Liking Bill Gates
Q: "What does it say to you that of the 4 million babies who die within their first month, 98 percent are from poor countries? What do those statistics tell you about the world?"
A: "It really is a failure of capitalism. You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it's really let us down."
Surely this exchange must come from a group of fiscally inept, bleeding-heart leftist, dreadlocked East Vancouverites. Or perhaps earnest 19 year-old Geography majors. But in this case, the person speaking about the failure of capitalism is the richest man in the world, discussing his foundation's efforts to improve world health in a startling 2003 interview with Bill Moyers. By the way, I'm a bleeding-heart centre-leftist from East Vancouver myself. I'm also using Firefox on a Mac right now. I wasn't expecting to ever be moved by Bill Gates.
Bill Gates having more money than he knows what to do with is not news. However, Bill Gates putting serious time and attention – certainly limited resources to him as they are for the rest of us – into these causes is something that defies cynicism. What makes the interview interesting is how he's giving, and why.
Stark realization number one is that although Gates has stepped out of the corporate ring for this role, he is clearly not on a holiday from thinking like a smart businessperson. He talks about how to allocate financial resources, about how to motivate people to change their behaviour, about understanding the math and science of world health, and about getting comfortable with risk. There are risks of project failure, he explains, that politicians cannot accept but philanthropists can.
Another thing that makes this worth reading is Gates's discussion of what he sees as the right and wrong reasons to care. I won't summarize these, except to say that perhaps the next generation will remember Gates as above all a profoundly decent person.
Other quotes:
"And maybe the most interesting thing I learned is... as you improve health in a society, population growth goes down."
"There was about six months where I was carrying around about 10 issues of The Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report. And people would see that on my desk at work and what the heck? You're reading The Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report."
"I actually get angry when people try and justify these health things in economic terms. You know like you'll read a paper that says, you know, "If malaria was cured, the GNP of this country would be 30 percent higher." That gets it so backwards... Statistically it's true and I suppose there're some audiences that you've got to use that argument. But the whole wealth is a tool to measure human welfare. It's just a tool that we created to help us sort of incentivize people and help get things done."
"And those, you know, those arguments, if they get more money for world health, then fine. I won't object. But they're wrong. The right argument is, you know, this mother's child is sick."
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html
A: "It really is a failure of capitalism. You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it's really let us down."
Surely this exchange must come from a group of fiscally inept, bleeding-heart leftist, dreadlocked East Vancouverites. Or perhaps earnest 19 year-old Geography majors. But in this case, the person speaking about the failure of capitalism is the richest man in the world, discussing his foundation's efforts to improve world health in a startling 2003 interview with Bill Moyers. By the way, I'm a bleeding-heart centre-leftist from East Vancouver myself. I'm also using Firefox on a Mac right now. I wasn't expecting to ever be moved by Bill Gates.
Bill Gates having more money than he knows what to do with is not news. However, Bill Gates putting serious time and attention – certainly limited resources to him as they are for the rest of us – into these causes is something that defies cynicism. What makes the interview interesting is how he's giving, and why.
Stark realization number one is that although Gates has stepped out of the corporate ring for this role, he is clearly not on a holiday from thinking like a smart businessperson. He talks about how to allocate financial resources, about how to motivate people to change their behaviour, about understanding the math and science of world health, and about getting comfortable with risk. There are risks of project failure, he explains, that politicians cannot accept but philanthropists can.
Another thing that makes this worth reading is Gates's discussion of what he sees as the right and wrong reasons to care. I won't summarize these, except to say that perhaps the next generation will remember Gates as above all a profoundly decent person.
Other quotes:
"And maybe the most interesting thing I learned is... as you improve health in a society, population growth goes down."
"There was about six months where I was carrying around about 10 issues of The Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report. And people would see that on my desk at work and what the heck? You're reading The Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report."
"I actually get angry when people try and justify these health things in economic terms. You know like you'll read a paper that says, you know, "If malaria was cured, the GNP of this country would be 30 percent higher." That gets it so backwards... Statistically it's true and I suppose there're some audiences that you've got to use that argument. But the whole wealth is a tool to measure human welfare. It's just a tool that we created to help us sort of incentivize people and help get things done."
"And those, you know, those arguments, if they get more money for world health, then fine. I won't object. But they're wrong. The right argument is, you know, this mother's child is sick."
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_gates.html
posted by Su-Laine at 10:30 p.m.
1 Comments:
Fair enough ;)
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