Full transcript of “Bill Gates on India, Billion-Dollar Business Opportunities, PM Modi & Children | FO335 Raj Shamani”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 what's the biggest misunderstanding about you whenever you hear about somebody who's got you know ridiculous amounts of money their values are different than your values you should be concerned about their agenda what's your biggest Fe I'll be sad as my brain gets less capable that disappoints me tell me one Behavior we all should adopt reading a lot being a student that's a big part of My Success richest and most powerful men in the world Bill Gates has Unleashed a technological Revolution that has changed our lives Bill Gates of 25 and Bill Gates of 17 any change that you feel personally in my 20s being a maniac was the right thing my competitors would say oh no you work too hard and I'd say yes I do if you're in a race your 20s when you have no wife and
0:47 no children that's the time to do it if you get an opportunity to invite three Indians for dinner who would that be there was a mathematician ramanujan I would have loved to have met him why do you think India is becoming a Global Talent capital for the world would hire people from India and bring them to the United States you know both the United States and India were kind of mad at us cuz we were taking you know the smart people and moving them in India lot of kids also fight with their parents on inheritance have your kids ever spoken to [Music] you before we start today's episode all I want to say is thank you to each and
1:33 every one of you I'm really grateful that we were able to sit down with one of the most influential men in the world the Bill Gates I have being this young boy who always used to hear stories about this man about the kind of money he has made the kind of lives he's impacting the kind of things he's building through Microsoft from there to be sitting in front of him it was surreal when I started the conversation you could see it on my face that I was really nervous really scared I didn't know what to talk about but as we went in the conversation the podcaster in me took over and we spoke about his fears his Mis understandings the mission and what is he doing today
2:20 today I want you to see this episode from a lens of a 20-year-old sitting with Bill Gates and figuring out what goes on in his brain this episode is truly special because I could have never thought that Bill Gates will be on our podcast this soon in our journey I always had a belief that we will be able to sit down with the smartest people around the world but it happen this soon I can't believe this right now I just want you to enjoy this episode the way I did I want you to sink in that this is happening because it's not singing in with me and I just want to tell you that there are more episodes
3:06 coming so keep supporting us and hit the Subscribe button right now welcome on figuring out sir I'll tell you a little story so during the pandemic me and my sister we were watching the Netflix documentry inside Bill's brain and halfway through it I told my sister that hey you know what like one day I'll sit with Bill Gates and I'll directly speak to him and get inside his brain and just randomly and she was laughing so this one's for you you did it so it's it's an opportunity I don't know how it just came out of my mouth and it's happening today so thank you so much for doing
3:51 this well you've come to India quite often tell me something that You' have observed about India which a lot of people don't know about well people probably uh you know because they're here all the time you know they probably don't recognize how much things have changed you know if you go away and come back then you see wow you know the level of Entrepreneurship and the uh you know the amount of innovation that's actually taking place here uh it's pretty fantastic and you know for the foundation we've been here originally uh because a lot of the health challenges were here and we still care a lot about that but uh now a lot of our
4:38 invention is being done here whether it's uh well vaccines obviously uh we have some incredible Partnerships but it's broadening to you know better seeds better Diagnostics uh you know the ways that we can use AI uh for health or education uh so the uh Innovation ecosystem has really exploded and that's going to be great for India it's going to be great for the world so when you meet other leaders around the world or when you meet your your billionaire friends what's the first thing you tell them about India is it the same thing what you just told me um yeah it's uh you know we've had such a great experience uh in our work in India um
5:28 you know I encourage people to come and tap into uh the great things uh going on is there anything specific you tell them well you know my connection with India goes all the way back to the Microsoft days when you know we at first would hire people from India and bring them to the United States and you know both the United States and India were kind of mad at us because we were taking you know the smart people and moving them and uh you know then they came back here to India and created the Microsoft India uh work which has you know been absolutely fantastic so you know up until the year 2000 I mainly knew the tech uh scene so you know a lot of
6:14 Bangalore hydrabad uh seeing the country more broadly you know that's in my foundation work so you know bear up um you know seeing you know where we could partner and and help with things uh you know I still want to take more vacation here I've done it a little bit but uh you know there's a lot of great places in India that I haven't been to talking about Microsoft and taking people from here to us uh people like satella Sunder paii there have been incredible CEOs around the world why do you think India is becoming a Global Talent capital for the world do you think anything special here which is how
7:01 day well you know 20% of the world's people live here in India and India's had a particular emphasis on you know engineering software you know and turned out a lot of taught people and so when you get people like suar SATA who are both great at engineering and at management you know that's a a magic uh combination and you know so they you know these companies you know are looking anywhere in the world to find uh uh that mix and you know so India's getting about its fair share of those top leadership positions and you know it partly comes from having great
7:47 universities uh you know not just the iits but starting with them um you know that's using the incredible Talent that's here so talking about Indian Talent you do a lot of philanthropy work here and you've met a lot of talented people here lot of rich people here as well do you and you believe that all the money that rich people have or like people who have made wealth for themselves they should use it for charity work they should pledge it in India there's a usually a lot of people believe that as parents is their duty to save everything for their kids for The Inheritance right like the kids will get everything what do you think is the right mindset using all the money for
8:35 pledging and giving it back to the society or giving it to the children well I think you know everybody gets to decide on that you know in my case you know my kids got uh a great upbringing in education but you know less than 1% of the uh the total wealth um because I decided it wouldn't be a favor to them you know it's not a dynasty you know I'm not asking them to run Microsoft I want to give them a chance to have their own earnings and success you know be significant and not overshadowed by the incredible luck and good fortune I had and different families see that differently I think
9:21 the people who've made uh fortunes from technology are less dynastic uh and you know so they they'll even you know take their capital and give a lot of that away you can have a view of giving away your capital or just giving away your earnings um and you of course I love all philanthropy uh but the tech sector is the probably the most aggressive about um you know giving most of it away not the other sectors you've not seen that in any other kind of industry where people try to give not to the same degree it tends to be uh giving more you know of the giving some portion of the
10:06 profit as opposed to uh the the actual base Capital you know in India a lot of kids also fight their with their parents on inheritance have your kids ever spoken to you and be like hey why are you not giving us everything or anything has it ever happened um you know you don't want your kids to ever be confused used about your support for them and your love for them and so I do think explaining early on your philosophy uh you know that you're going to treat them all equally uh and that you're going to give them incredible opportunities uh but that you know the highest calling uh for these resources is uh to go back um to the neediest
10:56 through the foundation and you know they've seen the success of the foundation I hope they're very proud of of the foundation and um uh so you know I I've seen cases where kids actually tell their parents to be more philanthropic you know I think the younger generation sometimes actually uh is pushing against this idea of uh uh you know the wealth just being passed down uh mostly um yeah so that's so you know every family's a a bit different I have last question on India and then we'll get to the foundation work and try to understand you as well if you get an opportunity to invite
11:44 three Indians for dinner Dead or Alive who would there be well I get to spend time with you know some incredible uh people in Indian you know I get time with the prime minister and understand his vision uh and how we fit into that this you know 2047 uh uh thing that you know everything is lining up to try to achieve that you know I get to meet uh there was a a great scientist Raj Bond who created the uh Department of biotechnology uh there was a mathematician ramanan uh who I I would have loved to have met him because he was a uh you know almost mysterious how
12:31 he was so genius at what he was able to do um you know the I got to work with rotten Tata I'm getting to work with all of the uh amazing philanthropists and uh a lot of the innovators here you know I get to see small companies early on I just went through uh some of these uh companies using Ai and health uh some Pro for profit a few uh nonprofit um you know we had a great 25th uh uh 25 year celebration and this great sitar artist you know came and uh that was a pretty special thing uh so it' be
13:16 hard for me to pick there's there's uh so many incredible talents you can't pick three I I I think I defend uh some people by not including them uh fair fair okay you were talking about small companies if you were to start something from zero in India today where would you put most of your time and what the first step you'll take well you'd mostly start a company because you think you enjoy working on something and you think you have a worldclass understanding of you know a unique contribution you know for me that was software for this day and age you know if you think you understand you know Fusion uh you know that's great if
14:04 you're successful which uh that's risky um you know you could really improve the world you know AI is sort of the today's equivalent of what I did when I was young to see you know wow the possibilities are unlimited and so you know I'd probably be doing uh one of these new companies if I was starting out today is it do you still feel there's opportunity a lot of opportunities in AI to build something as significant as what you have built or it's pretty late well you know the big companies are uh putting a lot of money into it um and the number of companies
14:50 globally is is a you know huge I mean you know many people didn't even know these Chinese companies were doing all this work and yet you know some of the best results over the last 6 months have come from three or four of the models there so it's not when I got going in Computing it was a very small set of people and you know people thought we were crazy that there we set a computer on every desk and a computer in every home and that just seemed strange to people because they couldn't see the they didn't get softw and they didn't get the uh exponential Improvement of the chips was making Computing you know basically free so it's I'd say it's
15:36 tougher um to get out in front uh there will be new companies I mean Nvidia you know is almost as valuable as uh apple and Microsoft and yet uh you know they they you know came into prominence only really in the last five or six years although they're about 15 years old so there are opportunities and there will be some new companies that use AI uh to achieve unbelievable success but it'll be you know two or three out of 10,000 and you know would I be able to do that again hard to say you you talked about like when you started a lot of people thought that what are you doing
16:23 this is some random thing these guys are trying to do they may be stupid they may be thinking too big whatever right and over the time every time you do something big usually people do not understand you or anyone like not just you like whoever wants to start something new and big in today's world or as of today what's the biggest misunderstanding about you what do you think what do people misunderstand about Bill Gates well whenever you hear about somebody who's got you know some degree of power or you know ridiculous amounts of money you know might you might think they have grand schemes uh you know and they're uh you know there's almost a
17:08 sense that you know their their values are different than your values and you know that you should be concerned about their agenda um you know hopefully for the people who actually do know me um you know and how much I love uh the foundation work and you know how I work with my friends or my kids uh you know it's very different from the people who just think oh wow you know he's one of these guys who's you know pushing levers and uh has has too much money and and too much uh Authority so that people misunderstand about you and talking about misunderstanding do you have you made any major mistake that
17:53 people do in about well some of my mistakes are very public I mean Microsoft uh you know we had lots of products that didn't work you know we did a a phone operating system and now uh you know Android you know took that position so I certainly you know messed that up uh uh in a in a huge way uh for the foundation you know we often have multiple plans you know we we wanted to have an HIV vaccine uh we don't have that yet you know we're working on a very cheap toilet but it's still too expensive uh so that's taking a lot longer we don't have polio eradication done I'm still uh very committed to that but it's it's taking a
18:40 lot longer uh than than we thought it would so do talking about foundation work you've impacted millions of life and you spent a lot in making people's life better what's your biggest challenge today because some somebody on somebody who's watching this might think that at your level with so much power influence money you can actually fix a lot of problems what do you think is your problem like what challenges do you see here well I love the scientific challenges I mean we still don't fully understand malnutrition uh we have some tools to reduce it that it's super exciting uh
19:26 but you know I'm really pushing our research workers uh hard that okay you know we need we need to know more about that you know I do think getting money to help the very poorest countries a lot of which are in Africa you know Asia you know uh many of the countries are having good economic growth and in Africa has a lot of unique uh governments or instability or disease challenges and so telling people they should you know help out uh other humans even though they're they're far away and speak a different language that's not as easy as I thought
20:13 it would be uh you know right now some of the rich countries including my country are cutting their aid budgets and I'm I'm very disappointed uh you know to me that's not you know the golden rule of treating people like you'd like to be treated so what do you think all the people who are watching this including me uh young people should do so that we could convince more people to help other people well when you're young uh if you're here in India you know you can probably travel you know some modest distance an hour or to and see people you know who don't have the same opportunities you do that you know they're smart but their school's not good or you know they get uh some health
20:59 problem and they're not able to access things I would say in India you know programs like the aspirational district program India does uh talk openly about the places that are the worst off and that's you know that's pretty impressive uh you know even issues like sanitation that governments most governments you know you wouldn't catch them talking about toilets uh you know this country you know took on pretty aggressive plan and made a lot of progress on that so you can go out and see uh people and develop empathy uh without going too far and you spent hours and hours and days in this
21:48 country you spent Millions on vaccines and trying to take care of healthare challenges what's one problem you feel that money not fix H you know there's a lot of talk about uh obesity and uh you know when I saw the Prime Minister he was talking about various yoga type things that you know if people would adopt those but it's been hard you know not many countries have gotten the behavior change you know maybe India can Pioneer some approaches there but you know frankly and I'll sound like a technologist the most promising thing is actually uh a you
22:33 know a drug a class of drugs called these glp1 drugs that you know are going to go off patent and become cheap and you know so I always like a you know I'm a little overfocused on a a scientific solution so maybe a combination of that behavior change and and the new tools but Behavior change is hard um we we haven't uh succeeded in that as as much as we'd like to that me one Behavior we all should adopt well you know the behavior that's helped me is is basically being a student all the time wanting to learn things and being pretty brutal with myself of do I really understand you know what's going on you know do I
23:19 understand some AI thing or uh some disease thing and you know fortunately uh I can meet with people people who in many cases can help me understand and then you know knowledge if you're careful about building your your knowledge it all kind of connects together but uh you know reading a lot being a student you know having people who can teach me uh uh that's you know been not only fun for me but also a big part of My Success so all of people who are watching this actually feels pretty validated dated at this point good because this whole podcast is about learning from really really incredible
24:06 people like you and we have so many questions that we just keep asking to learn more to learn more to get inside brains so thanks for validation perfect what's fascinating for me this time in your journey like this time your visit to India the full Gates Foundation board is your right and that's pretty unique and they get to experience India what what do you think what are your priorities with regards to this nation why the whole board is here what do you guys are trying to figure out what are the things that you're doing well as much progress as we've been part of achieving here in India there's still a lot to do uh you know the the child to
24:53 death rate is about a third of what it was um but it's still almost three times higher than in a rich country uh so we you know we should all want to close that Gap uh that's uh Equity uh I mentioned malnutrition uh you know the country is very serious about that and yet um you know it means that your brain never develops and sadly if whatever dietary or disease things affect you uh during pregn pregnancy in your first year even if later you get a fantastic diet your brain and your physical uh capabilities
25:38 they don't adjust you're you know sort of permanently affected and so um you know we're working with some great scientists here we have a lot of the tools of biology have gotten a lot better so I do think um you know in the next decade we'll totally get to the bottom of that uh and you know I'm I'm thrilled to do that and a lot of the scientists we partner with you know including some at icmr but you know lots of Institutions around the country uh they're also uh committed to that so you work here a lot and with the foundation you work around the world a lot of things and because of all of this passion and data and this intention to
26:25 try to help people you've been pretty accurate in trying to understand Trends way before people like a normal people let's say you were pretty accurate in so many things in predicting so many epidemics as well is there something that you know which we don't like how do you spot these things way faster well the biggest change agent in my lifetime has been the the miracle of digital you know now uh moving into the AI phase of of that digital Revolution so the fact that as a young person you know I was programming at age 13 and by you know 18 I had my you know
27:11 thousands of hours of uh really strong feedback about you know getting better and uh being pushed uh and so to it's a really lucky thing to have such a familiarity with the thing that's going to change the world and so you know I wrote a book called the road ahead a long time ago you know that talked about uh you know the internet and digital money and uh video conferencing and then when I moved into the foundation work the health work you know people in that Community understand pandemics and you know so my saying hey you know there's a big risk and the
27:56 thing that's going to K you know 10 million additional people is likely to be a pandemic uh you know that's commonplace knowledge if you're in the global Health Community it's a very small community uh but I was just somebody who was listened to uh uh stating uh this and sadly you know most the people who listen to that prediction uh listen to it after it came true then you know what my goal was was people to hear the that and actually uh stop it from happening that's usually the case right like people listen to Pieces golden edwise pieces and pieces of nuggets way after the time has been passed right because of this do you
28:44 fear anything today I definitely hope that we shape AI in a positive way it's such a big uh impact on you know being smarter than humans uh that it will change our world a lot um and it's you know it's it's definitely new territory so I have a list of about five things you know AI shaping AI properly is at the top of that list but you know avoiding the next pandemic avoiding nuclear war uh biot terrorism climate change it's only about five or six things that we need to um minimize the chance of um you know and use our
29:32 additional wealth and insights you know against those things do you have any personal fear what's your biggest fear you know it's not like I'm afraid of heights or planes or fire or anything like that you know I hope I'm I'll be sad as my brain uh gets less capable you know which you know I'm as I turned 70 this year you know I'd be lucky to have 20 years of you know being able to learn uh you know maybe I'll get lucky and get a little bit more but you know that disappoints me because I've had such a amazing time learning uh things and I I used to think of old people as not you know contributing all that much and now
30:18 I've had to change my mind about how how important old people are uh do you do you feel difference I don't I don't all uh you know probably if I I took an IQ test I I would do a little bit worse than when I was 25 uh but you know I've accumulated enough knowledge you know so wisdom uh you know can compensate a little bit for a slight uh reduction intelligence and I do think it's like a muscle that if you're pushing yourself to think and learn that you know you stay uh it really helps your capability a lot um but yeah I have a fear that you know I eventually I'll lose you know I
31:06 won't want to pick up a 500 page book I'll look at it and go are you kidding uh I'm done with that so with age you have not felt any changes in your brain not really in terms of um wow no I don't think so um you know whenever you can't remember something you're like oh no now but uh uh you know so maybe a tiny bit of that but then you know it's just a little bit because you're you're looking for it you know when I was in my 20s if I could remember something I I was like so what uh uh so is there any change you feel because so Bill Gates of 25 and Bill Gates of 70 is there any change that you
31:51 feel personally well in my 20s I was I chose to focus on one topic from you know 20 to about 31 or two um I told myself hey I love biology and math and all these things but I want to be the person who's advancing software faster than anyone else and so I really did narrow my focus and I I didn't you know take much time off and I could stay in the office you know 72 hours and then crash um and so my adrenaline and was really unique now my
32:39 understanding of how to manage people uh other than myself wasn't that that could you know i' I I look back and you know I've learned a lot since then but just my stamina uh and focus for that period of my life you know being kind of kind of a a maniac uh was was the right thing and you know I I you know my competitors would say oh no you work too hard and I'd say yes I do uh do you think that's a great advice for every young person who's watching maniac in your 20s it's not it's not for everyone um but if you're if you're in a race uh and you know the a little bit moving a
33:27 little bit faster can make a a difference uh then yes your your 20s when you have no wife and no children uh that's the time to do it uh that's the time to be little maniac about certain things right you also just mentioned that you love learning which obviously the world knows but during this conversation also you just talked about it like a little bit again again what are you currently learning or what do you want to learn now well there's a lot going on uh you know AI just staying on top of that is you know I I very much enjoy that and I get to sit and talk with the top people at open Ai and I get to play
34:14 around with things but then when you think okay now about what about AI applied to Mental Health Care uh you know isn't that one of the most exciting things because you know we can never have enough therapists uh and even people who aren't uh you know suffering massively you know maybe we could help uh even people with mild uh symptoms so you know what does this AI companion look like and you know how can that help us uh my friend Reed Hoffman uh just wrote a book called Super agency that he's got a really good about this so I'm pushing myself to try and
35:02 understand uh you know what can we do there and meet the people who are you know pushing the the boundaries uh because I see such potential so what would you advise young people to start learning today and from where AI itself well if you have a mathematical mind you know not everyone should learn AI uh you know these tools are going to be available uh to everyone and so you ought to be a user of AI but the underlying stuff you know that's a pretty narrow set of people who will have an opportunity to uh you know push on a new Training Method um and even
35:47 people who grew up with software some of them don't really get this because it's it's a bit more mathematical than it is just a a Programming type thing so it's as a user that okay if you you like doing creative work yes AI is going to change your world and AI hopefully can help you uh do things faster and better so my prescription would be yes to use it for the areas that you're excited about any area that you're excited about learn from learn about that and try to make a bridge between Ai and that industry right I mean the internet has so much educational material on it so between
36:34 all that material uh and then an AI that can help you know take long documents and you can have a dialogue with it uh you know you can do it in text or you can you know now do these generate podcasts about things it's uh it's a great time to be a learner right you know when I was young I had to go to the library and you know read the encyclopedia alphabetically uh no multimedia uh this is a a paradise yeah thanks to you guys because you digal world Digital World you made it easy for us we don't know the world what it look like to go to library and read about something we get fidgety if we don't get an answer in 3 seconds okay I have last two questions
37:21 for you okay one is in your philanthropy work with the foundation how is in India contributing to your Global strategies well more and more of the Innovation um is been done in India uh India's you know got a depth of talent and a desire for Frugal Solutions and so even though the rich World us Europe you know we have a lot of talent and for some basic science thing like Immunology a lot of the new insights will keep coming uh from those in institutions but when it comes to actually putting the pieces together including something like AI for healthcare you know I was just meeting with a number of companies
38:06 working on on very piece various pieces of that in India uh and so the you know we need better seeds and we need better weather advice for farmers and so although we're going to continue to do a lot of implementation here in India help you know get things rolled out uh more and more of our sort of product research uh work will be done here okay uh both because um it benefits India but you know we're also very good if if it's saving Indian children really working well you know our foundation has a lot of presence in Africa so even take you know the classic example where India was
38:52 totally the leader on this digital public infrastructure the the digital money an identity adhar thing uh you know funding the Africans to come here and learn and uh for their budgets and create helping to create the open source software that makes it easy for them you know that's now a huge agenda item which is kind of a South South thing with a little bit of facilitation from us got it and here's the last question uh if you had if the world had to write one sentence next to the name Bill Gates what would you want them to write you know I don't do my work you know based on some epith uh you know ideally you know they'd say
39:39 that wow there were these diseases around you know polio and malaria and uh malnutrition and you know now we don't have to think about that you know partly because uh he championed you know putting more uh great thinking and resources into ending those problems and so you know I hope people look at the word polio and go what was that uh you know when you read dickens's novels and they talk about somebody had consumption it's like what is that well that's actually TB so we still not in the UK we don't have much but we we we still do they just uh change the word so you know hopefully uh
40:25 some problems that that we can actually finish uh and and then move on which problem do you think we'll be finishing well polio uh you know I I expect even in five years uh and that'll give us uh The credibility to go after things like malarian measles that's amazing oh it is it's going to be fun uh it's it's amazing in five years we can make that a reality it's going to be incredible for the humankind it's wow yeah it's only happened only once small poox was eliminated back in 1980 so you know polio of serious disease it's going to be the second wow I really truly wish that it
41:11 happens faster than what we just talked about and I hope like more than by the time the foundation gets in full-fledged in the work I I believe instead of not two three there could be multiple of them so that you you lost counting that should be the goal and I'm expecting for it well thank you so much for doing this sir it was pleasure having you when I was a kid I was growing up in school just you were the richest uh person in the world and before I gave it away yeah so your name would pop up so just to talk about you and how you made your money was a proud feeling in school and in friend Circle everybody would respect you that oh you know so much about this person and that from there that kid
41:58 sitting right in front of you and trying to you know being in a situation where I'm sitting with you and figuring out what's going on in your brain it's an incredible opportunity I'm so grateful thank you so much for doing this it's a dream come true great we'll have to do it again yes we need to I've got you on camera now thank you thank you pleasure I'm definitely nervous it's a big big big time it's time let's go I'm excited hi hi Raj how are you very good how are you pleasure meeting you so yes that's fun it's it's a pleasure seeing you Beau I'm pretty nervous at this
42:44 point so uh just bear with me it be good good I had 500,000 things to talk to you and now I'm speechless and like there's nothing in my thank you so much for watching this episode till the end please let us know in the comments who are the next guests that you want to see on this show because we are determined to get the best of the best Minds from the world and provide you the maximum value I'll see you next time until then keep figuring out and don't forget to share this episode with at least one person just life positive change [Music]
