How Bill Gates spends $9 billion a year - The TED Interview

[00:00:00] Hello everyone, Chris Anderson here. Welcome to a brand new season of the TED interview. This

[00:00:19] is where we dive into issues in much greater depth than as possible in TED Talk. And this

[00:00:26] whole season we're going to be diving into the idea of infectious generosity, the ultimate idea

[00:00:32] we're spreading. The cast of characters that I've connected with in producing this podcast

[00:00:38] series collectively give us the playbook to show that acts of kindness and other forms of goodness

[00:00:45] can spread virally across the internet more powerfully than the anger and divide that is currently

[00:00:52] framing our narrative. I'm hoping that by now you've read or listened to my book, Infectious

[00:01:01] Generosity, if not the trailer that preceded this episode tells you exactly how you can claim

[00:01:08] your free copy. The podcast series is designed to mesh in with a book in a beautiful way. But if

[00:01:13] you haven't read it yet, don't worry what you're about to hear will still make perfect sense

[00:01:18] because our first guest is none other than Bill Gates. Yep, the Bill Gates, the man who for years

[00:01:26] held the title of the world's richest person and who would probably still be the world's richest

[00:01:30] person if he hadn't given away so much money, $60 billion dollars and counting. The conversation

[00:01:37] you're about to hear I think is pretty remarkable. You've probably had Bill interviewed before.

[00:01:43] But this time it felt like we went deeper. I'm really tried to push him on some of the issues

[00:01:48] I've often wondered about with him, like his initial motivation to get into philanthropy.

[00:01:54] Was that in part a desire to bolster his reputation at a time when he and Microsoft were under attack?

[00:02:00] And what he makes of some of the criticisms of the Gates Foundation work, like are the amazing

[00:02:05] efforts he's made to transform how drugs and vaccines are distributed across the world

[00:02:11] all they're made out to be? Or has he been used to some extent by big farmer? Or take the giving

[00:02:17] pledge in which he's sought to persuade other billionaires to give away the majority of their wealth?

[00:02:23] Is it really working? Also, what does it feel like to be hit with so many conspiracy theories?

[00:02:29] I have to say I was excited and impressed by his answers. See what you think.

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[00:04:01] Without further ado, here's Bill Gates. So, Bill Gates, welcome to the Ted interview.

[00:04:13] Hi Chris, great to talk to you. Bill, as I think you know, I've become

[00:04:18] obsessed with this idea of infectious generosity and that's why you're the perfect person to

[00:04:24] open this new series of the Ted interview by so many measures whether you look at the lives

[00:04:29] impacted, the reshaping of so many areas of philanthropy. I mean, the ripple effects from what you've

[00:04:35] done are astonishing. So, I think you can legitimately be called the Typhoid Mary of infectious

[00:04:41] generosity. I have so many questions for you but I would love to start with your own generosity

[00:04:48] journey and how that began. Take us back to the 90s and what got you into all this in the first place.

[00:04:55] Yeah, I had great upbringing where my parents would volunteer quite a bit and were involved in

[00:05:02] things like united way or plant parenthood. And so, I had that example but I sort of ignored

[00:05:09] that as I went off and became obsessed with the magic of software and my role at Microsoft

[00:05:17] and really didn't let myself read even things like different sciences, like biology, what was

[00:05:23] advancing only as I stepped down a CEO, then I got extra time. You know, I was going out with

[00:05:30] Melinda. We got engaged and we're talking about okay, what would happen to the gigantic wealth

[00:05:37] that the success of Microsoft had created? And how should that go back to society? What are some

[00:05:44] causes where you could have high impact? Sort of thinking that all the really high impact stuff

[00:05:50] would have been taken and so we'd have to design things that were kind of marginal. And then to our

[00:05:56] shock, we found a variety of things that are super dramatic in their impact per dollar. And so we built

[00:06:04] the foundation, the big gift that made it the largest foundation was in the year 2000. And then I

[00:06:11] retired from my full-time work at Microsoft and went to the foundation full time in 2008. So,

[00:06:18] 15 years in to having that be my primary focus. And it's been unbelievably fulfilling and

[00:06:26] certainly in global health, the impact is even far beyond what we would have dreamed of.

[00:06:32] I'm so interested in the motivation of what makes someone make a shift like this.

[00:06:39] From what you said and from what I've assumed is just trying to put myself in your shoes,

[00:06:44] I could see a difference in contributing motivations to wanting to do this. In the 90s,

[00:06:50] you are under intense criticism from people for Microsoft being monopolistic, predatory, whatever.

[00:06:58] Surely maybe part of it was a desire to show that there was a different side of you and

[00:07:03] that reputational thing mattered. Is it legitimate to say that played some factor? Would you

[00:07:08] discount some of them completely? Well, obviously I'm not an objective observer of my own motivations.

[00:07:15] I don't think the reputational thing was there because even though there were lots of

[00:07:20] criticisms of Microsoft, I was still polling and to this day as most admired business person

[00:07:28] and a variety of things. So you have tons of people who like you more than you deserve. And then

[00:07:33] you have tons of people who dislike you, some of whom for good reasons like their software crashed

[00:07:41] or something. And many, it's more about okay, this person is rich and powerful. Should there be

[00:07:47] people like that? Even some jealousy or resentment. But overall my reputation was extremely positive

[00:07:55] because that American dream, particularly outside America, in India and China, the American dream

[00:08:02] of somebody creating a company and making lots of money and not coming from a powerful family

[00:08:08] or anything like that is still extremely vaunted. So I don't think it was reputation. The thing

[00:08:14] that I think some people miss is that my day to day work where like we spent three hours yesterday

[00:08:20] talking about making gene therapy super cheap so we concur HIV and cure sickle cell, the kind of

[00:08:28] brainstorming session with innovators that I do in my foundation work is it's the kind of stuff

[00:08:35] I love doing at Microsoft. And although yes, I need to know some immunology and biology on a daily

[00:08:43] basis that people I get to work with are just unbelievable whether it's people in the field,

[00:08:49] you know where I go out to Africa to see it or the scientists in the lab or the people are

[00:08:54] commencing government that helping poor countries is still a priority. This is really fun work.

[00:09:01] You know obviously I don't take a salary, I don't need to work but I choose to work still

[00:09:07] pretty long hours. I really do love it on a daily basis and you know the fact that has this kind

[00:09:14] of profound impact is just icing on the cake. Part of the reason I'm interested in

[00:09:20] motivation is that I've just noticed how cynical so many people are in trying to use any kind of

[00:09:27] possible motivation other than absolutely pure generosity to try to nitpick acts of kindness

[00:09:33] just across the board actually but certainly in big philanthropy. And I've sort of argued

[00:09:39] that's just unbelievably counterproductive. So if you told me that half the motivation was to

[00:09:44] improve your reputation, I don't actually be in great with that. Other people maybe in that

[00:09:48] situation should consider the same thing but what I had instead, another surprising motivation

[00:09:54] that I think isn't what most people have in mind when they think about philanthropy. I think a

[00:09:58] lot of people think oh I've got to do some generous giving it feels like a sort of a moral obligation.

[00:10:04] It's going to be hard work and worthy. What I had from you was excitement that you got to dig into

[00:10:10] the issues and the process of doing that felt just as cool and interesting as some of the other

[00:10:15] brainstorming you've done. Talk a bit more about that because I've always observed it to be just

[00:10:20] hungrily curious. You read like no one I know and that seems in this case to have allowed you to

[00:10:27] shift looking at a public from just being oh this is awful and overwhelming to actually

[00:10:32] this is really interesting. Well definitely you know when it comes to giving there are things

[00:10:37] that are tricky because you have people telling you various things that they think you should give

[00:10:42] to and you have to think about how long you're going to live and how you involve your kids or

[00:10:47] you don't. It is terrible if giving this sort of this oh god I have to think about that type thing

[00:10:54] so helping people on their journey of generosity particularly they're lucky enough to be successful

[00:11:00] till they get to a point where they can say no this is fun as making the fortune is giving it away.

[00:11:08] The start of our foundation over 10 million children year are dying and although it's broadly known

[00:11:15] that diarrhea pneumonia malaria are the majority of that what's causing the pneumonia or the

[00:11:21] diarrhea or which tools we should make from malaria it's not well known and I'm you know I thought

[00:11:26] my god from a moral or human condition point of view these questions are so interesting and because

[00:11:34] of rich world diseases where there's a market to do gene sequencing and come up with things the

[00:11:40] tools of biology have been advancing during this 23 year period incredibly and so we can take those

[00:11:47] tools and apply them to malaria and diarrhea and so we've been able to make unbelievable progress

[00:11:54] and we've cut that number down to under 5 million now. So yes ideally you get to a point where

[00:12:02] you're morally driven work is even more fulfilling than the other things you did in your life

[00:12:08] and just like I was super lucky with Microsoft I was very lucky to find these causes.

[00:12:14] I mean I think there's something here that a lot of us could take away come to think of it we

[00:12:19] at TED when someone comes to the conference wanting to present a really difficult issue often

[00:12:25] their temptation is to come in and say look at this isn't this awful and I advise often is to

[00:12:31] them say that's not a way to when people's attention and get them engaged with you that's too hard

[00:12:36] start with hey I want to show you something that's really amazingly interesting for a lot of us

[00:12:42] that can take us where empathy in its sort of most heavily expressed form is too much so I mean

[00:12:49] I love that you've expressed that and I suspect that's been very effective in terms of bringing

[00:12:54] others along with you on that journey am I right and that's any of that yeah absolutely how you mix in

[00:13:00] the fact that in poor countries there's these grim things like kids who are malnourished or

[00:13:06] kids who die for the lack of a bed net how you mix that in the message is very important

[00:13:12] you know I got a chance to read your book this week and I thought it was fantastic it reminding us

[00:13:18] that how you balance that message in one of hope and you know as you say in the book if you tell

[00:13:24] people they can save millions of lives it's less powerful than just handing them a picture of one

[00:13:30] kid and saying do you want to save this kid's life when I showed my daughter a movie about polio

[00:13:36] and how we've made all this progress that you know we've gone from a quarter million kids being

[00:13:41] paralyzed every year now down to less than a hundred at the end of the video there was a kid

[00:13:47] limping along and so the video was over and I thought okay what do you think and she said are

[00:13:52] you helping her and I said who and she said that girl at the end of the video who's limping along

[00:13:59] and I'm like wow you are really retail I mean my mindset is so wholesale that didn't even occur to

[00:14:05] me so but you could be sure I made sure that girl has really good crutches and good care

[00:14:12] you know so I could tell my daughter that her impulse that hey if you're going to make her feel

[00:14:16] bad about the girl let's do something about it was fulfilled shame on you dad you got 249,990

[00:14:25] but that last 10 but this is it so this dance between head and heart I think we'll return to

[00:14:32] because it's so important to try and figure it out tell me Bill when was the moment when you

[00:14:37] really felt wait a sec there actually is something big that our foundation could do it's not just

[00:14:45] small pieces on the side what was the big aha well you go to Africa and you see the great energy

[00:14:51] and the great beauty and but people literally without shoes and are without enough food

[00:14:58] and you're like wow these are humans and we should be helping them get to self-sufficiency

[00:15:06] and then there was a Nick Kristoff article about kids dying of rotavirus which is the majority

[00:15:13] of diarrheal deaths and there was a vaccine that protected against rotavirus but it was only being

[00:15:19] given to rich kids and rich kids because they have a nice health system and good nutrition

[00:15:25] their chance of dying of rotavirus is near zero whereas in india alone you had over 100,000

[00:15:32] kids dying every year because they didn't have this vaccine and then I looked into the cost

[00:15:39] of making vaccines and saw that almost every vaccine if you do the right things you can get down to

[00:15:45] less than a dollar of cost and you know then it just seemed so horrific that because the poor people

[00:15:54] don't have any money their voice in the marketplace of innovation and products isn't adhered to

[00:16:01] you know and so the market works for should we have Chinese restaurants or tight restaurants but

[00:16:07] for the health needs of the poorest the market alone just doesn't work so that insight and that

[00:16:13] we could use our philanthropic dollars to get that vaccine cost down and to invent new vaccines

[00:16:20] get them out to kids that you know became okay we can go full speed ahead here and so every quarter

[00:16:27] I would have a meeting where we looked at what percentage of the world's children were getting

[00:16:32] rotavirus vaccine and what steps we were going to take you know now that number is up close to 90%

[00:16:40] you know up from about 10% when we got going and you know that alone is the biggest single reason why

[00:16:47] so many fewer kids are dying before the age of five so what happened was we gave

[00:16:53] Melinda and I gave some money in the late 90s we gave 125 million to what was called the

[00:16:59] Children's Vaccine Program and they had a dinner for us to be nice to us and I guess the people

[00:17:05] had been coached not to beg too much but then I said hey what would you guys do if you had more money

[00:17:11] and then you know so the rotavirus guy has his idea and the newmo guy has his idea and they're all

[00:17:16] you know there's a cholera guy so there's at least six different people are like oh my god thank you

[00:17:21] for asking and I was like wow this is crazy why isn't this getting done and in a US foundation you

[00:17:30] have a minimum payout of 5% you know so when I did that first gift in 2000 we were required to

[00:17:39] spend over a billion a year but I had gotten the confidence that we'd have no problem spending

[00:17:44] that money for incredible impact yeah that was the hell of a first step donate 20 billion and have

[00:17:50] to figure out how to give away a billion I mean giving away money is that theme we may return to

[00:17:55] but it's one of the problems is it's actually quite hard to do it well I mean sometimes people get

[00:18:00] blamed for not giving enough but would you agree that that is a part that's missed that it takes

[00:18:04] no absolutely the US has a very thriving nonprofit sector but if you go into countries where philanthropy

[00:18:12] hasn't been a great tradition then there's not just a lack of money to be given there's a

[00:18:18] lack of organizations if you want to give in that country you have to build up that side as well

[00:18:23] and so pick a measure like life saved or getting rid of malnutrition and try to make sure

[00:18:29] you're good about that but you don't have that same feedback that the private sector does

[00:18:35] if a foundation is giving money inefficiently it's not driven out of business and you know

[00:18:42] of course the recipients of your grants are always like this is such a brilliant grant that you're

[00:18:47] giving me you know just keep it up and you know so saying did I explore things as much as I should have

[00:18:56] it's less clear than in the place where you made money right right the Gates Foundation obviously

[00:19:02] is involved in so many areas now you're now giving away as much as nine billion dollars a year

[00:19:08] which I think is about at least five times more than what anyone else is doing I mean it's

[00:19:13] it's pretty amazing I'd like to focus on one area especially so that we just get a picture of you

[00:19:20] and the foundation at work making change so you've mentioned vaccines let's go there I mean for

[00:19:25] one thing there's a beautiful analog right with the software business model that you've had which is

[00:19:31] you've spent a huge amount of money building something and then when you've built it you can

[00:19:36] reel off units of it at very little cost and it's a very powerful thing that you're

[00:19:41] reeling off and I'm guessing that that's part of what drew you to vaccines as well this could

[00:19:46] be amazing really got behind these yeah it's quite magical that you know this dollar shot

[00:19:53] you know it's a metal needle and you know the infant cries and so it's very non-intuitive in terms

[00:19:59] of saving that child's life that's the best thing you can do but you know we got rid of smallpox

[00:20:05] altogether by getting vaccination up and it's gone you know we're very close to achieving that

[00:20:10] with polio and so not only won't any child be paralyzed but you won't have to vaccinate anyone

[00:20:17] once it's certified as having been eradicated you know we'll often go to drug companies and we'll say

[00:20:23] hey we'll help you support this work but we need to know that for the 90 poorest countries that

[00:20:31] you won't charge anything but your cost you know and that all the rights and everything will be

[00:20:36] available let no cost for the poorest countries and so that model has worked for us to tap in to

[00:20:44] getting these drug companies as partners because for them for a drug company in many ways

[00:20:49] that economics of vaccines aren't ideal you know there are take once your life has changed

[00:20:54] that's it does not in most cases recurring customers as it were and so left to their own devices

[00:21:01] drug companies kind of prefer to develop drugs for chronic diseases that they can make you take

[00:21:05] every day to that extent the market is perhaps a little bit broken and did you see that a key role

[00:21:12] of the foundation was to make the market work where it was needed most yeah well you for a disease

[00:21:20] like malaria that doesn't exist in rich countries we're giving grants to get private companies

[00:21:26] involved to get the resources allocated the way they should be with diseases that exist both in

[00:21:33] rich world and poor world like HIV Gilead who's very generous in their licensing for poor countries

[00:21:41] we can help fund projects knowing that for every project they sign that they've agreed not to make

[00:21:48] any money for the use of their breakthroughs in poor countries and yet some critics have

[00:21:54] questioned whether all is all is healthy yet that you've been accused including by people like

[00:22:00] medicine or some frontier of kind of cow-towing to the economic demands of big farmer and actually

[00:22:09] not fully being on the side of the poor who actually need these vaccines I'm guessing

[00:22:16] you're not a fan of these criticisms what are the critics missing well it's fair that every time

[00:22:22] we work with private companies did we strike the best deal we could on behalf of the poorest

[00:22:28] you know it's great that people look at what we do there and say no you should have done better

[00:22:32] you should have done this you should have done this other thing you know as you look into those

[00:22:36] most of them are wrong but because you don't have market feedback you better listen to your critics

[00:22:42] because sometimes they will be right about those things there is a perverse thing that can happen

[00:22:48] though which is that for the companies who actually work on infectious disease they get asked to

[00:22:54] give the stuff away and lose money and so what you've seen is that the many farmer companies don't

[00:23:01] work on these issues at all because it involves some of the moral dilemma you know it's like you say in

[00:23:07] your book is this a sticky wicket you know asking private companies to just give these things away

[00:23:14] that is probably not scalable as we need more vaccines we need to engage them

[00:23:21] have you personally been involved in some of the negotiations with say the CEO of a farmer

[00:23:27] company and without necessarily naming names can you just tell us a story of what it feels like

[00:23:32] and what is going on in your head how are you deciding that this is a fair deal and that you're

[00:23:38] excited about it well we publish every year we fund a group which is called the access to medicines

[00:23:43] index which looks at all the drug companies and says do they take some of their top R&D people

[00:23:50] and work on infectious disease there's a strong correlation that as farmer companies do well they get

[00:23:56] more generous and as they do last well they get less generous so Eli Lilly and Novynardis

[00:24:01] who are benefiting from their G.L.P.1 obesity drugs are actually both stepping up to help with

[00:24:09] global health things pretty fantastically and I give credit to the leadership of those organizations

[00:24:15] you know when i'm talking to a pharmacy oh and I do a regular meeting with all those CEOs

[00:24:21] clearly we can offer praise where they're giving away drugs for example for neglected diseases

[00:24:29] or if somebody really lets us down you know we'll speak out and as you say in your book

[00:24:34] you know their employees are anxious to be at an enterprise that not only is bringing health

[00:24:40] to rich people but bringing it to the world that large and so the sort of carrot stick there has

[00:24:46] been reasonably powerful I mean trying to put myself in in your shoes I think I think I'd be

[00:24:52] wrestling with this you know you over time you've you form relationships friendships with the

[00:24:56] heads of these companies because they're doing work that matters and I'm just curious

[00:25:00] with that in your own mind are you willing if it comes to it to say enough you're not doing this

[00:25:06] right to call not necessarily call someone out but to risk losing one of those friendships over

[00:25:12] what the needs of the vaccines in this country that really needs it demand yeah there's companies

[00:25:20] who are high in our access to medicines index and fell very dramatically you know it often comes

[00:25:28] with the change of the CEO you know when you say okay what's making money the global health stuff

[00:25:34] just doesn't make the cuts so it's often when they go through tough times and I'm rarely criticized

[00:25:40] for not being hardcore enough and so when a pharmac CEO is on the phone with me it's not about

[00:25:48] some friendship although some of these people are quite impressive it's about hey come on how come

[00:25:55] you know you didn't make enough rotavirus vaccine or you haven't brought the HPV vaccine price down

[00:26:00] you know I'm gonna have to go to India and China to get it made we have also huge relationships with

[00:26:08] the developing world manufacturers Indonesia and China and over time as we're getting the prices

[00:26:14] down the volumes do tend to shift because they are more focused on low cost manufacturing than

[00:26:20] the western companies so give us a sense of scale here Bill like over the years at least

[00:26:25] plausibly as a result of Gates Foundation work how many vaccines have been delivered to the

[00:26:34] developing world and how many lives do you believe have been saved as a result so deaths under five

[00:26:39] were over 10 million a year and now are down below five million a year you know the majority of

[00:26:44] the reduction is due to vaccines so these are incredible numbers yeah I find this so amazing

[00:26:52] and it's so frustrating to me that so many of us walk around under a cloud of misery at how bad

[00:26:56] the world is and we think about all these terrible deaths that are in the news and I just think

[00:27:02] that we'd feel better about ourselves better about humanity overall better about the future if

[00:27:06] we somehow found a way of holding those numbers in mind and being able to picture it yeah you and I

[00:27:14] are in total agreement about this that you know when people say you know we should

[00:27:18] throughout our current system or change it radically people should understand that our system

[00:27:25] in many ways is working well I admit that income inequality is still not great and that access

[00:27:33] to great education is still not great but it's better today that at any time in the past there are

[00:27:40] a few negative trends like opioid use and polarization and we should particularly take our innovative

[00:27:47] powers our generous thinking and apply to those things but most things are improving and it's sad

[00:27:55] that because of the nature of bad news which you talk about that people are far more gloomy

[00:28:02] about where we are than they should be and then their motivation to do more of the good stuff is

[00:28:09] definitely reduced because of that yes

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[00:29:31] often the good news is not it's not like a sort of soothing bandaid on reality it's the opposite

[00:29:36] it's actually opening people's eyes up to what the data actually show let's talk about this

[00:29:41] bill because this is amazing to me and you you've been because of your deep involvement in vaccines

[00:29:48] and because the issue of vaccination itself has somehow god knows how become politicized you've

[00:29:55] been the subject of the most bizarre conspiracy theories which would become a call but we're not

[00:30:01] for the viciousness with which some of them are pursuing the theory that you engineered this

[00:30:07] thing so that you can make money from your vaccines is probably the most extreme and obnoxious

[00:30:12] thing out there i'm curious how you how you cope with it honestly yeah i mean there's some people say

[00:30:17] that you know i i gave the TED talk warning about the risk of a pandemic and then you know

[00:30:23] years go by and it's not coming true so i felt i had to do something to validate my prediction

[00:30:29] otherwise i was going to look foolish and it's pretty bizarre that you have a you know candidate

[00:30:35] running for the u.s. presidency who writes a book you know with my name in the subtitle saying

[00:30:42] that i'm using vaccines to kill millions of children and making billions of dollars

[00:30:47] which are we're talking there about robot Kennedy right yes yeah you know the bizarreness is strong

[00:30:52] i certainly have no complaint i mean my life is fantastic and wonderful and the fact that some people

[00:30:59] have crazy views it you know i've even had people come up and yell at me on the street at least

[00:31:03] now they didn't physically attack me they just were saying why am i tracking them and the idea of why

[00:31:09] i would want to track that particular person you know it never occurred to them that it really

[00:31:15] doesn't make sense the scale of misinformation during the pandemic blew my mind so the fact that

[00:31:22] the reputation of vaccines has been really damaged that is tragic and i would have thought a pandemic

[00:31:28] would get us to rededicate ourselves to global howl but sadly it's almost on the opposite where

[00:31:35] people talk about oh let's not fund the w.h.o. or let's you know not do any new vaccine work

[00:31:42] somebody who put their life into this kind of work like Tony Fauci lets attack him as a villain

[00:31:50] it's amazing to me i want to ask you about whether there are some unintended consequences

[00:31:56] about because of the vast size of the foundation unquestionably by any objective measure you are

[00:32:03] the gorilla in the room in in many discussions about public health and how to make it better i

[00:32:09] guess i've heard some people wonder whether there is a risk of a kind of chilling effect

[00:32:16] that you're so powerful that other ideas struggle to get a look in somehow because the foundation

[00:32:24] is so confident in what it's doing do you worry about this and when you talk to your people out there

[00:32:31] in the field is there any kind of instruction that says you know you guys are the source of the

[00:32:36] main money and that that gives you a lot of power is there any issue here that you think is real

[00:32:41] oh yeah it's a big issue that you know just take malaria as an example it's tragic that there's

[00:32:47] not more funders of work on malaria and because other than the u.s. government we are so much the

[00:32:55] biggest funder that if we make a mistake if we miss a vaccine effort or a drug effort or some

[00:33:02] new tool the chance of somebody else coming in and picking that up is actually very low so i don't

[00:33:10] think that's a good argument for saying that we shouldn't work on malaria at all but it does mean

[00:33:16] that our care in terms of doing open solicitations and finding ideas out there that the normal

[00:33:24] people that we engage with might have you know it's very incumbent upon us to stay incredibly

[00:33:31] open minded we need more independent thinkers and global health and we are large but governments

[00:33:38] are also very large in this space and you know we're trying to draw more funders in and more government

[00:33:47] money in you know the same way that a good idea can really be phenomenal if we miss good ideas

[00:33:55] that's super super bad yes so that that feels powerful to me actually if you can instill that

[00:34:00] value throughout the org that we've got these resources but we know we're not always right and it's

[00:34:05] so that other people can contribute to the conversation that i think that's powerful though i

[00:34:10] I'm interested in infectious generosity and i want to ask you about what i strikes me as one of

[00:34:14] the most consequential examples of infectious generosity namely the giving pledge there are many

[00:34:20] billionaires in the world the pledge is that they give away the majority of their wealth in their

[00:34:26] lifetime or in their will you and Melinda and Warren took it upon yourselves to persuade as many

[00:34:33] of them as possible to sign this pledge i mean there are trillions of dollars owned collectively by

[00:34:39] billionaires that's a potential difference of yeah literally trillions of dollars to the public

[00:34:46] good what do you feel about the pledge like you must be deeply proud of it at some level and i'm

[00:34:51] guessing you also have some frustrations with it well it was Warren's idea to get together people

[00:34:58] who are doing serious philanthropy and kind of talk about why they were doing it and what role could

[00:35:05] any of us play in facilitating people's philanthropic journey you know so we learned a lot about

[00:35:11] the barriers to giving and they dilemma you talk about in your book of okay should you be

[00:35:18] very visible in your giving or should you be very invisible you know where there's

[00:35:22] there's strong arguments for both of those things so i spend a lot of time every year doing dinners

[00:35:28] with people who are lucky enough to have significant wealth and not necessarily just promoting

[00:35:34] the giving pledge but chatting with them about how they think about things ensuring examples of say

[00:35:40] how the family gets engaged or how you pick different causes and some of those people choose to

[00:35:46] join the pledge the pledge in no way will ever take credit for the members generosity you know that

[00:35:53] entirely goes to them so you know we haven't gotten even half of the world's billionaire signed up

[00:36:00] but i think we've had a significant effect on getting people to pick causes connected to inequity

[00:36:07] and getting them to accelerate their giving journey partly by meeting other people who are

[00:36:13] further along in that journey or may share a common cause feel this one riddle about the pledge

[00:36:18] that i wonder if you could help me with um which is i've been puzzled what it actually means like when

[00:36:24] you say give away 50% of your wealth the thing is that someone's wealth is a moving feast like a typical

[00:36:31] billionaire who's in there say they're 30 years old or you know one of the youngest billionaires

[00:36:36] by the time they're 50 they may well own 4x the wealth that they had when they were 30 just from

[00:36:42] the accumulation of value through investing or through the rise of their company stock or whatever

[00:36:47] is the pledge to give away 50% of what you have at the time you make the pledge 50% of your

[00:36:53] peak wealth yeah so there's no enforcement of the pledge it's a moral commitment to the public

[00:37:00] which is why the one requirement we have is that your name is posted as haven't taken the pledge

[00:37:08] ideally you write a pledge letter that talks about why you're engaged and what you're trying

[00:37:13] to do philanthropically i think about 80% of the pledges have letters up on the the giving pledge

[00:37:19] website but there's no anonymous members so that exact definition is is not black and white

[00:37:26] we're trying to get people to give more sooner and so the idea that you have going back to zakaat of

[00:37:35] okay above a certain level you should give a 40th every year zakaat is the Islamic tradition

[00:37:41] of giving a 40th year wealth every year yeah and when people are in a big accumulation phase

[00:37:47] you know like Warren Buffett who's mind-blowingly generous he was criticized by Ted Turner because

[00:37:53] when Berkshire was in its early years he chose to be doing more accumulation than giving and now

[00:38:00] he's in a phase where he is doing massive giving and so there's a certain personal element in that

[00:38:06] particularly if you want to have your time available to engage in it you know the sooner you do it

[00:38:13] the better but at first you have to get started and often you'll get started with pretty small

[00:38:19] gifts or doing it collaboratively so we're you know we're trying different formats that draw people in

[00:38:25] I mean i've spoken obviously to quite a few members who have signed the giving pledge and

[00:38:31] I've been struck about their serious determination to give back they want to do it many of them

[00:38:39] confess that it's it's quite hard to do the numbers are a little troubling I mean I spoke with Steve

[00:38:45] Levitt at the University of Chicago I don't know whether his study is right he claims that

[00:38:50] the average giving pledge member is still giving well under half a percent of their

[00:38:55] network each year and that it hasn't really budged much since they signed the pledge but

[00:39:00] it's very very hard because people are so busy and because understanding the smart way to do

[00:39:05] philanthropy is really hard I guess I argued that there is a case to try and turn that into an

[00:39:11] annual pledge of at least eight percent it it's not necessarily two and a half percent of your

[00:39:15] network but start somewhere and step it up precisely because money makes money wealth is accumulating

[00:39:21] at some point if someone's serious about giving away half of their work by the time they're in

[00:39:26] their 70s or 80s surely they need to be hoping to get to 10% plus of their net worth a year to have

[00:39:32] a chance to get down people are a long way from that still I'm just wondering if there's anything

[00:39:38] more to do to persuade people to take it seriously on an annual basis no and it that's you know we're

[00:39:45] really saying to ourselves how do we help people make that transition the giving level of giving

[00:39:49] pledge people has gone up versus what they were doing beforehand but not as much as we'd like

[00:39:56] to see you know see you almost think okay could there be a category called activated giving

[00:40:01] pledge member you know where they're hitting the the two and a half percent or a bob we don't

[00:40:06] want to make things too complicated and as you say the math on your wealth varies and also I

[00:40:12] disagree the wealth doesn't always go up there there could be significant periods wealth is an

[00:40:18] accumulating yes the US tech sector many people's wealth has gone up a mind blowing amount but

[00:40:26] you know we will reach limits in terms of that and other fortunes I even had a giving pledge member

[00:40:32] who at one point was worth 15 billion and then they were worth 10 billion and I was saying to them

[00:40:37] come on you have to give more come on and he's like no no no until I get back you know I'm poor

[00:40:42] right now till I get back to 15 I don't want to give it I'm like oh no you know they've adjusted

[00:40:48] it is nice that people don't raise their spent your spending habits are largely set you know

[00:40:54] when you're young and not that wealthy and yet for people they still think of a million dollars

[00:41:01] as a big gift but if you're in a worth several billion you have to change your mindset and although

[00:41:07] you can start off with gifts like that you really have to learn to give gifts 10 million 20 million 30

[00:41:13] million you know and and it takes time for people to wrap their mind around it and get that

[00:41:19] but we need to do better at helping people accelerate because a lot of them want to and

[00:41:25] and the needs are unbelievable and the examples where it's worth or are so compelling I mean

[00:41:31] it feels to me like just the simple metric of asking people is that a percentage of your net worth

[00:41:38] that you plan to give away each year any percentage like just shifting it to that way of measuring

[00:41:42] it gets you past the oh a million is a lot to actually a million is a tiny percentage

[00:41:48] I want to ask you about the Forbes list and whether it is actually playing a weird role here

[00:41:54] most of the people who are really wealthy especially those who've made it entrepreneurs or whatever

[00:41:59] you know they're super competitive people and you've got this list out the world's wealthiest

[00:42:04] I worry that it's possibly even though no one might admit to it acting as a kind of drag on

[00:42:11] people's willingness to give away really large sums because in doing so you knock yourself down

[00:42:17] that list do you think that's a possibility maybe a tiny bit but I think the idea of the Forbes

[00:42:22] list is a very positive thing because for society to know you know where these great wealth accumulations

[00:42:30] are and think okay that affecting political influence or you know what does it say about the

[00:42:36] competitive nature of the economy I remember you know as a young person when that list first came out

[00:42:41] I found it fascinating that okay here's a real estate fortune why do these Wall Street guys

[00:42:46] do so well and you know thinking would I ever be on that list and thinking that I wouldn't be

[00:42:52] which turned out to be stupid so I think the transparency is good I'd be higher on the list if

[00:42:58] I didn't give money away and proud that I'll be dropping down over time I know Randall Lane the

[00:43:05] publisher for sees that I think he's the wonderful journalist and and I agree with you the list

[00:43:10] isn't that positive but I've argued with him that it would be super cool if the definition of wealth

[00:43:16] could somehow be extended to lifetime financial footprint I mean that the wealth that matters is

[00:43:21] the wealth of the accumulated and what you've done with it no absolutely I agree with you

[00:43:27] you date and they're doing better on this mostly beside articles but you're right they always

[00:43:32] did there's a lack of transparency so the you know the more they try and report they're going to have to

[00:43:38] in some cases gas or but your points a good one I think given the psychology of every involved if

[00:43:44] you could if you can involve a different kind of competitiveness to be at the top of the

[00:43:47] footprint of you know who's given the most away I think that'll be thrilling compete on percentage

[00:43:52] compete on absolute amount all those things should be figures of merit good well we'll continue

[00:43:57] that discussion with him and your own situation is pretty remarkable and I think when you

[00:44:03] just from a cursory look online and you can correct me if I'm wrong here but it looks like

[00:44:07] at the time you originally made the giving pledge you were worth about a hundred billion dollars

[00:44:11] and you've on the numbers I saw you've given away like sixty billion and counting so in a way

[00:44:16] you've already met the pledge viewed one way and yeah your total wealth now is like 120 or something

[00:44:22] it's it's continued to rise and so it's kind of amazing yeah no I'd love to see more people doing

[00:44:29] what Chuck Feney did where you really are giving at a rate that it all can be given away in your

[00:44:35] lifetime you know Carnegie said to die rich is to die disgraced that goes a little bit too far because

[00:44:42] you know you don't know when you're going to die but if you live out if you live to say your late 80s

[00:44:47] ideally you would have a plan that in my view the money's given away a few people trying to

[00:44:54] in perpetuity foundations but overall I think most people should have a plan that during their

[00:45:00] now to lifespan they will give it all away I love that so we've been talking about the big money

[00:45:05] let's let's end this by just most people listening here are fascinated by what billionaires are doing

[00:45:11] and can do and are probably cynical about them many of them I one of my goals with the book bill is

[00:45:16] to say that actually there's a different conversation to have which is to accept that giving big is

[00:45:23] really hard and that if instead we could collectively get excited about the possibility of

[00:45:30] philanthropy we'd feel differently so I guess that's almost my question to you is can you picture

[00:45:37] away in which we engage more people in the world in discussions about how how big philanthropy

[00:45:45] can be done I think the single most annoying question that people have or the question that annoys

[00:45:49] them the most is why should these people get to choose you know how how the world gets better

[00:45:56] how how can we do this how can we engage more people into the process of contributing to the

[00:46:02] ideation of big dreams about what philanthropy can achieve so that we can take pride in it together

[00:46:10] it's all of us and not just the less rich being annoyed at the very rich well the idea of

[00:46:15] scaling up philanthropy pretty substantially you know say by at least tripling it both from the very

[00:46:22] rich and the well off I'm completely in line with your goal I'm reminded when I first got into

[00:46:29] this thinking boy we can activate people because they do want a moral purpose beyond just their net

[00:46:37] worth or even their immediate family you know if they've taken care of those needs and so I think

[00:46:43] God we should be able to use digital to make the world a smaller place and to have common human

[00:46:50] desire providing basics and activate more philanthropy there are days when I think God that's so naive

[00:46:57] of me because in fact digital giving although there's some good examples you know like supporting

[00:47:03] teachers and things the actual amount hasn't gone up that much and your book is such a reminder that

[00:47:10] we have to be smarter about this and we have to create a movement around it and not let the difficulty

[00:47:18] of it discourage us you know and the idea that it even connects to the kind of depression and

[00:47:24] polarization that the internet's been part of accelerating and that this is a pushback against

[00:47:29] that by defining generosity in the very broad way you do I'm reenergized to be you know one of the

[00:47:37] people who's trying to help and that's you know I love giving Tuesday the foundations been helpful

[00:47:42] to that you know I love audacious the foundations help support some of that but you know we need to

[00:47:49] to go way beyond those activities you know and to learn from what's worked in those things

[00:47:55] but set up much much higher goal okay last few someone's starting a generosity journey or wants to

[00:48:03] any advice for them well I think the you know you're early giving a lot of it will be local where

[00:48:10] you can kind of get your hands on the local food bank or training center and be reminded wow these

[00:48:17] are basic human needs and the volunteers here are such wonderful people so getting behind them

[00:48:23] you know and then collaborative giving where you find a group that you know whether it's

[00:48:30] domestically like a blue meridian or globally like co-impact where other people who are further

[00:48:38] along in their philanthropic learning you get to work with them and learn from them and then

[00:48:42] eventually you pick you know your causes that you go directly into the best tactic we've ever found

[00:48:49] is getting people to go to Africa and see the work on the ground and meet the people that's not

[00:48:55] always easy to do but you know nothing is close the sad thing about digital is it's too easy to click

[00:49:02] away you know if I know I have you for five minutes I'm allowed one minute of telling you these

[00:49:07] deaths are awful and then four minutes of saying all the progress he made in how you're getting involved

[00:49:13] that my money is not enough and that your money will really be responsible for great things happening

[00:49:19] there and you can either see that digitally or or go see it on the ground digital is meant that

[00:49:26] your engagement can be very light you know it's not like getting on a bus to go do civil rights

[00:49:33] you know in the south where you're chosen to put your life at risk there and so how can the light

[00:49:39] nature of it get those next stages going you know and do we have the most creative people helping us

[00:49:47] in this endeavor but despite all the challenges I think I've heard you say ultimately it is

[00:49:54] it's worth doing this journey oh yeah absolutely you know I wish other people could

[00:50:00] know how much fun and how much progress they can be a part of pushing forward their whole view

[00:50:07] of the world and if human nature will be greatly improved by getting hands on on one of these causes

[00:50:14] that although still far to go what is a great news story that's not well known so that's a great

[00:50:21] place to end on I've had someone excited about what they're doing someone who's willing to listen

[00:50:28] critics not defensive and when I think back on the impact you've had I mean really you've changed

[00:50:34] the whole conversation there is about what generosity can look like the scale at which it can happen

[00:50:40] so thank you for your inspiration and leadership in this whole area it's been really

[00:50:45] been a delight to talk with you thank you well thanks your book reminds me that we need to set

[00:50:50] even more aspirational goals in this area so I look forward to working on that together all right

[00:50:57] let's do that thank you thanks okay that's pretty much it for this week if you'd like to dig into

[00:51:06] the subject more check out my book infectious generosity you can get a free copy of either the digital

[00:51:14] book or the audiobook by going to TED.com slash generosity if you were struck by the giving pledge

[00:51:24] and feel like you'd be interested in making your own kind of pledge I recommend that you take a visit

[00:51:30] to the giving what we can.org website so it's giving what we can.org they allow you to do a

[00:51:41] customized pledge to what makes sense to you and as I argue in the book as you may have gathered from

[00:51:46] this conversation just now that is a beautiful thing to do but next week we're shifting more to

[00:51:52] non-financial ways of giving we're going to meet an amazing woman who posted a picture on Facebook

[00:51:59] and in so doing just sparked a hurricane of kindness across the planet if you like the show please

[00:52:06] leave us a review honestly it really makes a difference helps others find us we will read everyone

[00:52:13] this interview is part of the TED audio collective a collection of podcasts dedicated to sparking

[00:52:20] curiosity and sharing ideas that matter. this episode was produced by Jess Shane our team includes

[00:52:27] Constanza Diado Grace Rubenstein Van Banceng Michelle Quint Roxanne Highlash and Daniela Balaresa

[00:52:37] thanks so much for listening I'll catch you next time