[♪] so, what did your family think? did they say there's something wrong with this 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 i 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? woman: would you fix your tie, please. i thought people wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed, but okay. [woman laughs] just leave it this way? all right. [♪] [rubenstein reading on-screen text]

i began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. [rubenstein reading on-screen text] you built one of the great technology companies of the world, and one of the great companies of the world. 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. you know, the idea that you find what an innovation is gonna 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 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 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 it was good preparation, and then after i, you know, met melinda, got married, started having kids, i was looking at the world more broadly, thinking about where the wealth 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 and building the team, and thinking about things in a better way. so you see the positive results, but you always want to do even better. rubenstein: all right, 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? well, it's a fairly special time, because computers, when i was young, were super expensive. and my friend, paul allen, and i actually snuck into 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 were 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, uh, 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'd go in overnight, that i'd, you know, leave the house sometimes when they prefer i wouldn't go work at night on these things. and so i 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 a company writing software. so they were great about allowing that to be my hobby. 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 were much older? for some people, that youth, uh, and geekiness, uh, was like, "hey, 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 software. okay, so when microsoft is moving forward, you decided to take the company public in 1980... six. six. and at that point you are a billionaire? uh, yeah-- close to it? pretty close to it. within a year of going public, i think. there's some fortune cover that says, "the deal that made bill gates $360 million," or some weird thing like that. how did it change your life, or didn't it change your life? well, that whole period of time was amazing because i was hiring people as fast as i could, i'd brought in steve ballmer, who was very good at that, and he was helping out. you know, we had a sense of urgency that we wanted to lead the way. there was this graphics interface thing with windows

that we wanted to do. so i was super busy. and the idea that i could hire so quickly, 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 wouldn't 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 gotta-- gotta 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 to 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, including this ms-dos. they didn't see how big this machine would be, and 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 would do similar machines. so that was fairly advantageous to us. they didn't see the value as being in the software. they thought that the hardware was the key and software was just a sort of necessary thing. so if 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. 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 wanna think at night, i'd just go out and drive around at high speed. and fortunately 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 1 was a kit 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 time we worked together most intensely

was after the ibm pc came out. ste 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 resources. 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, both for microsoft and for apple when the macintosh became so successful. so your company grows, it becomes successful, it becomes the most valuable company in the world. at what point do you say, "i've made a fair amount of money. i don't need to do this anymore. i wanna do something else with my life." 1995 is a big year where we ship a product conveniently called windows 95, and our software's doing well. and we emerge-- we had always had the greatest depth of engineering, and we were slightly the biggest, but we really emerge as the successful company. and, uh... and so i start thinking about, wow, you know,

there's a lot of value here at microsoft. what have 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 $20 billion into the foundation, and, you know, then it became... the biggest foundation at that point. you mention you got married in 1994. you married a duke graduate. how did you have time to woo somebody when you're running your company, and how much time did that take? well, she was an employee of microsoft. and we had run into each other, actually, in new york city. we ended up sitting together in a dinner. and she's an amazing person, and, you know, kinda 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 in the united states. is that right? yeah. health for all the poorest, but africa's paradigmatic. 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. and we broadened that a bit by doing agriculture, and sanitations, and some 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. [babies cooing] rubenstein: 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 as 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 it, i think it's 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--

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 of 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 to go solve, they'll do a much better job than we can, just writing down a little guidance. so it is a limited time foundation. [indistinct speech] rubenstein: 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? bill: well, warren, i thought of as 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, kinda 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 and do, and what he looked at, that there wouldn't be much intersection. and that's why it was 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 strength, able to overwhelm microsoft? and what was gonna 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 profitable 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 knew how to play bridge, but i had done it just to-- our family had done it. and then because warren-- it was a chance to spend time with warren, i renewed my bridge skill, at first very poorly. but both golf and bridge were things that we did in our 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 golfing not much now. tennis has become my primary sport. warren buffett called you one day and said, "by the way, i'm gonna 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 complete surprise, because... warren, uh, 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 his initial plan wouldn't make sense. and much to my surprise, he had decided that a part of the wealth, a little over 80 percent 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, you know, by 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 has that worked? well, warren was brainstorming with us about how did philanthropists figure out what to do, and, uh, what-- how could they kind of help share with each other without, uh... giving up the diversity of what they did. and so he got us to do some dinners with people who were already doing amazing philanthropy, and talk about how they've built staff, and picked causes, and not that they would give to the same things, but that they would-- the quality and even the-- how early people would 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. do you have any regrets about not getting involved

in philanthropy at a younger age, or you're pretty happy with the way it's turned out? well, i'm very impressed with people like mark zuckerberg, who, in his early 30s, is already doing some big gifts and making this clear commitment with his wife, priscilla chan. and, actually, she's... [chuckles] ...putting the time into it, even more than he's able to. it's great. i'm not sure, in my case, that it would've worked. i think there's some natural progression of when you get the time to have the confidence, when you have the liquidity, but i would say that people who wait to do it through their will-- that, or wait until their last five or six years. that's certainly not optimal. you wanna still be energetic and able to get engaged and where you still have associates that you can pull in-- into the activity. your will is sort of a way to do it, but in some ways it's the least effective way.

when you were doing microsoft at the beginning, you were doing the coding yourself, and you could presumably know more about coding than just about anybody. but now that 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, then a manager, a manager of 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 we're making about what features 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, okay, what should the next office do? you know, how can windows be better?

how's the user interface gonna 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 control, 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 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 that it ended up being that way. and, you know, it's kinda become the poster child of, "hey, couldn't you have made this stuff a little simpler?" man: we love bill! we love bill! rubenstein: 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, they ask 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 me or talk to those people. i have the benefit of being well-known. so i can go out and 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 may not get as much privacy

as you'd like. but overall, it... you know, i-i-i... my success has allowed me to, you know, get more done, build partnerships, meet great people. how do you deal with it when you wanna go shopping, or you don't go to shop? i go shop. i go out to the theater-- people don't come up to you all the time, for selfies, or something? bill: they can. yeah, but that's pretty quick. 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 philanthropy? 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 or philanthropy. they will strike out in their own direction, and be great, you know, in their own way,

whatever it is they pick to do. so... we've chosen that they'll have enough wealth, that they'll never be poor or anything, but we're not going to take billions of dollars, and have that define their life. the vast majority of the wealth is dedicated to the foundation. and so far, you know, they're great kids, and, you know, they enjoy learning about what we're doing in africa, and, you know, that may shape where they go with their lives. but it'll be up to them. so in any given period of time, there's always somebody who's the wealthiest person in the world, and historically, people who are the wealthiest have flashed their money, they do a lot of things that are somewhat gaudy. you obviously haven't done that. but whenever you buy something, if you buy a home or anything, do you have a sense that people jack up the price when they see you're coming, or do you really negotiate the price, or how do you have a sense

of the value of money, given the amount you have? well, you try to be smart about how you use money. you know, i don't buy many things. you know, my greatest luxury is that i'm able to travel... on a jet a lot of the times, which is kind of an outrageous thing, but it gives me flexibility, and, you know, those are, heh, known amount of money to buy, so... you know, i don't wanna waste money on things, but overwhelmingly, that's making sure the foundation is run well. and as the foundation's giving away money, you know, i'll drop down that wealthy list quite dramatically, because we're giving away more than we're taking in. today, you've got a life that most people would love. you're the wealthiest man in the world, one of the most successful business people, the biggest philanthropist. is there any regret

that you have about the life you've lead? i feel i've been super lucky, so i wouldn't, you know, say that, uh, you know, i feel bad and wanna go back and change anything. you know, obviously, at microsoft, you know, i wish i'd done phones better or search better. there's many things that other companies seized the opportunity and did an amazing job. now, microsoft did enough that it's a phenomenal company, but, no, i don't think back with remorse, because i think the mistakes, you know, help you learn, uh... and you try not to make the same ones twice. when people look back on what you've done 20 years from now, 30 years from now, what would you like to have people say bill gates achieved? well, 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 u.s. 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 life. [♪] ♪ be more pbs be more pbs ♪

- [npay homage to their the ceraclassical past, lugo but are firmly rooted in the realities of his inner city upbringing. - coming from where i come from, i have all these relationships with visual things and when i make pottery, i'm able to take those experiences that i have and relate them and communicate them to people who may not have had those. - [narrator] artists are helping to reinvigorate the conversation about climate change by presenting its truths more artfully. - i recognize the beauty and i want to bring it in front of as many people as i can, so they see it and they fall in love with it the way that i have. - [narrator] and composer gerald busby could not have guessed that after surviving heartbreak, hiv, and drug addiction, he would experience an artistic rebirth in his twilight years. - i'm at my best in terms of writing music, in terms of talking, in terms of anything.