The Full Interview With Bill Gates

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I want to start by putting this in perspective. In terms of the loss of human life, you say that climate change will be many times or could be many times more deadly than the COVID-19 pandemic. Make that connection for us. How much worse could it be? [00:00:16] Bill Gates: Yeah, so the deaths will just go up over time as you get more heat waves, forest fires, and most importantly, the inability to go outdoors and do farming anywhere near the equator. And so it'll get worse and worse. The temperature rise is based on the total cumulative amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere. And so certainly by the end of the century, you'll have permanent die-offs of all these coral ecosystems. No beach you ever went to will be around. And sadly, there won't be a simple solution like, hey, let's get a vaccine and we can get ourselves out of this and we can get to zero from 51 billion tons a year. And I know you're optimistic. [00:01:03] Speaker 1: You say it'll be hard. But I want to hear from Bill Gates, the realist, like how likely is it that we get to zero? Is there a percentage you can give me? Well, unless the younger generation adopts this as the moral cause that's important to them beyond their individual success. And they're very loud about that in all the rich countries and, you know, [00:01:22] Bill Gates: across multiple political parties. Unless we have that, that's always putting it first on the agenda. Then I don't think we'll meet 2050, but I do see signs that that's, you know, coming into place. I mean, you know, what cause could be more important than preserving livability of the earth and these natural ecosystems. So my role was simply to say, yes, this goal is a good one, although very, very hard. And then talk about how we accelerate the innovation and make people realize that because we're trying to get to zero, it's every sector of emission. And there's been a tendency to focus on two of the five, electricity and transport, but kind of ignore agriculture and buildings and then manufacturing, including cement and steel. So it's hopefully a dose of realism for anyone who thought it was easy, but also a roadmap to help people who think it's impossible to see that it is possible. [00:02:34] Speaker 1: Now, you mentioned 2050 there. We hear a lot of dates. John Kerry said we have nine years left. The UN said we have 10 years left back in 1989. And I wonder what is the actual goalpost and are these dates a distraction? [00:02:50] Bill Gates: Well, 2050 is probably the soonest that we could get emissions near to zero. And so that's where that date comes from. The more you force up the temperature, the more you get sea level rise and the more you get back. We don't know some magic number where, you know, it's dramatically worse. So, you know, it just it's bad the more it warms up. And for subsistence farmers, you know, they've already seen it. We see we see events in the U.S., including, you know, weirdly, because they call it warming, the ability of cold fronts to come in and cause disaster. All of the extreme things get more likely. And, you know, I think that's creating an awareness. But, you know, I wish we could get it done before 2050. That's that's you know, there's just too much to replace the next 10 years. We have to do a lot of invention, because when you're talking about all sorts of steel and cement factories, scaling up deployment globally will take the those next 20 years. [00:03:58] Speaker 1: So let's talk about the inventions you've been looking for solutions that have unbelievable scale and reliability, funding some of those through Gates Ventures over the last 13 years. Where should investors be placing their bets right now? [00:04:11] Bill Gates: Well, this is going to change a lot of industries, you know, the car industry, and you've got people like GM saying after 2035, they won't make gasoline cars. All these manufacturing businesses will have to change their processes. You know, I put about 2 billion in to a variety of things, you know, and and I'm both directly and indirectly through Breakthrough Energy Ventures that I created, trying to make sure there's high risk capital for every area of emission in fact backing a number of companies in each area because the failure rate will be fairly high. But, you know, there's promising work we talk about the green premium, which is the extra cost to buy, say, a ton of green cement versus the normal cement those green premiums are very, very high. And I propose in the book that the size of those metrics and bringing those down to be very, very small, that that's actually the best indication, will the world be able to achieve this very ambitious goal, even more than the near term reductions, because you can make near term reductions and not solve the hard parts. [00:05:25] Speaker 1: And we need all the parts now so much of the problem involves big things, as you point out, like steel and cement and fertilizer, and I wonder how much do individuals and individual decisions really matter. Like if I stop eating burgers, which you point out are a big carbon culprit, will that really make a difference? [00:05:49] Bill Gates: Well, yes, your carbon footprint will go down dramatically if you don't eat meat. But one way to do that is to be a customer, some portion of the time of these new ways of making ground beef that people like Beyond and Impossible and others are bringing out. Because as the demand for those goes up, they scale up their factories, they improve the quality, they get the price to come down. So whether it's an electric car or artificial burger, that demand is catalytic, because we're trying to recreate what we saw with solar panels and lithium ion batteries, where the volume actually brought the cost down. And, you know, for the passenger car, you know, within 10 to 15 years, all these improvements will mean the green premium, the extra, what you give up with an electric car where you might need a tax credit, that'll go all the way to zero. And the market, as you saw with GM's plans, will be green without the government having to impose regulations or tax credits. But that those things are so key to help us get to that end state. [00:07:00] Speaker 1: Now, we know you love burgers. And I'm just curious, like, what do you do when you get a craving? You know, how often can you just not resist and you just eat a good old fashioned burger? [00:07:14] Bill Gates: Well, I, about 50% of the time when I have a burger, it's one that's made with these impossible foods or beyond meat, ground beef, and those have essentially no greenhouse gas emissions. As they improve their products, and they're quite good, I really highly recommend that people try those, I'll get to the point where I'm 100% buying just those burgers. I'm also spending money on direct air capture and lots of things to completely offset my carbon footprint, which, you know, it's very high because of the way I travel and, you know, I have more than one house. So, you know, I'm, in a sense, one of the most guilty, but I'm pioneering offset approaches that are really honest and that as those get purchased, they'll also come down in price. [00:08:08] Speaker 1: So, you're planning to give meat up 100%? [00:08:11] Bill Gates: The cow-based meat, now, you know, some people are trying to change the cow's diet or capture the methane, so, you know, we wouldn't, I don't want to count the cow out. There's a lot of ingenuity there, but right now, these protein-based approaches have surprised me how far they've come, and when they've been offered in burger chains, the demand has been quite good. [00:08:35] Speaker 1: Now, some of the critics have said you don't focus on the political obstacles enough when it comes to climate change. You're solely focusing on the technology here. If there's one thing that the Biden administration could do to help solve this problem faster that would really make a difference, what would that one thing be? [00:08:54] Bill Gates: Well, the long lead time item to drive innovation is R&D funded by the government, and in the health space, the U.S. has done a brilliant job with the National Institute of Health that's driven breakthroughs and, you know, creates private companies that take that and offer products to the U.S. and to the world. The energy R&D budget is way too small, well below the health levels, so I, you know, that's got to go up dramatically. Some of the tax credits to help the new product categories like green steel and cement or energy storage, we need to apply that tactic there, and then the government's a big purchaser. And, you know, they can buy more of these green products and, you know, so we really need to get going and push the innovation and push the demand side for those innovations as well. [00:09:52] Speaker 1: Now, we just saw a major shock to the electric grid in Texas, a lot of deaths. You mentioned that energy plants there should have been weatherized, and I'm curious, where do you think we should be making investments right now before this happens again? [00:10:08] Bill Gates: Well, there's two things the Texas event shows, and one thing it doesn't. It doesn't show that renewables were the problem in that case because there were shutdowns because of lack of weatherization in natural gas and even tripping one reactor to go off. But the two things it does show is that we're going to have more extreme events, so we need to be ready for that, and we need to invest in resilience. It is fair to say that if you don't build transmission and storage and some nuclear, which is not weather dependent that you are going to have a lack of reliability when there's tough weather and, you know, the politics of permitting transmission lines, and we need to come up with a way to make that more attractive. So, you know, there's a legitimate issue of reliability, although it wasn't the problem in this case. [00:11:10] Speaker 1: Now, your fellow tech titans like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, they're all tackling different elements of the climate crisis. And I'm wondering if you should all join forces like the Climate Avengers or something to really take this on. [00:11:26] Bill Gates: Well, Elon, you know, Tesla pioneered the electric car market, which is great. His carbon challenge for direct air capture will be good. Jeff Bezos has made a gigantic commitment with his climate fund. And actually, I am talking to him. Well, we will end up doing some things in partnership, and at least we'll see, understand what the other one is up to. So I agree, as we get more people engaged, you know, figuring out, okay, what is the path for innovation, both supplying and demanding innovation, we should, we should brainstorm more. Although, you know, our individual ideas are part of the strength of, you know, crazy entrepreneurs working on this problem. [00:12:07] Speaker 1: How might we see you partnering with Jeff Bezos? [00:12:11] Bill Gates: Well, he's funded a lot of the key climate organizations. You know, we're talking about, and he's part of Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The idea of how you create a demand side for these green products, even in the early stage where their green premium will be high. That's an area where, you know, we need something. I've realized of all the missing pieces, and we talk about that as being catalytic in nature. We want to bring companies and governments in on that, but having a strong base of philanthropic capital to get it started would be fantastic. [00:12:48] Speaker 1: And yet, you know, Jeff Bezos obviously has made that $10 billion commitment, but these Amazon cardboard boxes, the blue and white envelopes, I hear even worse, the trucks for delivery. I mean, shouldn't a company as innovative as Amazon be able to figure that out? [00:13:05] Bill Gates: Well, you can't put every societal problem on Amazon. They are part of the physical economy delivering goods. So, of course, their scope through emissions are large. You know, they so there's Amazon as a company that's committed to electric delivery vehicles and funding innovation. And then there's Jeff as an individual where that $10 billion is even more than I've spent. I've spent a few billion, and I'll spend a few billion more in the years ahead. So, you know, in both cases, I think you'll see thoughtful ways of spending the money. But this requires, you know, all of society to get engaged. It's not, you know, just one intervention or one, you know, company that can fix this. [00:13:53] Speaker 1: So, meantime, you know, you make it clear technology is what's going to help us solve this problem. But at the same time, technology is what's also making the problem worse in perpetuating the, you know, misinformation that climate change is a hoax on social media. How frustrating is that for you? [00:14:15] Bill Gates: Well, I'm not sure how much I know in the case of the pandemic, there's a lot of crazy conspiracy things out there and that, you know, is widespread and affecting mask use and openness to vaccination and climate. And climate, yes, we're probably likely to get that, particularly as we succeed in getting governments to, you know, have aggressive policies. So, you know, understanding why some people don't see this problem or feel a need to deny the problem. I think we have to be, you know, very thoughtful about who will they trust to be convinced, you know, you know, who could go out and look at these coral reefs or, you know, look at the heat wave or, you know, what, you know, just look at the model. It shows that, you know, the beaches in lots of places will be gone, you know, this is because it's a multi-desc a task, you know, we being shrill may not be the way to get going. So lots of education, you know, and that's part of the goal of the book is to get people talking about. About wow, you know, if we were going to commit, you know, we, there should be a real plan, not just, you know, things that seem affected, like, you know, divesting this stock or that stock, and which is a fine thing to do. People feel like that, but it's not it to actually reduce the emissions, you have to change the way you make steel. There's just no kind of metric or divestment or, you know, blocking traffic that alone will get rid of those emissions. [00:15:55] Speaker 1: So you've never just wanted to pick up the phone and call Mark Zuckerberg and say, hey, this is really slowing me down. [00:16:02] Bill Gates: Well, Mark, you know, he's, you know, he's got to maintain kind of an open platform. And, you know, on vaccine things they've, you know, stepped up to try and get the egregious stuff out of there. I have a good dialogue with Mark. I think he's been put in a hard position in terms of what the government rules or what the company should do to let debate continue. Why you have the really extreme stuff that drives people into sort of a non reality position. How do you distinguish those things and who who's supposed to do that, you know, when you have millions of messages every hour. [00:16:43] Speaker 1: At the same time, you recently said you think Trump should and eventually will be let back on Twitter. Why support that when he spreads so much misinformation about issues like climate and vaccines, which you care about? [00:16:58] Bill Gates: Mark Zuckerberg: Well, there's a question whether labeling things is better. I mean, those messages are likely to show up somewhere. You know, it's a country with a First Amendment. And so, you know, do you want to have one party have one social network and the other party have another social network? You know, this unlike climate, you know, where I'm in talking to the best scientists and funding it, the way we draw the boundaries on social networking, I don't have that solution. But I know that we need very smart people at Facebook and universities trying to say, how do you draw the line there? I haven't seen a proposal where you go, wow, if you do that, then it's as open as it needs to be in the crazy stuff goes away. And I I I look at every idea. So, you know, I think this is a societal challenge. [00:17:56] Speaker 1: Now, while you're pouring money into vaccines, some of your peers are pouring money into rockets. And I'm curious, do you think Earth will ever be more uninhabitable than Mars? Like, is this really what's going to save the human race? [00:18:11] Bill Gates: Well, I think we should preserve this planet and make it hospitable to human life. The idea of Mars or even artificial planets, you know, it's great that other people are doing that, but I'm not involved in that. I don't see that as part of the solution. I don't think I'm missing something there. But, you know, you're talking about, you know, when you're talking about Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, they're in the climate game and in a constructive way, which I'm at least glad that they're putting some of their resources in this direction. [00:18:47] Speaker 1: So speaking of Elon, you said we need hundreds of Elon Musk and with Tesla's expansion in places like China and India, that's only going to increase their carbon footprint. Should Tesla be more upfront about that? [00:19:02] Bill Gates: Well, Tesla reduces your carbon footprint if they get, you know, an electric car as we convert the electric generation to be zero emissions is one of the few categories that, you know, we see a path to zero. Now, it's only about 7% of emissions come from passenger cars globally. And so you can't declare victory there. But, you know, as the cost of those cars comes down, the range goes up, the charge points are more numerous and standardized and quick charging. So you'll you'll you'll feel like, yes, a gasoline car less maintenance, you know, quieter the market will eventually take care of this. And so you won't need regulations, even though they've been used, including a tax credit to get the volume up to get to that point. So every category needs to go through that process, bringing its its green premium down dramatically. [00:20:10] Speaker 1: Now, I understand you own a Porsche electric car yourself. Elon has in the past claimed you shorted Tesla. And I wonder if there's any truth to that. [00:20:22] Bill Gates: Well, you know, I think Tesla is an amazing company. I wish I'd, you know, own been more on the long side. But, you know, I mean, you know, it's it's great. And, you know, I have lots of relatives who own Teslas that I've helped buy for them. So, you know, nothing but positive thoughts about Tesla and its role. [00:20:46] Speaker 1: Now, that said, I'm curious for your thoughts here, because Tesla could potentially make more money from its Bitcoin investment this year. Then profits from electric cars in all of 2020. What's your take on that? What what's your Bitcoin take? And and the fact that the price can just go up or down based on a simple tweet from him? [00:21:09] Bill Gates: Well, look, Elon has tons of money and he's very sophisticated. So, you know, I don't worry that, you know, his Bitcoin will sort of randomly go up or down. I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare. So I'm not bullish on Bitcoin. And, you know, my general thought would be that, you know, if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out. [00:21:39] Speaker 1: Why aren't you bullish on Bitcoin? [00:21:42] Bill Gates: It's it's like there are things we invest in in society that produce output. Bitcoin happens to use a lot of energy. It happens to promote a not anonymous transactions. They're not reversible transactions are the Gates Foundation does a lot in terms of digital currency. But those are things where you can see who's making the transaction. So digital money is a good thing. And, you know, there's a different approach that's local currency and attributed and, you know, deals with all the money laundering and terrorism type regulations. And yet gives you the very convenience and the low cost of transaction. And so, you know, our foundation is very proud that in the pandemic, a lot of the countries we funded to do this were able to get money out to their citizens very, very efficiently. So that's something that it's not got the visibility of Bitcoin, but the move towards digital money that we're very engaged in is a super positive thing that eventually will get to even the poorest countries. [00:22:53] Speaker 1: So let's talk about the pandemic. Obviously, your other big focus, in addition to climate change, the US just hit 500,000 deaths. And I just wanted to take a moment there. How does that number strike you? [00:23:04] Bill Gates: Well, it's unbelievably, it's, you know, more than any war we've been in, except the Civil War, you know, it's enough that I'm sure it's touched almost everybody. You know, we, we count on government to both before something bad happens and when something bad happens to protect us, and it didn't work in this case. So, you know, hopefully it's a lesson going forward about investments in global health that the US and the US cooperating with other countries need to get done to be ready for the next pandemic. [00:23:44] Speaker 1: How concerned are you about the new variants and vaccines keeping up? [00:23:50] Bill Gates: Well, amazingly, our foundation was studying three vaccines and trials in South Africa when the variant showed up and so we were able to gather really detailed data, showing that, you know, they all still had some beneficial effect. But particularly Novavax and Johnson and Johnson, even though they work a little less well, we're still a great tool there. And, you know, so weirdly, the US didn't sequence enough to see its variants like the UK and even what we funded in South Africa. Now that's been remedy just another miscue by the country that should have done the best job. So we'll get on top of the variants. You know, we may need to tune the vaccines. All the manufacturers are looking through how quickly they could get that done. It'll extend. It'll add to the transmission and deaths. But, you know, if we get vaccination rates up only by at most a month or two. [00:24:48] Speaker 1: Are Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson doing enough to prioritize populations in developing countries? And what's the ideal shot for the developing world? [00:25:00] Bill Gates: Now, the private sector, including those three companies, did a fantastic job. We've been backing the mRNA approach for about a decade now. Sadly, it's not that mature. And so you can't scale it up as much as we'd like, nor is it cheap. And so the vaccines three through five, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson & Novavax can be scaled up through Indian factories to a higher degree. So for developing countries, those three and sending the right ones to the right place will be most of the solution. Not to take away from anything that Pfizer, who funded its work, or Moderna did. But those will mostly land in rich countries. [00:25:44] Speaker 1: So at this point, what are the biggest headwinds that you see in the vaccine manufacturing process? [00:25:50] Bill Gates: Yeah, well, every day, there's a complex discussion about, okay, what are, you know, do we have enough glass vials for fill finish? Do we have all these different ingredients that come from different countries? I do think some of the, you know, vaccine nationalism where people are trying to look good in their own country by somewhat blocking things going around. That's, you know, there's huge downside in that. You know, we need to get the vaccines out in large numbers. We need to end this epidemic globally. And from the beginning, the voice of the foundation is included, not only moving faster, but this equity question. And over the next four or five months, the world can behave well. It's mostly governments now that are limiting how much we can help, you know, countries that don't have vaccine factories.