Below is the Transcript of the interview with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates; Courtesy of Fox Business Network
STUART VARNEY, FBN ANCHOR: Liz Claman sat down with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the Davos World Economic Forum — Liz.
LIZ CLAMAN, FBN ANCHOR: Hey, Stuart, breaking news, the bathrooms flooded at the Congress Center in Davos, just as I was talking to Bill Gates. They had to evacuate at least part of the basement. Lovely, I know, talk about environmental risks here.
But let me get to the big news of the day, yes, Bill Gates announced that The Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, the largest private charity, is going to double in the next ten years the amount of money — more than double actually the money it’s given to childhood vaccines because they absolutely feel that they can save millions and millions of lives. They are going to go from 4.5 billion of the past ten years, to $10 billion for vaccines, vaccine development. He flat-out told me, we will in our lifetime have a vaccine for malaria.
I began by asking him, hey, you’re a business guy, where will the first chunk of the money go initially; listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL GATES, CHAIRMAN, MICROSOFT: It’s really in three categories. One is to increase the coverage of the vaccine we have from 79 percent to get it up to 90 percent. The second is to take the vaccines that are already out and used in rich countries and get those available for poor children, where it has even more impact. And then, finally, which would be the largest category, is funding discovery of new vaccines. Malaria vaccine where there’s been good progress, TB vaccine, AIDS vaccine.
CLAMAN: Let’s go to the U.S. deficit, the budget, the economy — you talked about this in your annual shareholder letter. What do you see as it pertains to looking forward and pulling ourselves out of this hole?
GATES: Well, the economy is starting to come back. You know, I don’t have the crystal ball that says will it take two years, three years, four years to be fully back to where we were. I do think that continued generosity during this time makes sense and the president committed to double aid and we’re hopeful that will take place. Many countries like the U.K. have had substantial increases even as they have an even worse budget situation.
CLAMAN: You also talked about innovation in this letter saying that’s what will really pull us out of things like big recessions. Is that, in essence, to say that it’s really private enterprise that is the best job creator versus the government?
GATES: Well, certainly innovation is how we can explain that a hundred years ago we lived half as long, now, you know, our nutrition was terrible, our literacy rate was terrible. It’s innovation.
It’s a mix. The government funded a lot of basic research, but really implementing that, getting the products out, the private sector does most of that. And that’s why in our foundation activities we’re partnering with companies, we call it creative capitalism. Whether it’s vaccine companies, food companies, banking companies, getting them to put some of their energy on the needs of the poor.
So, the private sector, that’s a big part of where the expertise is. That’s where the economic improvement will largely come from
CLAMAN: I find it so interesting to look at somebody like you who in your previous life, I guess I can call it that, was a killer competitor on the business landscape, yet — and I’m not meaning to make it sound like it was an overnight progression — but you’ve now progressed to really looking forward to this foundation and focusing solely on vaccines.
Is the message that, you know, when you make a lot of money in the U.S. and you do really well– cause this is what your friend Warren Buffett says, too — that you in great part owe much of that back to society?
GATES: Well, certainly Warren believes that, I believe that. There’s a thread of continuity between my work at Microsoft and my foundation work, which is investing in innovation. And you know, the way you win market share there is by coming out with great software products and so that’s what Microsoft is all about. The way you win in this new world is by backing scientists who come up with new vaccines.
And so my annual letter that came out early this week talks about innovation as the thing that — you know, I’ve always been about backing innovation, now I’ve had to learn new areas. You know, there’s some dead ends, we’re willing to take risks, but it’s not all that different. It’s just taking the resources of society that Warren has been generous to us with and that I was lucky enough to have and making sure they go back to the most neediest with the highest impact
CLAMAN: Well of course Warren Buffett gave you $30 billion to your foundation, doubling its muscle. Do you tell him in advance of an announcement like this and what did he say?
GATES: Well, Warren is always giving good advice, and he’s a trustee for the foundation. He’s the one that came up with the idea of doing an annual letter, and so I showed him a draft of that and talked about this commitment. And you know, he’s a — his advice is amazing. Now my letter, I’m not as funny as he is, I’m not as succinct as he is, but you know…
CLAMAN: You’re trying.
GATES: … he’s giving me a lot of help
CLAMAN: And you’re on Twitter now; I’m following you.
GATES: Yes.
CLAMAN: What do you think about that?
GATES: Well, I want to share with young people these issues because I think they care a lot. I want to get more feedback about things they’re seeing, they think I should know about. So I’ve got Twitter, I’ve got a website — Gates Notes, and Facebook page. So of course it makes sense for me to try use the digital world to reach out.
CLAMAN: It’s all new media, yes.
Are you following anybody on Twitter?
GATES: Oh, sure. I follow the GAVI Alliance that follows vaccines. I follow a lot of interesting people. You know, there’s kind of this back and forth where you meet new people and follow each other.
