Bill Gates Talks About the Future

With the convergence of major advances in computing hardware and software, technology is playing an increasingly important role in many aspects of society. In his speech at the University of Washington, Bill discussed important breakthroughs in computer science and engineering that have implications in education, health, and improving the lives of the world’s poorest 2 billion people.

Bill Gates: The Most Gratifying Job on Earth

Anyone who wants to seriously engage in giving faces two important questions: where can you make the biggest impact, and how do you structure your giving so it’s effective.

I grew up in a family where giving back to society—whether through volunteer time or financial resources—was just part of what you did. At the dinner table, both of my parents talked frequently about their volunteer work with non-profits and their advocacy work for children and the less fortunate in our community.

Community service was also an important part of Melinda’s upbringing; so even when we were still just engaged to be married, we talked about our responsibility to give back the great majority of our wealth—even though at that point we didn’t know exactly how or when we’d do it.

Anyone who wants to seriously engage in giving faces two important questions: where can you make the biggest impact, and how do you structure your giving so it’s effective.

Our viewpoint evolved over time, but there was a real turning point when we read an article about rotavirus, a disease that was pretty much a non-event in the United States, but which still killed a half-million children a year in the developing world. It seemed impossible to us that it was receiving so little worldwide attention. And so we dug in, learnt a lot more about the problem, and eventually began a serious effort to reduce childhood mortality worldwide.

Today, the framework that guides our giving is based on the simple premise that everyone deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life. Given the resources at our disposal, we believed we could make the biggest difference by concentrating in three areas: global health, global development, and in the US, education.

Half our foundation’s funds are spent addressing global health problems, with a focus on malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, diarrheal and respiratory diseases.

Twenty-five per cent of the foundation’s funds assist the poorest people in the world in ways other than healthcare through development projects. And the other 25% is devoted to improving public education in the US, where, in spite of our nation’s great wealth, our education system continues to fail too many of our children.

A few basic principles guide the way in which we give. Our approach emphasizes partnerships, and looks to foster innovation, often pursuing new technologies or delivery schemes.

We try to apply new thinking and approaches to solving big problems, which sometimes means taking calculated risks on promising ideas. We set goals and are quite serious about measuring our results. Often, this means attempting to be a catalyst by investing in areas where governments can’t or won’t invest, or where there is a vacuum or failure in the marketplace.

Diseases that affect the poor are a great case in point. Rich-world diseases attract research investments that dwarf the money going to problems like rotavirus. (Think of how much more money goes to curing male pattern baldness than malaria!) As a foundation, we have the chance to help address that inequality.

The question of risk is something we think about a lot. Warren Buffett, our good friend and the third trustee of our foundation, reminds us that failure will be part of any bold approach. “You can have a perfect batting average by not doing anything too important. Or you’ll bat something less than that if you take on the really tough problems.”

We’re willing to accept failure at times in the name of trying new things to solve old and difficult problems.

At the end of the day, what draws people to philanthropy is something universal—the connection to other human beings and the desire to make a difference. This is what tugs at people and that makes them want to get involved, to imagine how they can help create a better world.

For me, philanthropy is a responsibility, a passion, and an honor. And so far as I can tell—after being a parent—it’s the most gratifying job on earth.

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Warren Buffett's Stock Donations to Gates Foundation Top $10 Billion

Warren Buffett has made his scheduled annual donation of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

After six years, Buffett has donated a total of 132.4 million Berkshire Class B shares, worth $10.3 billion at today's closing price of $77.77 .. or $9.5 billion if you use the stock price on the date of each donation.

The Foundation reports it still holds just under 101 million shares, now worth more than $7.8 billion.

This year's installment is just over 19 million shares of Baby Berkshires. worth $1,504,423,593 at the close.

Full Article

Bill Gates Talks with College Students

From time to time Bill visits college campuses to talk with students and faculty about using their education and research to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges. Watch his talk and Q&A session with students and faculty at Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College.

Bill Gates at Pomona College from Pomona College on Vimeo.

2011 Annual Letter from Bill Gates

To download: 2011 Annual Letter

Bill Gates: Innovating to Zero

CNBC Video: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping American Great

CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Lisa Williams. I'm from South Orange, New Jersey. I'm currently a first-year at the MBA program. Glad to have you both here. My question is actually for Mr. Buffett. There has been a lost of discussion around the true drivers with the recent deal with Burlington Northern. I was wondering if you could share with us your key motivation for wanting to increase exposure to the railroad sector at this time.

BUFFETT: You know, when I was six, I wanted a railroad set and my dad didn't get it. [APPLAUSE] You think about it. The railroads are tied to the future prosperity of this country. You can't move a railroad to China or India or anyplace else. We start out with the premise, and I can't think of a more sound premise, that there will be more people in this country, 10, 20, 30 years from now. They will be moving more and more goods back and forth to each other. And you have the most environmentally friendly and the most cost-efficient way of doing that on the railroads. The Burlington Northern last year moved -- on average it moved a ton of freight, 470 miles on one gallon of diesel. That is far, far more efficient than what takes place over the highways. You have the situation where overall they use 1/3 less fuel, they put far fewer pollutants into the atmosphere than trucks will. One train will supplant 280 trucks are so on the road. So the rails are in tune with the future. I like the West. I like the 30-some-thousand miles of roadway that Burlington has. And, you know, if this country has a poor future, the rails have a poor future. I'm willing to bet a lot of money, 34 billion to be specific -- [LAUGHTER] -- on the fact that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 50 years from now, there will be more and more goods being moved by rail and better for the country and it will be better for the shareholders of the Burlington Northern.

QUESTION: I'm Peter Lawrence, first-year student from Columbia. And, first of all, thank you both so much for coming here. Mr. Buffett, the recent runup in the market has been historic. And it seems that many people question the sustainability of the current price level. Do you think the rally is for real?

BUFFETT: What's going to happen tomorrow, huh? [APPLAUSE] Let me give you an illustration. I bought my first stock in 1942. I was 11. I had been dillydallying up until then. I got serious. [LAUGHTER] What do you think the best year for the market has been since 1942? Best calendar year from 1942 to the present time. Well, there's no reason for you to know the answer. The answer is 1954. In 1954, the Dow … dividends was up 50%. Now if you look at 1954, we were in a recession a good bit of that time. The recession started in July of '53. Unemployment peaked in September of '54. So until November of '54 you hadn't seen an uptick in the employment figure. And the unemployment figure more than doubled during that period. It was the best year there was for the market. So it's a terrible mistake to look at what's going on in the economy today and then decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on it. You should decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on how much you're getting for your money, long-term value you're getting for your money at any given time. And next week doesn't make any difference because next week, next week is going to be a week further away. And the important thing is to have the right long-term outlook, evaluate the businesses you are buying. And then a terrible market or a terrible economy is your friend. I don't care, in making a purchase of the Burlington Northern, I don't care whether next week, or next month or even next year there is a big revival in car loadings or any of that sort of thing. A period like this gives me a chance to do things. It's silly to wait. I wrote an article. If you wait until you see the robin, spring will be over.

BECKY: All right. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to class. We have left that last break waiting for an answer from Bill Gates. Bill, if you had to pick one thing that makes you stand out from everyone else, what would that be?

GATES: Well, we talked about some of the basics, having great people around you, reading a lot, thinking long-term. I also think, though, there become a few magic moments where you have to have confidence in yourself. You know, Warren when he set off on his own, he could have gone and taken a job as an analyst somewhere. But he knew that he had the skill, that he was going to raise money and have his own partnership. When I dropped out of Harvard and said to my friends, ‘Come work for me,’ there was a certain kind of brass self-confidence in that. You have a few moments like that where trusting yourself and saying yes, this can come together -- you have to seize on those because not many come along.

Full CNBC Transcript

BBC on Warren Buffett

Evan Davis talks to Warren Buffett

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8322957.stm

David 'Sandy' Gottesman: 'He loves hamburgers'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8322958.stm

Gates: Buffett is 'unique leader'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8322950.stm

Don Graham's debt to Warren Buffett

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8322961.stm

Susie Buffett on being Warren's daughter

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8326348.stm

Bill Gates Interview by Charlie Rose

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Discuss "Creative Capitalism"

Warren Buffet: I would rather have Bill, if he will, give me the main points.

Bill Gates: Well it’s not completely well defined. It’s a phrase that I used in a speech at Harvard a year ago, because I totally believe in markets as such powerful forces for drawing out innovation and creating things that are sustainable. And yet, you do get trapped in this situation where the markets serve where the dollars are, so you don’t get markets meeting the needs of the poorest. And so how do you bootstrap or support the needs of the poorest so markets are reaching out to them. I mean, when I view the last hundred years as an experiment in how good markets are, the answer is very, very clear and very strong. It’s one of those things that’s so clear people won’t even discuss it with you anymore. Like in this [Edward] Teller biography: he says, Look, if he didn’t believe in innovation, he would have been a communist. If the economy is a zero-sum situation, then you ought to try some crazy sharing thing. It’s only the innovation and pie-growing activity that made Teller feel comfortable with the capitalistic approach. And I think that that’s been validated.

You often hear people saying that companies should do something besides profit maximization. And it’s amazing how strong a message is hidden in words like “diversity” or the broad term “corporate social responsibility.” Warren and I were just at the Microsoft CEO Summit for the last couple days and it was amazing how many of the talks were about how a company needs to have core values of who they are and what they do as the thing that makes the employees feel they have a purpose and guides their action. And how that needs to be really at the center, even more so than the short-term profit metrics. Jack Welch was very good on that and Lee Scott [CEO of Wal-Mart] was very good on that, I think in a very sincere way. I think it’s more true all the time.

Bill George [of Harvard Business School] ran the leadership panel, and he was saying how the younger generation really wants to go to work with people who have a purpose. So what I’m saying is when people write down that purpose, when they write down their values, that an element of that should be: what can we do based on our skill set, our innovators, whatever unique capacities we have as a company--what can we be doing for the poorest 2 billion? And that can either be taking more risk in terms of trying to develop markets there, which is C.K. Prahalad-type stuff, or just doing things like the Merck donation that are not profit seeking and yet not giving up huge percentage of profit.

So somebody can read the words “creative capitalism” and say, “Okay, Bill Gates said that you should serve the poorest 2 billion and ignore profit.” That is not what I intend to say at all, but then I am being a bit ambiguous about how far you go in being willing to give up something. Am I saying one percent? Two percent? Three percent? Nobody who sets these dual roles is very good about being clear. I mean, what do they say you’re supposed to give up for corporate social responsibility. Well, they’re not willing to be numeric because they feel like the two goals, profit and social responsibility, aren’t totally at odds over time—or diversity, or whatever the value is.

Full Article

Fox Business: Exclusive Interview With Warren Buffett

Bill Gates' Farewell - Microsoft at CES 2008

Melinda Gates goes public

Years before Melinda French met and married Bill Gates, she had a love affair - with an Apple computer. ¶ She was growing up in Dallas in a hard-working middle-class family. Ray French, Melinda's dad, stretched their budget to pay for all four children to go to college. An engineer, he started a family business on the side, operating rental properties. "That meant scrubbing floors and cleaning ovens and mowing the lawns," Melinda recalls. The whole family pitched in every weekend. When Ray brought home an Apple III computer one day when she was 16, she was captivated. "We would help him run the business and keep the books," she says. "We saw money coming in and money going out."

Of all the tricks that life can play, it's hard to imagine any stranger than what befell Melinda French. Today she is living in a gargantuan high-tech mansion on the shores of Lake Washington, married to the richest man in America - and giving billions of dollars away. When she married Bill Gates 14 years ago, she bought into a complex bargain. On the one hand, she became half of what has turned out to be the world's premier philanthropic partnership. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has assets of $37.6 billion, making it the world's largest. In that total is $3.4 billion that Warren Buffett has already given, and still to come are nine million Berkshire Hathaway B shares, currently worth $41 billion, that he has pledged to contribute in coming years. Assuming that Berkshire (BRKA, Fortune 500) shares continue to rise and that the Gateses continue to bestow their own wealth on their foundation, Melinda and Bill will very likely give away more than $100 billion in their lifetimes. Already the foundation has disbursed $14.4 billion - more than the Rockefeller Foundation has distributed since its creation in 1913 (even adjusted for inflation).

Full Article

Carlos Slim: Mexican tycoon overtakes Bill Gates as world's richest man

Microsoft founder Bill Gates looks to have lost his title as the world's richest man, toppled from top spot by the Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim.

Now, however, Mr Garcia says there is no doubt that the little-known Mexican has finally captured the coveted top slot, following a surge in America Movil's shares over the second quarter. This is estimated to have boosted his fortune to an estimated $67.8bn (£33.6bn) - equivalent to 8% of Mexico's gross domestic product - compared with $59.2bn for the Microsoft mogul, putting him in the lead by a decisive $8.6bn.

"When I put Slim ahead three months ago Forbes bumped him up to second place (in world rankings) a few days later," Mr Garcia told Reuters.

Full Article

Bill Gates: Harvard Commencement

"Humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries -- but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity," Mr. Gates declared. "Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care or broad economic opportunity -- reducing inequity is the highest human achievement."

"I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequalities in the world -- the appalling disparities of health and wealth and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of poverty, disease and despair," he said.

In the analytical style for which he became famous in high-tech circles, Mr. Gates recommended a four-point plan for attacking a complex problem: determine a goal, find the "highest-leverage approach," discover the ideal technology for that approach, "and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have."

He continued: "The AIDS epidemic offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand -- and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior" -- a goal that requires its own four-point plan.

Full Article

Bill Gates: Cascade investment vehicle shows strong influence of Buffett value style

'I've seen a migration of Bill Gates's investing mentality towards Mr. Buffett's over the years.' Timothy Vick, author of "How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett"

To read the complete article.

Microsoft powers ahead: 11% increase in Revenue

Source: WSJ.

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Microsoft's profit and revenue both rose 11% in its fiscal first quarter.

"Office 2007 and Vista actually should be a catalyst for growth not in those two divisions but also a catalyst in the server and tools division," said Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, in an interview this week. "We get to sell a whole different sort of combined business value."

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It is interesting to note that more and more super-investors from the value group started to invest in Microsoft. Arnold Van Den Berg and Charles de Vaulx have significant holdings in Microsoft; 8.45% and 5.24% of portfolio respectively. Even deep value investor, Marty Whitman, has a small position in MSFT.

MSFT stock price has increased nicely over the last few months. Having said that, there are more potential ahead.

To listen to Whitney Tilson's view on MSFT: Whitney Tilson's Interview.

Happy learning,

Dah Hui Lau (David)

Bill Gates on Vaccines

To watch the video.

Thank you Futile France for the link.

Dah Hui Lau (David)

Bill Gates reboots : Microsoft's founder on his decision to step aside, Warren Buffett's gift, and why it all gets him a little choked up

This week is really Warren's time. This is about an amazing person doing something quite extraordinary. I still find it hard to believe. I mean, I know it's true and all that, because once Warren makes up his mind, he is a very crisp guy. But even so, it may only really hit me later.

To read the complete article.

Thank you Futile France for the link.

Good read,
Dah Hui Lau (David)
dahhuilaudavid@gmail.com