Transcript of "Bill Gates"

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Good morning, everybody.

Or afternoon or evening.

Good afternoon or evening.

You always ignore the afternoon people. Yeah.

I'm sorry.

Good afternoon.

Do people listen to podcasts in the afternoon?

They sure do. By the way, hello to all the people who are on a jog right now. Hello. How are you? Keep pace.

Watch the cracks.

Hello, everybody at the supermarket.

Hello, everybody who's driving.

Check your mirrors. Those on the subway, don't miss your stop. Yeah, that's right.

Hello, everybody on a walk, just a regular walk.

Everybody who's at work? Come on, Janet.

For everyone else, welcome to Smart. To Smart with Us.

Smart.

Wait, I got a quick one.

I got a quick dad joke. Here we go. What bees make milk?

Will?

I don't know. Boobies.

Boo?

Boobies.

Boobies. Yeah, I guess. Okay, I'll go with it. Sure.

I think it's funny.

Fuck, you wanted to say no so bad. You wanted to say no.

I wanted to say, No, that's not funny. You have violated the pun law.

All right, another dad joke, please.

Sure.

Go My friend keeps saying, Cheer up, man. It could be worse. You could be stuck on the ground in a hole full of water. I know he means well.

Oh, I know he means well, right?

Yeah. I didn't hit it.

No, I know, but you might need to for some of our listeners.

What about this one? What about this?

Did that italics, the well in your book?

No.

No?

Go ahead. You know a good elevator joke works on so many levels.

Sure. He got me. He got me. Nice reading. Come on, man.

It's good.

It's pretty good.

Guys, I've said it before and I'll say it again. We threeools are incredibly lucky at times on this show to be able to ask some questions and hear some answers from folks who wouldn't otherwise spend even a second with us. Today is one of those days. I like that. Our next guest is one of the most important people to have been born in our generation. He is responsible for some of the most transformative ideas, technologies, and events the world has ever known and probably ever will. These discoveries, advancements, and innovations have made parts of our lives in the world around us far different than anyone could have even ever imagined just 40 years ago. His work has brought him enormous wealth, which is enabling him to once again change and help our planet and our lives in ways that are exciting, confusing, and in some ways, life-saving. Please welcome Mr. Bill Gates.

Oh, my gosh. Wow.

Bill Gates. Yeah.

Hello, Mr. Gates. Hey, guys. Wow. How lucky are we that we've got you now. This is so cool. We've got questions.

We've got questions. First of all, it looks like you're sitting in a high chair.

I am. Well, this is a guy who probably does... I was going to say the guy does a lot of podcast. I was thinking, why are you I know you've got a very... Thank God you've got a book coming out. I can't not wait to read it. But is that the only reason you're talking to us, dummies? I mean, why? You've got so much important stuff to do. It's true. Sparing an hour for us is generous, but maybe foolish.

It's relaxing.

So we're not making you nervous at all. That's good.

Jason, I also can't wait for you to not read his book. But Bill Gates, welcome to the podcast. I say that not because he won't be interested, just he barely noticed how to read. I will say it's so exciting having you here as somebody who has been responsible for not just innovations, but just the impact that what you have done over the years This has been incredible, and not just in technology, et cetera, and really being on the cutting edge of that for years, but all the philanthropic work you've done. I didn't know you were going to be here today, but I've been a big fan of your work in the philanthropic area. You've been a leader in that. You've really set a tone. So I applaud you and I thank you. And I wish more people would take your cue.

Well, you're setting a great example. I think they will. I hope they Yeah, we really do. I know you did something. What is it called? The Giving Pledge. The Giving Pledge, yes. I was just going to ask about that. Are you guys, are you men and women following along with that?

Yeah, we have about 250 people who've made the commitment to give away the majority of their wealth. We get together and learn from each other because philanthropy is actually a little confusing. You don't have a rating system or profit It brings you into a new area. We can inspire each other, and hopefully anybody who's got lots of money feels like pitching in. Yeah.

Because wasn't it, I think, Warren Buffett said, because if you can't figure out how to live off a $500 million, there's a problem. Isn't that part of that pact? That's right.

I think I read that somewhere. I knew, which is funny because I was thinking about writing him a letter and asking him if he'd give me $500 million to see if I could do that. Yeah, just a little experiment. Do you know what I mean as an experiment. Mr. I'd like to ask you if it's possible, Jason, sorry, I don't mean to hijack this, but- Be my guest.

I've got some questions here if you run out.

I'm sure at risk of you having said this a million times before, Would you talk a little bit about the genesis of Microsoft? Because I don't know if I've ever really heard a clear story of how it came to be, how you had the idea for it, and how it came into fruition.

Yeah, I I was super lucky. My parents found me a little confusing in terms of I was very good at some things and not good at other things. So they sent me to a private school, and that school got a computer. So when I was 13, I had my first exposure, and I got obsessed with figuring it out, what it could do. And so even during high school, together with a friend Paul Allen, I got thousands of hours of time learning how to write software.

So forgive me for interrupting. What year was that that you got first exposed to the computer?

And where?

That's 1968. I'm up in Seattle, Washington, at an excellent private school. And then Paul's reading and he sees that a computer is going to be done on a chip, the microprocessor made by people like Intel, and that those chips are going to get twice as good every year or two. And so I say to Paul that that's exponential improvement, that then computers will be almost free and they'll need a lot of software. We should do that software. And he follows, when I go back to Harvard because my parents wanted me to go to college, he follows me there to bug me and say, well, this revolution is going to happen. Let's get going. And finally, when the first personal computer comes out in late 1974, I drop out and Paul and I found the company.

You told Steve Ballmer to stay behind, finish his education because you're going to need him later.

Yeah, in fact, he shows up about four years into the company, and he's the other person who plays an unbelievable role. I did manage to catch him in the middle of business school, so I got him to drop out of business school. There you go.

You see these computers in the late '60s that you're first exposed to are, by comparison, of course, to today, but maybe even to the computers in the mid '70s, rudimentary at best, probably?

Yeah, also very expensive. We only big companies and the government have them, and so we would have to sneak in at night to get access. We kept saying to people, these things are going to be cheap, but they didn't agree. And so we got to be the very first people. And then you have people like Steve Jobs at Apple, where they're doing the hardware, the Apple, too, and we're doing the software. So the Apple computer came with our software.

Oh, it did?

Yeah. And was it Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I, for some reason, always thought that one of the major things for small brains like me that really was like, oh... Because I remember computers, there was the coding thing, and then all of a sudden, one And then the other day, I think it was Windows, which was just point and click stuff, and it was like, oh, this is a whole different thing. Was that not you, Mr. Gates?

Yes, absolutely. The idea of the graphics interface where you use images, not just characters, that's pioneered at Xerox, which made a lot of money on copying machines, and they didn't manage to make a good product. So it's actually Apple with the Macintosh and Microsoft with Windows that takes this idea of graphics interface and takes it to the masses. And now everybody knows that's the way you use computers.

You just point and click. But what we don't know is that what you're pointing on underneath that is a bunch of code that you're activating when you hit a click.

Yeah, it's actually pretty complicated underneath, which is why we had to hire lots of smart engineers and write a lot of code.

But I will say, I have two questions, which is, A, so you learn on these rudimentary huge computers that are only the government and educational institutions have, et cetera. You and Paul Allen realized that, okay, this is the future. Are there people who can teach you how to do the stuff you did, or did you have to figure a lot of that stuff out yourselves as you were going?

We pretty much had to figure it out. We did hire a few adults who knew things like finance and accounting. But because we were at the forefront of a revolution, this idea of, okay, how do you manage these people? How do you price this stuff? And we decided we'd sell all over the world, so I have to build a team in Japan and Europe and deal with all the languages. I have to say it was super fun. And because we were right, these computers got so popular, we made enough money. We just kept hiring more more and more people, and eventually built Windows and Office, which had Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Word, and those became- You remember all that? Yeah. So by the late '90s, we are doing well, and it's a standard way that people use personal computers.

Sorry, Sean, just on that last little bit of the code stuff, and you touched on that so that Apple products came with your software built in, and then you guys split, and it became like the... And forgive me for the comparison. It became like the VHS beta max. It was either or. It was like you either did this or you did that. Was there ever a discussion between you and Steve Jobs about, Hey, let's continue in this partnership using your, et cetera, et cetera? Or was there a moment that you split?

Because we're always pure software, the only competition is that Apple does its own operating system, which competes with Windows. But we write software on the Macintosh. In fact, we had as many people as Steve Jobs did when he's doing the Macintosh because we do our word processor, we do our spreadsheet. And it was amazing because Steve did the Mac. That was wonderful. Then he leaves Apple. Apple is being very mismanaged When he comes back, I reach a deal with him where we actually invest in Apple and commit to do our software. And then he runs that company so well that going from the verge of failure, it actually becomes the most valuable company in the world, even slightly more valuable than Microsoft. That's amazing. So we ended up working together. And then in the last few years, when he was sick, we got to reflect on our lives and talk to each other quite a bit. We We were competitors. I mean, he would criticize Windows pretty brutally, but that's okay. But his skill set, which was design and user interface, he was not an engineer. My skill is very much as an engineer, so we appreciated each other.

Was there a lot of competition, though? When you're sitting in your or wherever you were with Paul, designing this and coming up with this and all that stuff. Back then, you didn't have the... People didn't know what you were doing. Everybody knows what everybody's doing now. You had this secrecy so you could protect yourself But as it grew and became the thing that it became, how do you protect yourself and how did you protect yourself from competitors? And was Apple the only competitor?

Because Microsoft wasn't about any one piece of software, not just Windows, not just Office. We were doing Xbox, which had games. We thought of ourselves as a software factory, and we wanted to be faster than anyone else and have lower priced software than anyone else. And so the other people doing software found it pretty intimidating that we moved at that speed. And that's why when Steve does the Macintosh, he comes to us and say, Hey, are you willing to bet on this? Can Can we work on this together? It got quite competitive. Eventually, other great companies like Google come along, and they're also very good at hiring smart people. And there's been room If you think of what are the most valuable companies in the world today, it's all these companies that ushered in this digital revolution.

Yeah, I was going to say, because now you have, instead of a Google Microsoft and Apple, you have 200 AI companies now because people see the future much more quickly now than they did then.

Sean, tell me, you're an ask Jeeves guy, right?

That's been your whole- An ask Jeeves.

Mr. Gates, do you remember having conversations with Paul or Steve or any of your contemporaries at the time? Do you remember sitting there having conversations with them and allow yourself the imagination for what the future could bring? Were there any things that were worrisome or exciting, like you hear about the conversations that are happening now regarding AI, where we're on the doorstep of another big move. Do you remember having those concerns back then? Were there any?

Yes. The digital revolution with PCs and internet, we thought of as very empowering. And so you could say we were naive in thinking this was all good. In fact, when we worried, we were worried about what we called the digital divide, that having access was so valuable that we should make sure that schools in the inner city and poor countries had the Internet and the PC. It's only when social networking comes along that this, oh, isn't it always for the good to give people new capabilities? We realized, wow, the social criticism, the waste of time that in some ways we were playing to human weaknesses that you seek out outrage, and that can drive people apart. Now that we've seen that those advances aren't always good. Now with the AI, which is far more powerful than social network, we're going, wow, how do we shape this thing to get the good, which is definitely there, but avoid the bad stuff. It's a little bit scary right now.

A little bit of trying to put the genie back in the bottle, A, unfortunately, with the social networks and also just with phones in general and their impact As a father of three boys of 16 and younger, I would ask you, and I know your kids are a little bit older. Look, I don't like answering hypothetical questions yourself. But I'm going to ask you a hypothetical, which is, and feel free to not answer it. If your kids were teenagers again, if they were adolescents, if they were 11, 12, 13, 14, would you let them have access to social media?

Yeah, My youngest, I stopped her from having a cell phone until she was 14. She was quite upset because the other kids had access. It works a lot better if groups of parents or even the school come in and saying, Hey, during In the school day, this is pretty distracting. Australia is now trying to pass a set of rules. There's a book by Jonathan Hyte called The Anxious Generation. We've read it. I've read it. Okay, good. His point that we're overprotecting kids in the real world and underprotecting them in the digital world, I think he's got a super good point there, and we've got to step up on that.

I took his advice, and I said to my boys, to my teenage boys, I said, I will give you a lot of freedoms in the real world that are commensurate with your reduction in your time in the digital world, and I will give you much more leeway to do stuff and spend time in real time and give you a later curfew on the weekend, 11: 30, if you will, or whatever that is, if I see a market reduction in your time online. But what I dream about, this is what I'm getting to, what I dream of is six months of no social media on this planet. And what would that do in a a reset. Imagine a world where we didn't have that. I personally think that we would be in a much better place.

When you see how polarized we are and that even I, if there's some article criticizing somebody I don't like, I'm like, oh, yeah, I want to be outraged against the people I think have shortcomings. You want an algorithm that brings us together, and maybe a moratorium would help us get there. Yeah.

We will be right back.

Now, back to the show.

As a kid who grew up in the '70s, as a Gen Xer, your rise and your significance in the world It coincided with my teenage years and understanding that thing. It felt like the first time that we had things like the fortune list or the Forbes or the richest people in the world. Your name was in and out of the top of that for many, many years. I can't imagine just how absurd that must be on a certain level. Did you have those moments of, not even pinch me, but of like, is this me? It That was almost abstract. How bizarre. Did you have that at all?

Or just leave me alone.

Well, it's definitely wild. At a young age, I was in my 30s when I become the richest person. My parents, fortunately, their values helped anchor me, and they were always saying, Okay, to who much is given, much as expected. So I did start in my 40s to really study philanthropy, Rockefeller, Carnegie, what had they done, and try and figure out, could I be as careful about giving it back. And then in my 50s, I retired from Microsoft and moved over to do foundation work full-time. But yes, it's bizarre. Having close friends who really know you, who can laugh about your success, I think it does help keep you grounded. That transition to philanthropy, I'm sure there are many parts of it that are even more complicated than your life beforehand.

There are many, many challenges. Can you speak about those? I'm sure there's a lot of it that is much more enjoyable, too, probably most of it. How is that feeling, that transition?

Well, I loved being an individual contributor in my 20s and then managing Microsoft in my 30s, where you're just very hands-on and you can say, My product is selling well, or this one is not. How do we fix that? And so it's a real switch. We're not having that immediate market feedback to go and say, hey, why do children die? How many children die? Can we reduce that? And then I had to learn about poor countries and vaccines. But I have to say it's been As fulfilling, in the turn of the century, we have 10 million children dying every year. And because we got out new vaccines and worked with partners, that's now down below 5 million a year. And if we keep doing our work well, including governments caring about poor countries, we can cut that in half again to two and a half million.

Sorry. Have you found a way to make it an attractive idea for countries to come on and partner with you that goes beyond just the obvious ethical and moral pole of it? Is there a Is there a GDP component that you can dangle in front of some of these more capitalistic-minded countries that get them to the table a little bit better?

Yeah, that's a super good point. Of course, the moral argument of the golden rules, helping people everywhere is our strongest argument, but that alone isn't going to get us there. We had some of the generals in the US Army saying, Hey, if you don't help these countries out, then we'll have to go to war, and you'll have to increase our budget so that the foreign aid budget, by creating stability, it avoids the awful war. And also, if you lift people up economically, like Asia today buys a lot of American stuff, movies, drugs, jet, software, you name it. So our mutual success has been amazing. The two countries we defeat in World War II were generous enough to them that they become the second, third biggest economy. We engage in mutually beneficial trade. Japan shows us how to make quality products. Now we want to extend that Asia is doing well. India is getting rich, and eventually, they don't need aid if you help them out. And so you only have mostly countries in Africa that still really deserve this support.

Are you finding that you're having the same messaging language success as you try to encourage them to come along with environmental adjustments as well, that it's mutually beneficial from a business standpoint? Etc?

Yeah. So environmentally, a lot of these poor countries are very beautiful, and we all have to deal with climate change. Sadly, it's these African countries that didn't contribute to that problem at all because they're outdoor farmers near the equator, they're the ones that are suffering the most. The countries we need to really change their emissions are these middle income countries. So China, Brazil, now India, and they expect us to help them by inventing really inexpensive ways to go green. So the biggest hope for the environmental stuff is innovation. If the green stuff is really expensive, even the rich countries are saying, Hey, don't make me buy an electric car if it costs more. Don't make me buy an electric heat pump. It's going to have to be all of us Saying we're in this together, it's one planet, but also a lot of innovation because nobody can agree if it's expensive, who should pay for it?

A friend of mine who's a friend of ours, a friend of the show, Willy, our buddy, He mentioned that with this big round of deregulation that supposedly is on its way, that there may be a good spin to it in that the amount of innovation that is needed to really make a big move in an environment. A part of that, it's necessary for private to be spending money there as well as just federal money. And so by deregulating, you give those companies more money to spend in R&D for these environmental things. Is that just spin for the business?

And I'll let you guess what business he's in. He's a great guy.

What do we think about that? Is that spin or is there some validity to No, there's definitely some validity.

For example, if you want to build an electricity transmission line, you often have to go through almost a decade of approvals. And of course, that line, if anybody blocks it, then it doesn't work at all. We need to have more collective action as we try and change, move away from coal, electricity to other things, which is sun, and wind, and nuclear, and a variety of things. We don't want to get rid of all the regulations because part of the reason the US is so beautiful, we preserve lands, we've cleaned up our waters better than any other country. But it is absolutely fair to say that many of these environmental reviews are delaying projects that we need in order to solve climate change.

Got you. Government could get out of the way a little bit because we got to work fast, but not completely?

Yes. We're going to have to strike that balance.

It's hard not to be cynical when you have things like, and you were just touching on the idea, Jason, it was probably baked in your question, which is this, that, yeah, of course, there is what you call the ethical or moral pull, but it always comes down to economics. It's always Sadly, it's the driver of everything. It's like when the government went to war on the cigarette companies, it wasn't because they wanted us to stop smoking. It's because they didn't want to pay for people who were sick, unfortunately. It's got to be a win-win. Ultimately, otherwise, they couldn't care less. I think that there is a societal issue in America. Mr. Gates, I haven't revealed this to you yet. I'm Canadian by birth. I'm sorry to drop it on you like that. We had a reveal party. But I think that there is a societal... There are some societal issues. I am American as well, and I've lived here for a number of years, and I love this country. I truly, truly do. My children are all-American. It's an incredible experience. But I do think that there are some issues societually in this country that come up that have to do with that.

Unfortunately, I know that, look, I'm not naive, but unfortunately, a lot of things in this country are driven by people wanting to what's theirs, and there isn't this idea that we're only as strong as our weakest link. If anything, it keeps getting reinforced in different ways in elections, et cetera, in the way that you look at... California should have buried power lines. There's no question about it, but nobody wants to pay for that thing. There are all sorts of things like that, and people just won't do it. I don't know how we can change minds in this country, but it is strange. People will vote against their self-interest in this country in ways that are staggering. I'm giving you all these big picture things because I imagine, Mr. Gates, these are the kinds of things that you think about because you're dealing in macro. Am I right with that?

No, absolutely. When I think about the health system or climate, we've got to solve these problems. We saw that when we weren't ready for the pandemic, millions of people died who shouldn't have died.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Sean.

I was just going to say, I love all the... Talking about medicine, I love all the medical things you're doing. Do I call you Bill? Do I call you Mr. Gates?

Sure. Bill's fantastic.

Okay, William.

It's a great name, Bill. I do think you should keep it. If This is a great day. I've been thinking about it. It is a great name. Trey. We could call you Trey? Trey.

That was my nickname. My family still calls me that because my dad was Bill.

Wait, where did you get Trey?

The third. Because this is the third. Trey is the third.

Oh, hey, Trey. You didn't know that? Hey, Trey, I love all the medical things you're involved with. What's your favorite one you're working on? How has being around all the innovation of this medical world that you're involved with changed the way you live your life, whether that's food, diet, or whatever it is that we don't know about?

We're learning a lot. We've learned that sleep is very important. On nutrition, we're still confused about other than eating too many calories, what counts. The work of our foundation is very focused on the diseases that are still huge in poor countries. So HIV, malaria. We literally still have polio out there, even though we got rid of it in the US and kids aren't dying and being paralyzed. But we're down to just a few countries. And so the only disease we've ever gotten rid of is smallpox. And now polio is very close to being the second on that list. So I put a lot of effort into that. With HIV, you've got a million Americans living with it, 40 million worldwide. We'd like to make it so we can actually cure it rather than you having to take medicine the rest of your life. We're making good progress on that.

Is there any truth to the fact? Because I hear you hear these conspiracies that there actually is a cure for HIV, or there is a cure for all these things, but they suppress it because there's too much money in pharmaceuticals.

No, I wish that was true because then I would take the cure and...

Give it to everybody.

Exactly. Do you know about this? Gosh, it just occurred to me now that you're here. I'm going to call you Bill as well, if that's okay. Good. Bill, I know because I've been reading online and a lot of people from their basement say that you're putting chips in our brain, which is amazing. I love when I hear that. My answer to that is always, to what end?

Yeah, I know.

Why do you- Why does he want to inside my head?

When I hear somebody say, the government, I'm like, all right, we're done. But do you Do you hear any of that? Does it make its way to you? Do you laugh about it sometimes? Does it alarm you when you hear these people saying, Bill Gates is trying to put a chip into everybody's brain?

Yeah, well, I've had people come up to me on the street and yell at me that, why am I tracking them? But why are you? What am I going to do with that information? You do have to laugh about it, but it's also at the same time tragic that millions who would have saved by the COVID vaccine stayed away from it because of all the online misinformation that they were faced with. And whenever you get a pandemic saying, Oh, there must be some evil genius behind this, that's not very adaptive. And we're not really ready for the next pandemic, which will come, hard to say when it's going to come. But I thought that would make vaccines more popular. And So there's some work to be done here.

So, Bill, with all the AI stuff that's being talked about, and I'm sure if you're like me, you get a little tune out a bit because there's so much of it. Is there... Well, I'm sure there's many parts. What's the most promising use of AI that you can see coming soon? I'm sure it's going to fix a lot of things, but is there something that might be on the doorstep that you can talk about?

Well, I'd say the most promising work is health and education. Even today, if you get a set of blood tests back or an MRI test back, or you get a confusing medical bill, you really should stick it in the AI and say, explain this to me like a sixth grader because it is so good at doing that. Okay. God, I I use it all the time. Helping people with medical things. And then in education, having a personal tutor that gets what you're confused about the level that you're at and knows how to encourage you, whether it's in math or writing papers. It's early days and it's being rolled out. And this will not only be profound for the United States, but in Africa, we have fewer teachers and doctors than anywhere in the world. And so a chance for us to give them access to the health that we take for granted. Ai, in those two domains, we should push forward, get the accuracy up and really surprise people by improving the health system a lot.

This question is coming from a person who has no idea how research and development happens in the medical science. But I think that you get an idea, then you got to run it through a modeling thing and you got to test it all out. Am I right in assuming that AI can make this much, much faster such that we can track down maybe what the right equation is to fix cancer or any other of these incredibly damaging things, that maybe the process of elimination can happen much faster where we can reasonably expect to have some cures for some of these uncurable things, perhaps in our lifetime?

Absolutely. Medicine has made a lot of progress. I mean, heart disease is way down, cancer, we have a lot of things in the pipeline, but AI is going to accelerate all of that. Great. Amazing. I work in Alzheimer's, and there's some great tools coming along because nobody should want to have that. Even with HIV, this idea of the cure, the fact we can get it out maybe in four years instead Instead of eight, we'll use AI to help accelerate that.

That's amazing. We'll be right back.

And back to the show.

Your mom was really influential with you for planting this early seed of philanthropy and giving back and using what you're given in the right way. Is that correct? Do you speak about that at all?

Yeah, absolutely. When you see your parents behave, that's more influential than what your parents say. And so they volunteered in the community. They gave what they could. And then as my mom saw- She was big in the United Way, yes? Exactly. She put a lot of her time into that, both in our city, but also at the federal level. And So she was always telling me, okay, you've got to run a United Way campaign and get back. Sadly, she died pretty young, about 30 years ago. And it was my dad who actually, when I was still full-time at Microsoft, ran the foundation and got it going for the first 10 years and set the culture in a very positive way. So he did get to see and participate in all those dictates that I'd go back to my childhood.

Are your kids being as observational as you were and benefiting from it like you did?

Yeah. Well, my kids are both lucky, although being a child of somebody well known, I'm sure your kids experience some of it. It's got a lot of pluses, but some minuses as well.

But are they following your great example, I guess, is my question.

Well, I'm giving them as a percentage of the wealth, a pretty small percentage. I mean, in absolute, it's a lot. And I do believe that they'll have their own careers and they'll be very generous with what they're doing. But I didn't decide that we would take that wealth and pass it down. 95 % goes out through the foundation. And yet I'm super happy with how hard they work and their values. My wife, Melinda They did a great job raising the kids, and it's worked out well.

Yeah, amazing. I want to know about that gut probe in a pill. You just eat a pill. Describe that to me because I just read headlines about it. I didn't really know anything about it. What is that technology and what is it used for? Probe in a pill. Yeah, you eat a pill and it probes your guts. Oh, boy.

Yeah, so digestion is super complicated, and that's why these nutritional fads come along. The New Yorker cartoon said, You better adopt this new nutritional fad quickly before they prove it doesn't work. What happens is that in your gut, there's a lot of bacteria they call the microbiome. And we're just now, as you swallow this capsule and it absorbs all of those bacteria, we see what's going on. We finally understand what's going on. And so our foundation works on malnutrition. These big pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly, We work on overnutrition. And it turns out that we work together on the research because the same complex circuitry that allows poor kids to be malnourished. In the US, we have horrible levels of childhood obesity. And so as we're learning that, new drugs like these GLP-1 obesity drugs that as they get cheaper are going to have a profound effect. That's There's a type of innovation coming out, and yet we didn't understand that until very recently.

It's fascinating. And Sean is still morning the new ban on red dye number three because it's been such a staple in his diet, as you can probably tell.

He can't identify the cherry and the strawberry flavor and stuff.

His brain is basically liquefied. But I will say, you talk about that in this, about obesity, childhood obesity. What is it? What is the difference in this country? Again, it sounds like I've been attacking this. I'm really not. I'm curious about things like, about childhood obesity compared to other countries and the nutrition and things that are allowed. You've seen those things where they compare a product that is the same, but that's sold here and then sold in the UK. The list of ingredients is double in this country with additives and preserves, et cetera. Is that It's a massive problem or no?

Almost certainly not.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Our kids sit in front of the TV more than any other kids. So lack of activity alone explains most of this. Wow. And sadly, when your parents are obese, the likelihood that you'll be obese goes up pretty dramatically. And so the US, in many respects, drug addiction, obesity, you could say as the world's richest country, all the problems of being rich are worse than the US than they are anywhere else. We're also the most innovative, though. That's why I'm not a pessimist at all.

I do think- Wait, so it's just apathy? Is that what it is?

No, your TV shows are too entertaining. Exactly. It's all your fault.

Not mine. Not mine. What are you excited for the next five years? Sorry, Sean.

No, that's okay. I just had one question about another issue. But yeah, sorry. Well, right before that, but I do want to get to that. I'm really passionate about this because of the fires that just happened, because of the constant droughts in California. We talked to Kamala Harris about this three, four years ago when she was the senator in California, is like, most of the Earth is water. When there's a shortage of water, I'm like, how can we not figure out how to desalinate water? People say it's too expensive. Well, it's more expensive to not figure it out. And so what are your thoughts about that? Do you have any desire to be in that world?

Yeah. So I'm very involved in that because we have to both do climate mitigation and climate adaptation. And adaptation, a part of that is dealing with water shortages and more difficult weather. It takes a certain amount of energy to desalinate water. And So only by bringing the cost of energy down with things like solar or perhaps nuclear fission or fusion, then you get more water availability. Eighty % of water is used for agriculture. So You can afford to desalinate water for human consumption. You can't really afford to do it for agriculture, so you have to end up moving your farms to the places where there's enough water. You don't want to pay to desalinate eat just to grow.

Unless you do, unless we figure out a way to do it.

Unless you do. People like, sadly, Jason Maiman, who, obviously, with his almond consumption has been destroying the planet. It's unbelievable the amount of water that goes to every one of your precious almond that you just carelessly stuff in your mouth. But, Bill, I was going to ask you about you're excited about the next five years. What are we going to do about energy sources going forward? What can we do? Have we reached peak oil? What are we going to do with fossil fuels? Can we keep it going in this direction? What do you think about that?

Well, I'm very hopeful that between expanding wind and solar and getting both types of nuclear, nuclear fission and fusion, to get safer and cheaper, that even with all this demand for energy, like electric cars or electric heat pumps, AI data centers, that will We're going to be able to get ahead of that and still have cheap electricity, even though we'll get rid of all of the terrible CO₂ emissions. We are going to have to transition away from coal and natural gas in the decades ahead.

And that's going to It's going to be a painful transition, I imagine.

Not if we innovate the cost of these other things down. Electric cars are getting cheaper. Eventually, you do get to the point where the substitute is as cheap as the dirty thing was. In the long run, that's what we need to do so that we get global adoption of green approaches.

But educate me, if you would, to the extent that you know, if you get an electric car and you get all these people who get them and they're great, and then some people like to virtue signal with them and shame other people. But the components, so many of the components that go into the car are petroleum-based, whether it's the actual components cars themselves or traveling those cars to their destinations or across oceans and stuff. You know about all this. Is there any way that we can mitigate all of those other things as well so that we're not relying on petroleum for everything?

Absolutely. And we measure that. Anybody who buys an electric car, as you say, it's not zero emissions, but it is dramatically less than a gasoline car. The We're learning to make the batteries using less energy and less environmental things like new ways of finding lithium. So the accounting on, okay, how do we have the most environmentally clean car? We're doing a very good job tracking that. Consumers who help create demand for electric vehicles, they deserve a little bit a sense of virtue because the more we buy, the more the price goes down and the more-I agree.

I I was playing, obviously, but I do agree.

Bill, what's the rest of your day look like? Is your average day- He's firing the person who told him to do this. Is your average day split 50/50 between personal pleasure, silly stuff, and also saving the world with the other half? Or I bet the ratio is not 50/50, but do you get a little time to be stupid doing something? If so, what is it?

I do. In my 20s, I It was monomaniical in my work, but now, although I work 50 hours of work week and travel a lot, I play a fair bit of tennis. I play a lot of pickleball. I love reading. I love TV shows that you guys have made. That's super fun.

A little bit of golf?

I'm not doing much golf. I like tennis and pickleball because slightly better exercise.

Sure. Got you. What is the one thing that you know how to do that everyone will be surprised about? Do you have a little hobby? Are you a great drawer? Do you cook? Yeah. Are you a knitter? Is there anything that's a a sneaky little talent that people might be surprised about? Are you a great whistleer? That's pretty good.

That qualifies. On cue, not bad.

I'm good at sleeping on planes.

Oh, that's a great talent.

That is a great talent. Now, are you a savi or a sweet person? Do you have a sweet tooth?

Yeah. No, I try and not have too much peanut butter around because I would eat anything that's around.

Wow. Sugar is a bad deal for me. Very dangerous. Well, it's good that you're not too distracted with silly things because we need you there on the stick doing whatever you are doing and what you will continue to do, we hope. So thank you so much for what you've done, what you're going to do, and thank you for spending an hour with us.

Yeah, it was fun. Thanks, you guys. Honored to meet you.

What an absolute thrill. Thank you so much for your time.

So cool.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day. All right. Thank you, sir. See you, buddy.

Super.

Bye, pal.

I felt like I was a real blowhard today.

I'm sorry. You have a lot of opinions, and they're good opinions.

This is a talk show. I felt very blowhardy. I'm so sorry.

I apologize. No, well, you know what? You get somebody like that on the show, and you want to talk about all the stuff that is complicated. Big stuff.

I wanted to answer big questions. I know, I got that. Big macro questions. I get that. How can we save it? Is there any way that we can change opinion in the world?

Yeah, right. It's almost like everybody's To your point, Will, it's like everybody's looking for that guy who has all the answers. Yeah. But I wanted to ask him, people like that, do you have perspective about being one of the people that changed the fucking world? No, I know. There's 10 or 20 people like Einstein and him and Steve Jobs.

He and I are on a short list of people who are really been. Wait, wait, wait, wait, back up, back up. I agree. I'm saying what you're saying, dude.

The number of smiles that Will has created as opposed to computers.

What I'm saying is he and I, Yeah, dude, I'm making your point for you. That you and I have changed.

Talk about when you get to the end of your life, we've talked about it before, did I use my years right? This guy, I'm sure some people have issues with him, like with everybody, but my goodness, the amount of effect he has set over this world.

And he's still doing it.

I know. The other thing that I'm excited about is his book. He's got this new book coming out that's about how this all started for him, how his brain started going and how he got excited.

Was it a biography?

Yes, I believe so. It's called Source Code. It comes out February. But yeah, hopefully there's an audio portion of it that I can to listen to over and over again. Oh, no, J. B, no. Yeah, I still don't get it. I'm going to come read it to you. It's left to right, top to bottom, right?

You don't know what you're missing. I just had such a good read. God, you don't know what you guys... It would give you so many more references. You'd be so much more interesting No wonder you're so bland. You have nothing in there.

Did we stop recording? Are we still rolling?

No, this is part of this show. This is part of the show. This is the show. Source Code is the book. Go out and read it. Because all the profits are going to go to...

Me?

Not his pocket, something really good. I should know this, but it's all for charity. That's great.

As most everything he does. Exactly. That's so cool. Source Code. I also love the work that I wanted to get more into the...

Oh, here we go. Jesus I'm surprised.

You couldn't even fucking get- I wanted to get into the biotechnology. The biotechnology. Why?

Why, Sean?

Because the biotechnology is exciting.

Bio. Bio. Smart. Smart.

Smart.

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