The Daily Show: Ears Edition - From the Archives: Bill Gates - September 21, 2017
Episode Date: July 3, 2018Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates discusses the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its initiatives to reduce poverty and disease on a global scale. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www....iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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My guest tonight is the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the world's
leading philanthropists through his work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Please welcome, Bill Gates.
Good to see you again and congratulations on all the work that you've been doing.
I've always wanted to know. to the show. Great to be here. Good to see you again and congratulations on all
the work that you've been doing. I've always wanted to know how do you go from being the richest man in the world and
not chasing what everyone thinks they would chase, which is like the yachts and going, oh
no, I'm going to end malaria.
That's what I want with my money.
Well, my wife and I talked a lot of the money about where this money could go back
and have the big areas we picked is health, global health, making sure that a lot less children die and big diseases like HIV get cured.
Right, and the...
And the foundation has been part of some amazing work around the globe.
Just looking at the work that you've done,
would you say that the world is in a better place, not just because of what you've done, but the world as a whole, do you think the world is Just looking at the work that you've done, would you say that the world
is in a better place, not just because of what you've done, but the world as a whole.
Do you think the world is in a better place than it's been maybe 20, 30 years ago?
It's stunning how, whether it's literacy or less workplace accidents, child, children Children dying under five violence as a whole the world's improving and
You know our role Is to take where that's been done really well and right accelerate a little bit get some scientists to come up with
Breakthroughs more quickly, but that framework that things are basically working
and? You know, even poor countries now have longer life expectancies
than the very richest country had just a hundred years ago.
I'm surprised that people aren't aware of that
as kind of the baseline of where we are.
But how can we say that things are getting better
when it seems like things are getting worse?
You see it on the news, you're seeing Syria,
you're seeing the refugee crisis, you're
on Twitter, you're reading all of these stories, Myanmar with the Rohingya, it feels like things
are getting worse or they haven't been this bad before.
That's right, people are no more today about the bad things going on in the world.
And I'm not making light of those things at all.
We still have 5 million children a year die before the age of five. It used to be 12 million 25 years ago. So getting
from 12 to five pretty spectacular but now we have to feel terrible about
that so we cut it to 2.5 and even less. Partly it's the nature of news.
News if you improve slowly but surely, you get vaccines out, less
kids are dying. What day is it a headline? It just, you know, that idea that 7 million less per
year or dying, it's not going to get coverage because it's not, there's no photograph of, you know,
the grave with no child or something. Right. And also people are always aging and so they have this perspective okay
when I was young and energetic things were better and so there's this bias
about okay the world was wonderful. Still I'm I am surprised and I'm actually
trying to get the word out so that people say, okay, because of progress,
let's go see where we did it best and do even better.
How do you then keep people inspired and motivated to do good things?
Because on the one hand, you say, Trevor, I need your help, we need to fight malaria,
and we need to think of ways to get young girls into school around the world? And on the other hand, you go, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, thin, tho, tho, tho, tho, tho, then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how then, how th, how th, how th, how th, how th, how th, how th, how th, how th, how th, how tho, how thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, tho, tho, tho, the, the, tho, tho, the, thoooo, the, the, thi.. And, thooo, thi. And on the other hand, you go, things are better than ever before. And then I go, well, so do you need my help or not?
No, it's true.
If we're comparing over time, you might think, oh,
we could be complacent.
But the beauty of this is that our tolerance for that is gone down.
an, our tolerance for that has gone down.
So if you look at Life magazine from when I was growing up,
they'd have pictures of men spanking women and saying,
you know, she bought the wrong coffee,
you know, buy this coffee in your house.
That was on a magazine?
That was in Life Magazine, which was a very mainstream, you know,
on the family coffee table type magazine, and it was considered okay. Now we'd look to that and say, you know, that belongs
in some S&M location. Not in a coffee out. Right. So our sensitivity, and that is a great thing.
The fact that it's taboo, you know, that men don't duel, we don't drown witches, you know, we think of slavery is, you know, a completely awful thing., you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thin, thi, thin, thin, thi, thin, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, thi, thi, taboo, you know, that men don't duel, we don't drown witches, you know, we think of slavery is, you know, a completely awful
thing. Except in Charlottesville, but yeah. All right. There are setbacks. I mean, let me
be clear, it's not a, you know, just deadly decreasing. So HIV came along, you know, big setback, civil wars,
like in Syria, you know, terrible setback. You know, I'm working on trying to get polio
eradicated. And, you know, now in the Syria's civic war, we have cases, and it's very tough
to get the vaccines out when you have that kind of violence. Now, some people would say, Bill Gates, you have billions of dollars. Why don't you just just just just just thua???? to thua to to thua thuu? You to thu? You thu? You thu? You thu? You thu? You thi? You thi? You thi? You thi? You thi? You tho? You know, you want to to say, you thi. thi. thi. thi, you thi, you thi, you know, you know, you thi, you thi, you thi, you thi, you thi, you thi, you their, you their, you their, you their, you th. You th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi? You thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thate? thate? A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. Now, some people would say, Bill Gates, you have billions of dollars.
Why don't you just fix it all yourself?
Just because, I mean, you want to do it, just pay the money and fix the things.
But it's surprising to find out that it takes a lot more money than even you have to
fix these problems.
That's right.
I'm super lucky. Warren Buffett has given a lot of his wealth to our foundation.
You know, I had the success of Microsoft.
But even so, what we spend is about an eighth as much in helping poor countries as the
U.S. government spends.
And so, you know, all the governments of the world are the key for HIV medicine or all
this aid. You know, it's less than 1% of the U.S. budget to help,
you know, 95% of the world's people with all of their top problems.
But that's the big money.
And so making sure that people know that it's working and so they're willing to say that
one percent should be preserved, that's a key fight.
If an American says, Bill, why should Americans pay for the problems of another country?
Why should Americans even give that 1 percent of our budget away?
It's not, it's an American, it's an American money, it's not an American problem.
Well, you know, my top response would be a humanitarian one is that we're all in this together. If for a small amount of money you can help get a vaccine,
a 10-cent vaccine for measles out to kids,
you should want to do that.
But even if you take a very US-centric view
that you don't want pandemics sweeping across the world
and coming here, you don't want instability so that we have to spend a hundred
times as much sending our army in,
you know, which sometimes we have to do that. If you can give the aid money and make life there better, not have mass refugees who, you know, fleeing a country is not an attractive thing.
If we can lift up those countries, which we have a history of places like India and Brazil,
or now very
self-sufficient. South Korea got aid. Now they've turned around there a very
generous aid giver. You know, I can defend that 1%. If it was 10% okay and then
you're starting to trade off against tough problems here. But at that level, you
know, we should feel great about it and I'm lucky I get to go and see the impact of that that U.S. th.S. S. S. S. S. S. S. th. th. th. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. to. to. to. to. to to. to to to to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. to. And to. And to. And to. And to. And to. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. And the. And the. And the the the the the the the the the the the the the to. I. I. the the the the the the the the the the the the to. the the to.'m lucky I get to go and see the impact of that U.S. spending.
Let me ask you this before I, yeah, before I let you go.
I just wanted to find out, how do you, so, how do you get a billionaire to give you all of
their money? Like, I mean, you say Warren Buffett gave you his money and there's many other billionaires
were like, yeah, take my money.
Like, just say, hypothetically, let's say I wanted to get a billionaire to give me all of
their money.
How do I go about, like, how do you start the conversation?
Like, how do you... Well, in fact, they're not they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're their their. their. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. their. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. to. to. to. to. toooooooooooooooo. toe. to. toe. to. to. the. the. the. th they're not giving it to me.
I know what you mean.
I mean, but they're giving it.
It's true.
You know, when you have that degree of success, you're not really talking about personal
deprivation.
Right.
You know, a little bit, you have to decide if you're trying to start an aristocratic dynasty, you know, so that all the money, you they they they they they they they they they they they they they they they're thi money thi. thi. You thi. You're thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. that's that's that's that's that's thi. that. that's that's that's that's thi. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. that's. that's. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. that. th. that's that that that the. the. they're, they're, they're they're they're that they're that. that. that. that. that. that. trying to start an aristocratic dynasty, you know, so that all the money,
you know, stays in your family.
And hey, that's okay.
You're free to do that.
But I think when you're that successful, ideally you'd pick a disease, you'd pick a cause,
and I think you'd get a lot of fulfillment.
And so I'd been amazed.
Americans are very generous. We have more big philanthropists than any other country.
Other countries like China and India are hopeful that the same tradition develops.
And you know, people are nice.
You know, some people don't like to think about their death.
I mean, you say, okay, you're going to have to give it away because you can't
take it with you. It does force them to think about how much they giving to their kids and that they won't live forever. So I won't say
it's an easy topic to bring up, but I think it's great for people to give it
more thought. Well I'm glad you've agreed to give it to me. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You're welcome. To keep this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this. this this. this. this. this. this. this. this. this. this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this this the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the the thean thean thean thean thean tooooooooooooo. the. the. the. the. the. th Bill Gates, everybody. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Ears Edition.
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