I couldn't actually write all the code myself anymore when somebody turns on their computer today they have to have three fingers usually and they put a finger on ctrl alt and delete and it seems a little awkward to do that why did you do that and why do people have to have that mechanism to turn on the computer well fortunately most machines nowadays have moved away from that but the idea that we knew that there was logic in the keyboard that could detect a truly unique single signal that would bypass the software that was running so you could know it was really starting over clearly that ended up being an awkward piece of user interface if we had to do it over again we wouldn't do it it sort of was in the chasm between Microsoft and IBM then it ended up being that way and you know it's kind of the poster child of hate couldn't you have made the stuff a little simpler so you're the wealthiest man in the world for 20 years or more how does it affect your life daily people come up to you all the time and asked for money or they expect you to buy them things fortunately people know that that wealth is dedicated to the foundation and so they have ideas that are in the Foundation's area infectious disease improving education then it's super interesting to have them talk to hear or talk to those people I have the the benefit of being well-known so I can go out meet interesting people and you know share my views and get a lot of attention I'd say net that's a benefit when I'm out with the kids then it can be you know a tiny bit of a drawback that you you may not get as much privacy as you'd like but overall it you know I my success has allowed me to you know get more done build partnerships you know meet great people how do you deal with it when you want to go shopping or you don't don't go to shop I go shop I go out to the theater people don't come up to unite hi for selfies or something they can yeah but that's that's pretty quick I and people are usually very nice about it what about your children everybody who's wealthy who has children has to deal with how do you train your children to live with the wealth how much do you give them and how do you get them involved in philanthropies well our kids are young enough that the key focus is helping them you know enjoy learning get a great education all of them will pick careers that aren't related to software philanthropy they will strike out in their own direction and be great you know in their own way whatever it is they picked to do so we've chosen that they'll have enough wealth that they'll never be poor anything but we're not going to take billions of dollars and have that defined their life the vast majority of the wealth is dedicated to the the foundation and so far you know they're they're great kids and you know they they enjoy learning about what we're doing in African you know that may shape where where they go with their lives but it'll be up to them when people look back on what you've done 20 years from now or 30 years from now what would you like to have people say Bill Gates achieved I don't think it's important for me to be remembered specifically I do hope that infectious disease is largely eliminated as a problem so that nobody's having to talk about it and people can focus on other issues that would be a huge great thing if our work has helped improve us education that would be a huge great thing you know most importantly are that people who really know me my kids that you know they feel I was a good father gave them an opportunity to go create their own own life

Channel: David Rubenstein

Views: 1,424,234

Keywords: Bloomberg

Id: KlV0fyDC3Gc

Length: 25min 4sec (1504 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2016