
An exclusive interview with Bill Gates - xmpir
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2jOv8ZdDW
======
Cookingboy
The thing that makes me admire Bill Gates more than most others:

There are two types of currencies in the world: time and money, and most of us
trade one for the other in various forms (pay for convenience, or spend time
working for a paycheck).

For the richest man in the world, he has all the money he'll ever need, but
just like the rest of us, he only has limited amount of time left on this
planet. Yet he is fully devoted on spending that form of currency, which is
infinitely more valuable to him than even others, on the causes he believes
in.

That alone convinces me on his sincerity and his true desire in making a
difference.

~~~
wmeredith
Eh, sincerity does not make a person right. Look into the eyes of any
religious extremist for evidence of that. Gates thinks the internet won't save
the world, but he's dead wrong. The internet, in it's current form, allows
information to flow at will. And if there is any silver bullet for society's
ills, it's certainly education. Teach a man to fish...

~~~
throwawaykf02
See my comments in this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668578](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6668578)

The situation for the people Gates is thinking of is very, very different from
what we can even imagine.

~~~
phaus
I actually don't find it hard at all to understand the situation they are in,
and I suspect not many people do.

That being said, I agree with Gates. There are far more important things than
100% global connectivity.

------
nicholassmith
There's two arguments that can be made: 'teach a man to fish' is basically
what providing Internet access would do, it could enable a whole new
generation of people access to information and allow them to significantly
improve their lives, or for them to fully realise their potential. How many of
them may actually be able to contribute directly to improving their lives, and
the lives of millions of others if they had the resources?

But Gates isn't wrong, providing Internet access isn't what they need _right_
now. They need safe water, and a cure to malaria, and improved medical
services, and dozens of other things. Where Gates argument falls down is that
it doesn't need to be a single focus, why not have the Gates foundation solve
malaria cures why another goes after safe water, and another goes after
Internet access. A multi-pronged attack to improve lives, and to give them the
tools to improve their own.

~~~
jedrek
I get the feeling that people in most developed countries have a pretty naive
view of poor countries, especially in Africa. The striking images of the
famines of the 1980s in Ethiopia are what that most people recall, when they
think of "poor Africa". That thinking is completely disingenuous and quite
hurtful to Africa's development.

Technology has made incredible inroads in the continent. While we fret over
Facebook running slow on 2010-era Android phones, micro-economies are thriving
thanks to feature phones in Africa's poorest regions. Children who leave to
work in the city are able to transfer money back to their village. They top up
the village cell phone owner's pay-as-you go account, the owner then pays out
that amount (in cash) to the family there. Farmers are able to get up-to-date
info on crop prices, helping them from getting short-changed by opportunistic
buyers.

Yes, there are parts of Africa where fresh water and basic medicine are the
biggest need, but there are also much larger parts where those needs are (to
some degree) met. There are many forms of charity and humanitarian aid, they
can all have a massive positive impact on the communities that receive them.

~~~
nicholassmith
I was reading about how in Africa they've built their own networks with just
basic phones, and it fascinated me. What they've managed to achieve with what
we view as obsolete technology is fantastic, which is why I'd be curious to
see what they could do with more technology and how it could shape their
lives. Like this guy: [http://gizmodo.com/313408/nigerian-man-builds-working-
helico...](http://gizmodo.com/313408/nigerian-man-builds-working-helicopters-
from-junk) that's just an awesome hacker ethic.

------
don_draper
"A voracious reader – he has always taken periodic breaks from his regular
routine to read about and ponder the biggest problems he has taken on – his
conversation is littered with references to authors. Given the smallest
excuse, he plunges into a description of the different types of polio and
vaccines – and then into the genetic tests that show how the disease once
persisted and spread in areas like Uttar Pradesh even when full outbreaks were
rare."

The above snippet represents the kinds of things discussed in the article. He
talked about the internet for like one sentence. Bad thread title

------
throwawaykf02
Many people are making the leap from "access to information" to "better lives"
without proper explanation of _how_ that would work. Sure, for _us_ it's
obvious, but we're not the demographic Gates is talking about. The poorest of
the poor have drastically different problems, and it's not obvious to me that
they're something information can solve. "Student researching school report"
seems like a good example, but much of this demographic don't even have the
opportunity to go to school. And considering a full 50% of India lives below
the poverty line, that's a humongous demographic.

And whatever problems _can_ be solved by information, the poor are already
making do via cheap mobile phones and their own ad hoc social networks. Which
is probably the only thing that's viable for them, considering many can't even
read properly and so speech is the best form of communication for them.

You could say that Internet access will create new industries and
opportunities and the economic benefits will "trickle down", but 1) the
timeframes are much larger (as Gates says), and 2) in my limited experience,
very little seems to trickle down below the lower middle class. In fact, in
India, the lower classes decry the "IT outsourcing" revolution, because prices
went up across the board because the middle class suddenly had more disposable
income. This did create a bunch of new jobs in the service industry, but on
the whole the price increase only made things worse for the very poor.

~~~
alexandros
Funny you mention "not being able to go to school" as a problem that can't be
solved by the internet, because with all the knowledge that's in there,
someone with time and motivation can really get a lot of the benefits of a
school. Knowledge is the power to stand on the shoulders of giants and
optimise your way through a tough situation. At least that's one way it could
work. This isn't just about school reports.

~~~
throwawaykf02
I also mention illiteracy. They lack even the basics to grasp any knowledge
they could find online, or the capacity to imagine how they could use it, let
alone being aware of what "online" is. My point is that their situation is so
drastically alien to us, that ways we imagine they could leverage information
simply does not apply to them.

For instance, the basics beyond food and shelter. Something we take for
granted, like, say electricity, is not easily available to them. To get them
Internet, you have to first get them power.

And then you have to convince them to let their kids peruse the Internet,
because that's not going to earn money for their next meal, whereas going out
and working in the fields or a construction site is.

The ironic thing is, many of them are aware that education is important, but
in a very shallow way: to them, if it doesn't come with a degree attached,
it's a complete waste of time. Not only is that mostly true for their
situation, they lack the foundation to even imagine that they could actually
apply the knowledge themselves to improve their own lives. Education _is_ the
ticket, but it's so much more complex than "here's the Internet, go learn."

It's hard to appreciate their situation until you spend enough time in the
poorer parts of a third world country and see this day in and day out.

------
DanBC
This was posted to HN two days ago. The submitter then used a sub-optimal
title ("Bill Gates says putting worldwide Internet access before malaria is 'a
joke'"), which created frustrating discussion. (Title since edited to FT
title.)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6658518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6658518)

You have taken a title from the sub-head ("The internet is not going to save
the world, says the Microsoft co-founder, whatever Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon
Valley’s tech billionaires believe. But eradicating disease just might.") and
kludged it to fit the 80 char limit.

Your choice is much less link-baity than the other submission. But it's still
more link-baity than the real FT title.

HN does have a problem with titles. Perhaps people just need to post the real
title and then make another post with their response to the article. But that
means that people reading /new need to make several clicks - read the article
and read the first comment before upvoting, and /new has a problem with not
enough people upvoting from it.

The dupe-checker missed this.

[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabd...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2jOv8ZdDW)

[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dacd1f84-41bf-11e3-b064-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2jOv8ZdDW)

~~~
amirmc
> " _Your choice is much less link-baity than the other submission. But it 's
> still more link-baity than the real FT title._"

I find that the latter part of your statement unfair. Was the title different
when you made this comment? You make it sound like the submitter editorialised
whereas these are words from the sub heading i.e. still from the source - It's
hardly 'kludged'. The real title is so bland it's almost useless.

Yes, I agree that HN sometimes has a problem with titles but I've no idea what
the solution is.

~~~
DanBC
The real title is so bland as to be useless, and HN has a problem with people
using very bland titles for their posts.

This submitter has "kludged" the subheading to fit the 80 char limit.

Because HN forces people to use 80 chars, and because article authors use
stupid titles, this submitter had to use the sub-heading. But they couldn't
use all the subheading, and thus they've pulled out the interesting bit.

> I find that the latter part of your statement unfair.

Yes. I'm not very good at expressing myself or making my point.

------
stevecooperorg
I suspect that just providing digital services to people dying of disease
isn't much good, but I think there are some really nice technology projects
operating at very cheap and small scales to do good.

Two that spring to mind are kiva microloans
([http://www.kiva.org](http://www.kiva.org)) and the 'Gravity Light' that
replaces expensive and dangerous kerosene lamps with kinetic-energy powered
LED lights ([http://deciwatt.org/](http://deciwatt.org/))

I suspect that these kinds of small projects, dealing with small amounts of
cash, or lighting, or water purification, or similar, are the technology
projects that might contribute really usefully and in very short timescales.

Anyone else offer up some examples of cheap, near-term technology projects
that HNers might want to get behind?

~~~
dade_
I always enjoy visiting afrigadget.com , where people are figuring out
solutions to their own problems with available resources. Definately a
different perspective than I have ever seen on TV.

------
joshuaellinger
My uncle Turk has taken to building schools in Kenya
([http://nobelity.org/building-hope-2011/](http://nobelity.org/building-
hope-2011/)).

The interesting things I have heard from that experience are that (1) raising
money/awareness is incrediblely hard and time-consuming (2) western building
methods don't work well in rural Kenya and (3) the locals are
resourceful/hard-working in ways that put us startup founders to shame.

I think Bill Gates is right about what matters because we have to get our
population growth under control and the best way to that is insure that
children survive and are healthy. Possible good outcomes open up when you
don't have a desperate, damaged population living day-to-day.

I do wish he would be a little more involved on the energy/climate change
front. Population and Energy are going to be the defining issues of the next
two hundred years.

------
InclinedPlane
Sure it will. The thing that I think Gates is missing is that even the poorest
parts of the world aren't universally so. One need only think back to what it
must have been like hundreds and even thousands of years ago. People back then
were unimaginably poor by modern standards, how did we get from there to here?
Incremental development a bit at a time. All it takes is a seed. A seed of
literacy. And education, and entrepreneurship, and industry, and so forth.
Once the norm starts changing things can reach a tipping point more rapidly
than we tend to appreciate.

Look at South Korea, for example. In the 1950s they had been devastated by
several wars (WWII and the Korean war). Today they are a wealthy industrial
power house.

It may seem non-intuitive that today countries that are wracked by war,
starvation, terrorism, corruption, and disease will end up with mass ownership
of tablet computers over the next few decades, and that doing so will be one
important facet in becoming wealthy, industrialized nations in the next few
decades after that, but it's almost certainly going to happen.

Of course, spending a considerable amount of effort on curing malaria in the
short-term is probably also a good idea regardless.

~~~
stevecooperorg
> All it takes is a seed. A seed of literacy.

[citation needed], really. I don't think education was the determining factor
in jumpstarting the South Korean economy. South Korea recovered due to
external cash and infrastructure investment:

"Much of the country's infrastructure was destroyed during the Korean War that
followed in 1950-1953. After the war, South Korea became heavily dependent on
U.S. aid." \--
[http://www.southkoreagovernment.com/economy.htm](http://www.southkoreagovernment.com/economy.htm)

I do think there are situations you can't think yourself out of, or be
educated out of. Examples are sickness or lack of infrastructure. It's no good
having mobile internet access to the wikipedia article on malaria if your
child has the disease, you've never been to school, there are no healthcare
workers, no available vaccines, and there is no power socket to charge your
phone...

------
Mikeb85
Education and development will save the world. Vaccines and disease
eradication will save a lot of people from a certain type of death, but it
won't enable them to live a high standard of living. Investment (is. access to
capital) entrepreneurship and empowerment are what's going to enable that.

And while the internet isn't going to save them, computers and the internet
open up an entire world of knowledge, and can empower people...

~~~
AlisdairO
It's really important not to think about vaccines for malaria as a simple
dead/alive issue. Malaria doesn't just kill people, it also incapacitates them
for long period, and leaves them substantially less able to be productive.
Eradicating malaria would remove a huge drag upon African economies.

~~~
Mikeb85
And education would convince people of the need for vaccines, the need for
condoms, and the need of seeking medical help. It's more than just an
availability issue, it's also a culture, education and economic issue...

Besides, considering there is massive unemployment and underemployment in most
3rd world countries (especially amongst youth), I really don't think illness
has any effect on overall productivity...

Furthermore, history has shown, with few exceptions, that quality of life,
healthcare, prevalence of disease and every health metric gets better with
economic prosperity...

------
thinkersilver
There is a real need for bringing infectious tropical diseases in Africa under
control and I admire Gates's for what he has already done with polio in India
but I'd like to politely disagree, even if it is just to refocus the debate on
'social mobility' on a global scale. I've had several conversation with young
Africans who have transcended impossible odds armed only with what they could
learn from the internet and access to libraries. There was that story a few
years ago of the Kenyan boy who built a windmill generator from garbage. I get
the feeling that they are sometimes tired of their problems of being
constantly framed by the sick dying child or the poverty stricken family. It
is a bit one-dimensional. They are a resourceful bunch. His heart is in the
right place and he should continue but let's not forget that Africa has been
getting aid, food and vaccines for decades and that there's been comparatively
less focus on knowledge transfer between richer nations and African states.

------
orillian
We need to invest in changing how we use and generate energy, so that we can
bring it to everyone. Things like Malaria and Zuc's plan to internet the
masses will take care of themselves once people have the energy required to
lift themselves out of the mud. Please tell me if I'm wrong, but with all the
money that gets spent on treating Malaria, why is it I don't see any of that
going to empowering the people that need malaria treatments to treat their own
malaria? Give them the means to provide themselves with the treatments they
need, don't just build up a new dependency on drugs you provide.

@wmeredith Providing a man with all the intelligence in the world is a noble
thought but if he does not have the power to use that intellect, it is again
lost. That knowledge is useless without having the tools. "Teach a man to
fish, but without a net he sits on the shore wrapped in sorrow watching the
fish he knows he could catch swim past."

------
peterwwillis
To save the world we'd need to get rid of humans. Saving humans instead of the
world would probably end up with a Matrix-style future of charred earth and
blackened skies, with human beings thriving on internet-connected stasis pods
to efficiently create "renewable" energy.

------
gaga1001
There is a huge misinterpretation here: we should read the context first.
Gates was asked which was more important, Zuckerberg's plan for internet
access for all, or a malaria cure. The question itself is a silly one, because
both can be done simultaneously.

------
code_duck
Bill Gates has long seemed rather skeptical of the Internet. During his time
at Microsoft, he only embraced the Internet to the extent necessary to prevent
it from disrupting the Win32 monopoly earlier.

------
hajderr
Interesting article. Despite the rise of technology are humans committing less
crime ? I don't think there's a relation between technological development and
morality unfortunately :(.

------
circuiter
I wonder if Microsoft's failure to dominate search, email and social
networking has anything to do with his view.

~~~
at-fates-hands
Pretty sure it has to do with him aging. At some point in your life you
realize your own mortality and start to decide what really matters in your
life.

Even in my 30's, I've consciously started to make decisions about how I want
to spend my time. Do I want to play video games for 3 hours, or go out and
mountain bike for 90 minutes, or spend time with my dogs or my family? I'm
pretty sure Bill went through the same thing, albeit he has a ton more money
and those decisions were easy for him to use his resources to try and be a
huge agent of change.

It probably also has to do with his legacy. Does he want people to remember
him as the tyrant who ruled MS with an iron fist and his idea to rule the
world? Or as a kind, gentle billionaire pouring his vast resources into
solving some of humanities toughest problems?

------
graycat
It appears that Bill really loves his wife and, now, is following the values
she got from the nuns in her schooling.

------
zdw
Bill Gates is not going to save the world, says The Internet.

~~~
lupinglade
Darn, that was exactly my thought !

------
Zoomla
while eradicating a deadly illness is probably good, it won't save the world.

------
devx
I'm sorry, but there's no way for Bill Gates to say that without sounding like
an arrogant asshole. The world doesn't have to unite and spend all of its
income on what Bill Gates says is the most important priority. There are at
least other 100 priorities that could be put above malaria, and _even those_
shouldn't be done _exclusively_.

~~~
crapshoot101
Name them. What 100 are those? Malaria is one of the single biggest factors in
the development of the average African child's life, and the effects of it
resonate through a lifetime. It is almost certainly the most Important
priority, rather than some photo sharing startup that is "Dropbox meets Quora
for Snapchat users". Clearly, no one has to go do what Gates is saying, but
the hyperbole here is silly.

~~~
andyhmltn
>Name them.

Playing the devil's advocate: Cancer treatment.

