23:39
CA: Bill, is it the case that if you and your foundation weren't in the picture here that market dynamics would likely lead to a situation where, as soon as a promising vaccine candidate emerged, the richer countries would basically snap up, gobble up all available initial supply -- it just takes a while to manufacture these, and there would be nothing for the poorer countries -- but that what, effectively, you're doing by giving manufacturing guarantees and capability to some of these candidates, you're making it possible that at least some of the early vaccine units will go to poorer countries? Is that correct?
24:20
BG: Well, it's not just us, but yes, we're in the central role there, along with a group we created called CEPI, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, and the European leaders agree with this. Now we have the expertise to look at each of the constructs and say, "OK, where is there a factory in the world that has capacity that can build that? Which one should we put the early money into? What should the milestones be where we'll shift the money over to a different one?" Because the kind of private sector people who really understand that stuff, some of them work for us, and we're a trusted party on these things, we get to coordinate a lot of it, particularly that manufacturing piece.
25:08
Usually, you'd expect the US to think of this as a global problem and be involved. So far, no activity on that front has taken place. I am talking to people in the Congress and the Administration about when the next relief bill comes along that maybe one percent of that could go for the tools to help the entire world. And so it's possible, but it's unfortunate, and the vacuum here, the world is not that used to, and a lot of people are stepping in, including our foundation, to try and have a strategy, including for the poorer countries, who will suffer a high percentage of the deaths and negative effects, including their health systems being overwhelmed. Most of the deaths will be in developing countries, despite the huge deaths we've seen in Europe and the US.
26:10
CA: I mean, I wish I could be a fly on the wall and hearing you and Melinda talk about this, because of all of the ethical ... "crimes," let's say, executed by leaders who should know better, I mean, it's one thing to not model mask-wearing, but to not play a role in helping the world when faced with a common enemy, respond as one humanity, and instead ... you know, catalyze a really unseemly scramble between nations to fight for vaccines, for example. That just seems -- surely, history is going to judge that harshly. That is just sickening. Isn't it? Am I missing something?
27:00
BG: Well, it's not quite as black-and-white as that. The US has put more money out to fund the basic research on these vaccines than any country by far, and that research is not restricted. There's not, like, some royalty that says, "Hey, if you take our money, you have to pay the US a royalty." They do, to the degree they fund research, it's for everybody. To the degree they fund factories, it's just for the US. The thing that makes this tough is that in every other global health problem, the US totally leads smallpox eradication, the US is totally the leader on polio eradication, with key partners -- CDC, WHO, Rotary, UNICEF, our foundation. So the world -- and on HIV, under President Bush's leadership, but it was very bipartisan, this thing called PEPFAR was unbelievable. That has saved tens of millions of lives.
28:02
And so it's that the world always expected the US to at least be at the head of the table, financially, strategy, OK, how do you get these factories for the world, even if it's just to avoid the infection coming back to the US or to have the global economy working, which is good for US jobs to have demand outside the US. And so the world is kind of -- you know, there's all this uncertainty about which thing will work, and there's this, "OK, who's in charge here?"
28:34
And so the worst thing, the withdrawal from WHO, that is a difficulty that hopefully will get remedied at some point, because we need that coordination through WHO.
28:52
CA: Let's take another question. Ali Kashani, "Are there any particularly successful models of handling the pandemic that you have seen around the world?"
29:07
BG: Well, it's fascinating that, besides early action, there are definitely things where you take people who have tested positive and you monitor their pulse ox, which is the oxygen saturation level in their blood, which is a very cheap detector, and then you know to get them to the hospitals fairly early. Weirdly, patients don't know things are about to get severe. It's an interesting physiological reason that I won't get into. And so Germany has quite a low case fatality rate that they've done through that type of monitoring. And then, of course, once you get into facilities, we've learned that the ventilator, actually, although extremely well-meaning, was actually overused and used in the wrong mode in those early days. So the health -- the doctors are way smarter about treatment today. Most of that, I would say, is global. Using this pulse ox as an early indicator, that'll probably catch on broadly, but Germany was a pioneer there. And now, of course, dexamethasone -- fortunately, it's cheap, it's oral, we can ramp up manufacture. That'll go global as well.
30:28
CA: Bill, I want to ask you something about what it's been like for you personally through this whole process. Because, weirdly, even though your passion and good intent on this topic seems completely bloody obvious to anyone who has spent a moment with you, there are these crazy conspiracy theories out there about you. I just checked in with a company called Zignal that monitors social media spaces. They say that, to date, I think on Facebook alone, more than four million posts have taken place that associate you with some kind of conspiracy theory around the virus. I read that there was a poll that more than 40 percent of Republicans believe that the vaccine that you would roll out would somehow plant a microchip in people to track their location. I mean, I can't even believe that poll number. And then some people are taking this seriously enough, and some of them have even been recirculated on "Fox News" and so forth, some people are taking this seriously enough to make really quite horrible threats and so forth. You seem to do a good job sort of shrugging this off, but really, like, who else has ever been in this position? How are you managing this? What on earth world are we in that this kind of misinformation can be out there? What can we do to help correct it?
32:03
BG: I'm not sure. And it's a new thing that there's conspiracy theories. I mean, Microsoft had its share of controversy, but at least that related to the real world, you know? Did Windows crash more than it should? We definitely had antitrust problems. But at least I knew what that was. When this emerged, I have to say, my instinct was to joke about it. People have said that's really inappropriate, because this is a very serious thing. It is going to make people less willing to take a vaccine. And, of course, once we have that vaccine, it'll be like masks, where getting lots of people, particularly when it's a transmission-blocking vaccine, there's this huge community benefit to widespread adoption of that vaccine. So I am caught a little bit, unsure of what to say or do, because the conspiracy piece is a new thing for me, and what do you say that doesn't give credence to the thing? The fact that a "Fox News" commentator, Laura Ingraham, was saying this stuff about me microchipping people, that survey isn't that surprising because that's what they heard on the TV. It's wild. And people are clearly seeking simpler explanations than going and studying virology.
33:46
CA: I mean, TED is nonpolitical, but we believe in the truth. I would say this: Laura Ingraham, you owe Bill Gates an apology and a retraction. You do. And anyone who's watching this who thinks for a minute that this man is involved in some kind of conspiracy, you want your head examined. You are crazy. Enough of us know Bill over many years and have seen the passion and engagement in this to know that you are crazy. So get over it, and let's look at the actual problem of solving this pandemic. Honestly. If anyone in the chat here has a suggestion, a positive suggestion for how you can, how do you get rid of conspiracies, because they feed on each other. Now, "Oh, well I would say that, because I'm part of the conspiracy," or whatever. Like, how do we get back to a world where information can be trusted? We have to do better on it. Are there any other questions out there from the community? Aria Bendix from New York City: "What are your personal recommendations for those who want to reduce their risk of infection amid an uptick in cases?"
35:03
BG: Well, it's great if you have a job that you can stay at your house and do it through digital meetings, and even some of your social activities, you know, I do video calls with lots of friends. I have friends in Europe that, who knows when I'll see them, but we schedule regular calls to talk. If you stay fairly isolated, you don't run much risk, and it's when you're getting together with lots of other people, either through work or socialization, that drives that risk, and particularly in these communities where you have increased cases, even though it's not going to be mandated, hopefully, the mobility numbers will show people responding and minimizing those kind of out-of-the-house contacts.
36:08
CA: Bill, I wonder if I could just ask you just a little bit about philanthropy. Obviously, your foundation has played a huge role in this, but philanthropy more generally. You know, you've started this Giving Pledge movement, recruited all these billionaires who have pledged to give away half their net worth before or after their death. But it's really hard to do. It's really hard to give away that much money. You yourself, I think, since The Giving Pledge was started -- what? 10 years ago or something, I'm not sure when -- but your own net worth, I think, has doubled since that period despite being the world's leading philanthropist. Is it just fundamentally hard to give away money effectively to make the world better? Or should the world's donors, and especially the world's really rich donors, start to almost commit to a schedule, like, "Here's a percentage of my net worth each year that, as I get older, maybe that goes up. If I'm to take this seriously, I have to give away -- somehow, I've got to find a way of doing that effectively." Is that an unfair and crazy question?
37:22
BG: Well, it'd be great to up the rate, and our goal, both as the Gates Foundation or through The Giving Pledge, is to help people find causes they connect to. People give through passion. Yes, numbers are important, but there's so many causes out there. The way you're going to pick is you see somebody who's sick, you see somebody who's not getting social services. You see something that helps reduce racism. And you're very passionate, and so you give to that. And, of course, some philanthropic gifts won't work out. We do need to up the ambition level of philanthropists. Now, collaborative philanthropy that you're helping to facilitate through Audacious, there's four or five other groups that are getting philanthropists together, that is fantastic, because then they learn from each other, they get confidence from each other, they feel like, "Hey, I put in x, and the four other people put money in, so I'm getting more impact," and hopefully, it can be made fun for them even when they find out, OK, that particular gift didn't work out that well, but let's keep going. So philanthropy, yes, I would like to see the rate go up, and people who do get going, it is fun, it's fulfilling, you pick which of the family members are partnered in doing it. In my case, Melinda and I love doing this stuff together, learning together. Some families, it will even involve the kids in the activities. Sometimes the kids are pushing.
39:04
When you have lots of money, you still think of a million dollars as a lot of money, but if you have billions, you should be giving hundreds of millions. So it's kind of charming that, in terms of your personal expenditure, you stay at the level you were at before. That's societally quite appropriate. But on your giving, you need to scale up or else it will be your will, and you won't get to shape it and enjoy it quite that same way. And so without -- we don't want to mandate it, but yes, both you and I want to inspire philanthropists to see that passion, to see those opportunities significantly faster than in the past, because whether it's race or disease, or all the other social ills, the innovation of what philanthropy can go to and do quickly that, if it works, government can come in behind it and scale it up, God knows we need solutions, we need that kind of hope and progress that expectations are high that will solve very tough problems.
40:17
CA: I mean, most philanthropists, even the best of them, find it hard to give away more than about a percent of their net worth every year, and yet the world's richest often have access to great investment opportunities. Many of them are gaining wealth at seven to 10 percent plus per year. Isn't it the case that to have a real chance of giving away half your fortune, at some point you have to plan to give away five, six, seven, eight, 10 percent of your net worth annually? And that is, isn't that the logic of what should be happening?
40:50
BG: Yeah, there are people like Chuck Feeney, who set a good example and gave away all of his money. Even Melinda and I are talking about, should we up the rate that we give at? As you say, we've been very lucky on the investment side through a variety of things. Tech fortunes in general have done well, even this year, which is one of those great contrasts in what's going on in the world. And I do think there's an expectation that we should speed up, and there's a reason to speed up, and government is going to miss a lot of needs. Yes, there's tons of government money out there, but helping it be spent well, helping find places it's not stepping up, and if people are willing to give to the developing world, they don't have governments that can print checks for 15 percent of GDP, and so the suffering there broadly, just the economic stuff alone, put aside the pandemic, is tragic. It's about a five-year setback in terms of these countries moving forward, and in a few cases, it's tough enough that the very stability of the country is in question.
42:15
CA: Well, Bill, I'm in awe of what you and Melinda have done. You walk this narrow path of trying to juggle so many different things, and the amount of time that you dedicate to the betterment of the world at large, and definitely the amount of money and the amount of passion you put into it -- I mean, it's pretty awesome, and I'm really grateful to you for spending this time with us now. Thank you so much, and honestly, the rest of this year, your skills and resources are going to be needed more than ever, so good luck.
42:54
BG: Well, thanks. It's fun work and I'm optimistic, so thanks, Chris.
https:/
CA: Bill, is it the case that if you and your foundation weren't in the picture here that market dynamics would likely lead to a situation where, as soon as a promising vaccine candidate emerged, the richer countries would basically snap up, gobble up all available initial supply -- it just takes a while to manufacture these, and there would be nothing for the poorer countries -- but that what, effectively, you're doing by giving manufacturing guarantees and capability to some of these candidates, you're making it possible that at least some of the early vaccine units will go to poorer countries? Is that correct?
24:20
BG: Well, it's not just us, but yes, we're in the central role there, along with a group we created called CEPI, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, and the European leaders agree with this. Now we have the expertise to look at each of the constructs and say, "OK, where is there a factory in the world that has capacity that can build that? Which one should we put the early money into? What should the milestones be where we'll shift the money over to a different one?" Because the kind of private sector people who really understand that stuff, some of them work for us, and we're a trusted party on these things, we get to coordinate a lot of it, particularly that manufacturing piece.
25:08
Usually, you'd expect the US to think of this as a global problem and be involved. So far, no activity on that front has taken place. I am talking to people in the Congress and the Administration about when the next relief bill comes along that maybe one percent of that could go for the tools to help the entire world. And so it's possible, but it's unfortunate, and the vacuum here, the world is not that used to, and a lot of people are stepping in, including our foundation, to try and have a strategy, including for the poorer countries, who will suffer a high percentage of the deaths and negative effects, including their health systems being overwhelmed. Most of the deaths will be in developing countries, despite the huge deaths we've seen in Europe and the US.
26:10
CA: I mean, I wish I could be a fly on the wall and hearing you and Melinda talk about this, because of all of the ethical ... "crimes," let's say, executed by leaders who should know better, I mean, it's one thing to not model mask-wearing, but to not play a role in helping the world when faced with a common enemy, respond as one humanity, and instead ... you know, catalyze a really unseemly scramble between nations to fight for vaccines, for example. That just seems -- surely, history is going to judge that harshly. That is just sickening. Isn't it? Am I missing something?
27:00
BG: Well, it's not quite as black-and-white as that. The US has put more money out to fund the basic research on these vaccines than any country by far, and that research is not restricted. There's not, like, some royalty that says, "Hey, if you take our money, you have to pay the US a royalty." They do, to the degree they fund research, it's for everybody. To the degree they fund factories, it's just for the US. The thing that makes this tough is that in every other global health problem, the US totally leads smallpox eradication, the US is totally the leader on polio eradication, with key partners -- CDC, WHO, Rotary, UNICEF, our foundation. So the world -- and on HIV, under President Bush's leadership, but it was very bipartisan, this thing called PEPFAR was unbelievable. That has saved tens of millions of lives.
28:02
And so it's that the world always expected the US to at least be at the head of the table, financially, strategy, OK, how do you get these factories for the world, even if it's just to avoid the infection coming back to the US or to have the global economy working, which is good for US jobs to have demand outside the US. And so the world is kind of -- you know, there's all this uncertainty about which thing will work, and there's this, "OK, who's in charge here?"
28:34
And so the worst thing, the withdrawal from WHO, that is a difficulty that hopefully will get remedied at some point, because we need that coordination through WHO.
28:52
CA: Let's take another question. Ali Kashani, "Are there any particularly successful models of handling the pandemic that you have seen around the world?"
29:07
BG: Well, it's fascinating that, besides early action, there are definitely things where you take people who have tested positive and you monitor their pulse ox, which is the oxygen saturation level in their blood, which is a very cheap detector, and then you know to get them to the hospitals fairly early. Weirdly, patients don't know things are about to get severe. It's an interesting physiological reason that I won't get into. And so Germany has quite a low case fatality rate that they've done through that type of monitoring. And then, of course, once you get into facilities, we've learned that the ventilator, actually, although extremely well-meaning, was actually overused and used in the wrong mode in those early days. So the health -- the doctors are way smarter about treatment today. Most of that, I would say, is global. Using this pulse ox as an early indicator, that'll probably catch on broadly, but Germany was a pioneer there. And now, of course, dexamethasone -- fortunately, it's cheap, it's oral, we can ramp up manufacture. That'll go global as well.
30:28
CA: Bill, I want to ask you something about what it's been like for you personally through this whole process. Because, weirdly, even though your passion and good intent on this topic seems completely bloody obvious to anyone who has spent a moment with you, there are these crazy conspiracy theories out there about you. I just checked in with a company called Zignal that monitors social media spaces. They say that, to date, I think on Facebook alone, more than four million posts have taken place that associate you with some kind of conspiracy theory around the virus. I read that there was a poll that more than 40 percent of Republicans believe that the vaccine that you would roll out would somehow plant a microchip in people to track their location. I mean, I can't even believe that poll number. And then some people are taking this seriously enough, and some of them have even been recirculated on "Fox News" and so forth, some people are taking this seriously enough to make really quite horrible threats and so forth. You seem to do a good job sort of shrugging this off, but really, like, who else has ever been in this position? How are you managing this? What on earth world are we in that this kind of misinformation can be out there? What can we do to help correct it?
32:03
BG: I'm not sure. And it's a new thing that there's conspiracy theories. I mean, Microsoft had its share of controversy, but at least that related to the real world, you know? Did Windows crash more than it should? We definitely had antitrust problems. But at least I knew what that was. When this emerged, I have to say, my instinct was to joke about it. People have said that's really inappropriate, because this is a very serious thing. It is going to make people less willing to take a vaccine. And, of course, once we have that vaccine, it'll be like masks, where getting lots of people, particularly when it's a transmission-blocking vaccine, there's this huge community benefit to widespread adoption of that vaccine. So I am caught a little bit, unsure of what to say or do, because the conspiracy piece is a new thing for me, and what do you say that doesn't give credence to the thing? The fact that a "Fox News" commentator, Laura Ingraham, was saying this stuff about me microchipping people, that survey isn't that surprising because that's what they heard on the TV. It's wild. And people are clearly seeking simpler explanations than going and studying virology.
33:46
CA: I mean, TED is nonpolitical, but we believe in the truth. I would say this: Laura Ingraham, you owe Bill Gates an apology and a retraction. You do. And anyone who's watching this who thinks for a minute that this man is involved in some kind of conspiracy, you want your head examined. You are crazy. Enough of us know Bill over many years and have seen the passion and engagement in this to know that you are crazy. So get over it, and let's look at the actual problem of solving this pandemic. Honestly. If anyone in the chat here has a suggestion, a positive suggestion for how you can, how do you get rid of conspiracies, because they feed on each other. Now, "Oh, well I would say that, because I'm part of the conspiracy," or whatever. Like, how do we get back to a world where information can be trusted? We have to do better on it. Are there any other questions out there from the community? Aria Bendix from New York City: "What are your personal recommendations for those who want to reduce their risk of infection amid an uptick in cases?"
35:03
BG: Well, it's great if you have a job that you can stay at your house and do it through digital meetings, and even some of your social activities, you know, I do video calls with lots of friends. I have friends in Europe that, who knows when I'll see them, but we schedule regular calls to talk. If you stay fairly isolated, you don't run much risk, and it's when you're getting together with lots of other people, either through work or socialization, that drives that risk, and particularly in these communities where you have increased cases, even though it's not going to be mandated, hopefully, the mobility numbers will show people responding and minimizing those kind of out-of-the-house contacts.
36:08
CA: Bill, I wonder if I could just ask you just a little bit about philanthropy. Obviously, your foundation has played a huge role in this, but philanthropy more generally. You know, you've started this Giving Pledge movement, recruited all these billionaires who have pledged to give away half their net worth before or after their death. But it's really hard to do. It's really hard to give away that much money. You yourself, I think, since The Giving Pledge was started -- what? 10 years ago or something, I'm not sure when -- but your own net worth, I think, has doubled since that period despite being the world's leading philanthropist. Is it just fundamentally hard to give away money effectively to make the world better? Or should the world's donors, and especially the world's really rich donors, start to almost commit to a schedule, like, "Here's a percentage of my net worth each year that, as I get older, maybe that goes up. If I'm to take this seriously, I have to give away -- somehow, I've got to find a way of doing that effectively." Is that an unfair and crazy question?
37:22
BG: Well, it'd be great to up the rate, and our goal, both as the Gates Foundation or through The Giving Pledge, is to help people find causes they connect to. People give through passion. Yes, numbers are important, but there's so many causes out there. The way you're going to pick is you see somebody who's sick, you see somebody who's not getting social services. You see something that helps reduce racism. And you're very passionate, and so you give to that. And, of course, some philanthropic gifts won't work out. We do need to up the ambition level of philanthropists. Now, collaborative philanthropy that you're helping to facilitate through Audacious, there's four or five other groups that are getting philanthropists together, that is fantastic, because then they learn from each other, they get confidence from each other, they feel like, "Hey, I put in x, and the four other people put money in, so I'm getting more impact," and hopefully, it can be made fun for them even when they find out, OK, that particular gift didn't work out that well, but let's keep going. So philanthropy, yes, I would like to see the rate go up, and people who do get going, it is fun, it's fulfilling, you pick which of the family members are partnered in doing it. In my case, Melinda and I love doing this stuff together, learning together. Some families, it will even involve the kids in the activities. Sometimes the kids are pushing.
39:04
When you have lots of money, you still think of a million dollars as a lot of money, but if you have billions, you should be giving hundreds of millions. So it's kind of charming that, in terms of your personal expenditure, you stay at the level you were at before. That's societally quite appropriate. But on your giving, you need to scale up or else it will be your will, and you won't get to shape it and enjoy it quite that same way. And so without -- we don't want to mandate it, but yes, both you and I want to inspire philanthropists to see that passion, to see those opportunities significantly faster than in the past, because whether it's race or disease, or all the other social ills, the innovation of what philanthropy can go to and do quickly that, if it works, government can come in behind it and scale it up, God knows we need solutions, we need that kind of hope and progress that expectations are high that will solve very tough problems.
40:17
CA: I mean, most philanthropists, even the best of them, find it hard to give away more than about a percent of their net worth every year, and yet the world's richest often have access to great investment opportunities. Many of them are gaining wealth at seven to 10 percent plus per year. Isn't it the case that to have a real chance of giving away half your fortune, at some point you have to plan to give away five, six, seven, eight, 10 percent of your net worth annually? And that is, isn't that the logic of what should be happening?
40:50
BG: Yeah, there are people like Chuck Feeney, who set a good example and gave away all of his money. Even Melinda and I are talking about, should we up the rate that we give at? As you say, we've been very lucky on the investment side through a variety of things. Tech fortunes in general have done well, even this year, which is one of those great contrasts in what's going on in the world. And I do think there's an expectation that we should speed up, and there's a reason to speed up, and government is going to miss a lot of needs. Yes, there's tons of government money out there, but helping it be spent well, helping find places it's not stepping up, and if people are willing to give to the developing world, they don't have governments that can print checks for 15 percent of GDP, and so the suffering there broadly, just the economic stuff alone, put aside the pandemic, is tragic. It's about a five-year setback in terms of these countries moving forward, and in a few cases, it's tough enough that the very stability of the country is in question.
42:15
CA: Well, Bill, I'm in awe of what you and Melinda have done. You walk this narrow path of trying to juggle so many different things, and the amount of time that you dedicate to the betterment of the world at large, and definitely the amount of money and the amount of passion you put into it -- I mean, it's pretty awesome, and I'm really grateful to you for spending this time with us now. Thank you so much, and honestly, the rest of this year, your skills and resources are going to be needed more than ever, so good luck.
42:54
BG: Well, thanks. It's fun work and I'm optimistic, so thanks, Chris.
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