Bill Gates on vaccines, conspiracy theories and the pleasures of pickleball
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
Bill Gates is one of the world's best-known billionaires - but after years at the corporate coalface building a software empire and a vast fortune, his priority now is giving that wealth away. And his ethos for doing it has been shaped by science.
Famed for co-founding Microsoft, in recent decades Bill’s attention has turned to philanthropy via The Gates Foundation: one of the largest charities in the world. Since its inception in 2000, the organisation's helped tackle issues around health, education, inequality and climate change in some of the world’s poorest countries, with an undeniable impact: from contributing to the eradication of wild poliovirus in Africa, to helping halve global child mortality rates within 25 years.
But, as Jim Al-Khalili discovers, for a man with lofty ambitions and an even loftier bank balance Bill has surprisingly humble tastes - from cheeseburgers and a bingeable spy series, to a good game of pickleball...
Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Lucy Taylor
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Rory Stewart and I want to talk about ignorance. I will die without having read |
| 0:08.2 | everything that was written in classical Latin. Because ignorance isn't simply the opposite of knowledge. |
| 0:14.7 | It's part of what it means to be human. |
| 0:17.5 | Just about every game I can think of involves ignorance. |
| 0:22.1 | There's no adventure without ignorance. There's no there's no narrative. |
| 0:25.0 | The long history of ignorance from Confucius to Kianan |
| 0:29.0 | with me Rory Stewart, |
| 0:31.0 | listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:38.0 | Hello and welcome to the podcast edition of The Life Scientific. |
| 0:41.0 | I'm Jim Alcaleely and this is the show where I get to talk with some of the |
| 0:44.9 | world's leading scientists and you get to find out what drives them. So sit back, get comfortable and enjoy |
| 0:50.9 | the episode. My guest today is probably the world's most famous |
| 0:55.2 | college dropout. Of course there have been other monarchs over the years, |
| 0:58.4 | computing pioneer, richest man in the world, global philanthropist, even tech super villain. |
| 1:05.0 | Whatever your take on Bill Gates, after years at the corporate coal face, |
| 1:09.0 | building a software empire and a vast fortune, his priority now is giving that away. |
| 1:14.8 | And his ethos for doing it has been shaped by his international experiences and by science. |
| 1:20.8 | Fame for co-founding the software company Microsoft for the past 25 years |
| 1:24.8 | Bill's attention has been focused on philanthropic efforts via the Gates Foundation |
| 1:28.9 | one of the largest charities in the world. There Bill and his billions have taken on issues around health, |
| 1:34.4 | inequality, education and climate change in some of the world's poorest countries |
... |
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