Bill Gates

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to the most special experts on expert with your host, Monica Pradman and Dan Shepard.

[1] Can you believe it?

[2] So, of course, this was the long -awaited who could even be tied with him.

[3] Guest, officially known as William Gates.

[4] You probably know him as Bill Gates.

[5] He is a technologist, a business leader, and a philanthropist.

[6] He is the co -founder of Microsoft.

[7] Today, Bill and Melinda Gates co -chair the Charitable Foundation bearing their names and are working together to give their wealth back to society.

[8] Monica, greatest 90 minutes of your life?

[9] I think perhaps.

[10] Definitely top two.

[11] Yeah.

[12] If you exclude my family, we've got to get that off the table.

[13] Sure.

[14] Then, yeah, best 90 for me. Please enjoy Bill Gates.

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[17] He's an object, man. He's an I'm sure to let's...

[18] Oh, my goodness, he's already there.

[19] Not only is he already there, but he looks identical to the TED Talk.

[20] You must just have a setup.

[21] It's my avatar.

[22] We are so thrilled.

[23] I haven't worn a suit in a year and a half.

[24] I just want you to know I've done it for you.

[25] Yeah, I'm sorry I don't get to see your garage.

[26] Oh, yes, yes, yes.

[27] Well, by the way, if you want to extend this into a personal friendship, you can see my garage any time you want.

[28] All right.

[29] I want to memorialize this with, let's just, I'm going to quickly.

[30] We need a picture of this, Rob.

[31] Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy.

[32] Okay.

[33] Are you as uncomfortable with praise as most of our guests are in general?

[34] Hopefully.

[35] I can take a little bit.

[36] I think I'm just going to lay it out in this.

[37] I've been really hemming and hauling on how to lay this out, just as succinctly as possible.

[38] We went through everyone.

[39] We really said, oh my gosh, Bill Gates, who would we want more than that?

[40] And really there's only, there's a two -way tie, but you're just marginally ahead.

[41] And that is just Obama.

[42] That's the only, I think, person we'd want to talk to as much as you.

[43] But not even as much.

[44] And even still, you beat him out.

[45] Uh -oh.

[46] Uh -oh.

[47] I hope we haven't planted the seeds of some kind of quarrel.

[48] That's high expectations.

[49] Okay, now we watched the documentary.

[50] I've now watched it three times, which is tied with the amount of times I've read Titan.

[51] Have you read Titan?

[52] Sure.

[53] What was your impression you walked away with of Rockefeller?

[54] Well, his career was during a time when business rules were pretty ruthless.

[55] But then once he retires, which he actually does at a pretty young age, he picks amazing people to run his foundation.

[56] And so in the world of philanthropy, they are the high bar, what they did for schools, for culture, for medical research, for it.

[57] It's amazing that you have to always refer back to them.

[58] In the early days, when people would write about global health, they would just say, the foundation did this and the foundation did that.

[59] Of course, they meant the Rockefeller Foundation.

[60] So, you know, pretty phenomenal.

[61] He actually picked a guy named Gates, no relationship, to actually help figure out how he would give the money back in a smart way.

[62] Yeah, it became incredibly cumbersome for him, right, to field all the requests.

[63] And there were obviously so many deserving causes.

[64] And it just was too much for him to actually handle, right?

[65] It became kind of imprisoning.

[66] Yeah, they were very broad in their activity.

[67] I mean, we do global health and education, but they did cultural stuff.

[68] It was phenomenal, and they are probably the most impactful foundation ever, because one of the things they did was called the Green Revolution that saved a lot of lives.

[69] Yeah, I may have just gotten drunk on the punch of that book, but would it be too much to say that he might be the most impactful man to have ever lived in America, in that he funded medical research, which wasn't a thing, he standardized medical care, he, you know, cured hookworm, malaria, vaccines, the endowment that has now lasted and still, we just interviewed Sean Penn yesterday.

[70] They're getting money for COVID testing from the Rockefeller Foundation.

[71] I mean, he's got to be up there, right?

[72] Yeah, he set a really good model for enlightened philanthropy.

[73] Now, his business life was more controversial.

[74] But to your point, you know, he's coming directly after Cornelius Vanderbilt, who is running his steamships into other steamships and sinking them on the Hudson River and just no one cares, no one's taken to court.

[75] It was such the Wild West.

[76] Can you even apply our ethics to that period?

[77] It's complicated.

[78] I mean, Ida Tarbell wrote about him and sort of created a negative view.

[79] And weirdly, you know, they actually break up his company, but as he said at the time, his company was so capable that even the parts that were split up, As the car was coming along, they all did super well.

[80] So it's a complicated story.

[81] The last laugh was they quadrupled his wealth, right?

[82] I mean, when they broke that up, that's when he skyrocketed to a billion.

[83] Yeah, and he even was out on the golf course when he heard he and the Reverend, his friend, were golfing.

[84] And he said, hey, they broke up to standard oil, buy standard oil.

[85] And it was a good stock tip because the automobile was kind of this killer application for oil extraction.

[86] I have an important question.

[87] Go ahead.

[88] This is so important.

[89] What's your favorite color?

[90] Oh, yeah, we want to know that.

[91] Well, first, can I guess?

[92] Sure.

[93] Well, actually, blue.

[94] Oh, man. We have an armchair theory.

[95] Well, we read once that genius is like green, so I wore green's high for you.

[96] Me too.

[97] But my real personal favorite color is blue, so I just, I say green.

[98] So it's a win -win for you.

[99] Although my favorite's purple and you are wearing purple, so we're all connected.

[100] Okay, yeah.

[101] Yeah, one other really trivial question before we proceed.

[102] Should we have some kind of distinction, us left -handers?

[103] Like an actual status in this country, you know, unfair access to things?

[104] Well, they call us sinister, you know.

[105] We are overrepresented both in the low end and the high end of most distributions, which nobody really understands that.

[106] Like in IQ and other things, there's a bigger tail for left -handers.

[107] It's not unlike dyslexia, right?

[108] Where for me, I grew up knowing the stat that you were twice as likely to go to prison, but then now we have the stat that you're twice as likely to be a CEO.

[109] So it's definitely one of these make or break things.

[110] Okay, your childhood, one of the things I really like about the documentary, and of course I'm referencing the Netflix Inside Bill's Brain documentary, really, really well done.

[111] You really own the privilege you had and the advantages you had growing up in the manner that you did.

[112] And I found that kind of refreshing.

[113] I think most people are storytellers at heart, right?

[114] We know through evolution how to craft stories and to pass on information.

[115] And obviously, coming from nothing and then creating something is just a better story.

[116] So there's definitely an incentive there to downplay that.

[117] And I just really respect that you own it in such a wonderful way.

[118] Yeah, my parents were amazing, you know, and I got to go to an amazing school, which, you know, gave me the early exposure to computers and teachers.

[119] encouraged me. So, you know, I'm very lucky.

[120] Yeah.

[121] And one thing you and I share in common is that my mother built a company as a single mother, and she was just a force of nature.

[122] And then I found myself only attracted to other forces of nature, and I have married a force of nature.

[123] And I do wonder, are you aware of the fact that maybe the biggest gift she ever gave you is that it was going to take someone like Melinda to get you excited?

[124] Yeah, the idea that you want a real peer who can criticize you and do you actually do something decent, that their praise is pretty valuable.

[125] I think having an accomplished mom helped me go in that direction.

[126] Yes.

[127] Yeah.

[128] And I do wonder when I was watching the documentary, and I guess these questions are largely pointless, but I ask them anyways in my head while I'm watching, I do wonder if your story was inevitable or if you think without her, because you guys definitely butted heads, I guess you were around 12 and you ended up going to therapy, and I love how the therapist basically got you to buy in, which is just you have a very outweighted say in this struggle.

[129] You're going to hurt them so much, and they're not going to hurt you and they're trying to help you.

[130] I wonder, do you think under a different circumstance you somehow, you know, go astray, or was it inevitable?

[131] The number of things that lined up in my favor in terms of my parents and the school that I got to go to, and the early exposure to computers and, you know, meeting Paul Allen and teaming up with him, the number of things is pretty mind -blowing that led to the sort of outsized economic result.

[132] Yeah.

[133] Can we throw Kent in there?

[134] Because another thing I really recognized while I was watching is I met my soulmate in seventh grade.

[135] And this was a individual, Aaron Weekly, who I had this person that I needed a co -pilot with or I needed one person to validate.

[136] And then that's, that's all it took for me. And I have to imagine Kent in so many ways for you is like, oh, I'm on the path of something.

[137] There's another one of me. Yeah, and Kent thought about the future.

[138] He was reading Fortune Magazine and sort of saying, what should we do?

[139] Should we become ambassadors or generals or managers or mathematicians?

[140] And Kent was so far ahead, you know, we're in seventh and eighth grade.

[141] And he's always already comparing, you know, which of these guys gets paid well, which of them has a high impact.

[142] And so that really pushed me. You know, I was more of an intuitive read science books type person until I met him.

[143] Yeah, again, back to the point of like the impossible odds that add up to you.

[144] It's like you've proven to have this amazing entrepreneurial spirit and aptitude to run a business, which is its own thing outside of innovation and all that, right?

[145] And if he's not in your life, or the other thing I thought about is you take, this math test in eighth grade and you score highest in the state for all grades.

[146] And I kind of thought to myself, you know, what if you had just pursued mathematics?

[147] Certainly there's many people that had your aptitude that then pursued that.

[148] And then there's no real riches at the end of that ride or fame or impacts.

[149] Yeah.

[150] And when I went to Harvard, I met people who were better than me at mathematics.

[151] My personal positioning when I go to Harvard is I'm the best math person I've met.

[152] I have an 800 on the SAT, a five on the AP.

[153] So then I was in a class with 60 people, and every one of us had the same personal positioning.

[154] So we had 59 frauds and one legitimate person.

[155] Oh, that's great.

[156] Is that a humbling experience?

[157] Yeah, I had to come up with new personal positioning after that.

[158] So when you and Kent were daydreaming about these different occupations, you might pursue.

[159] I do wonder because I was thinking, you invented, and I'm sure you have to be aware of it, you and I would say Steve Jobs and a handful of other people, you really invented a genre of fame, which is the tech icon that did not exist prior to you, to my knowledge, unless I'm missing someone from history I don't know about.

[160] So when you were fantasizing about this life, I can't imagine fame was a big component of it.

[161] I can't imagine you were prepared to be famous in the way that Monica and I wanted to be actors, and of course that was a component.

[162] Comes with the territory.

[163] Yeah, you've done some thinking about.

[164] Well, you want fame, you know, within mathematicians or within engineers.

[165] The idea that a tech entrepreneur would be famous within the popular culture, like, you know, on the cover of Time magazine, that, I mean, there really is no model for that.

[166] I may be Henry Ford way, way back.

[167] But we have, you always have a circle of people whose admiration.

[168] you're kind of going for it's just not the public at large yeah so when you found yourself with this kind of level of fame you know like michael jackson what was your maybe not the best analogy but oh yeah yeah let's use it everyone uh prince are we still good on prince i think we're okay okay michael jordan well we're going to get to that i just i imagine you you hadn't prepared for that in anyway, right?

[169] Or had you?

[170] Did it roll out slowly enough that you were like, oh, this is interesting.

[171] I'm getting quite famous.

[172] It was, it was certainly crazy, you know, particularly because I was kind of nerdy and not very sociable.

[173] And then to be, you know, rocket chipped into this, wow, what does he say about this?

[174] What does he say about that?

[175] What he says is semi -interesting.

[176] It's like, whoa, what happened?

[177] Yeah.

[178] Now, I don't know if you can confirm this.

[179] or not.

[180] But I believe I've seen you in real life, and I believe it was in 1996, and I believe that it was in the parking lot of Wendy's and that you were in a Burgundy 9 -11 turbo.

[181] Did you ever own a burgundy 9 -11 turbo?

[182] Yes, but what city was this in?

[183] Belview.

[184] It's very possible.

[185] It's, by coincidence, Melinda and I just started watching parenthood.

[186] We're on the second season.

[187] So I was blown away when I I thought, wait, I'm being interviewed by Crosby, my God.

[188] Oh, my gosh.

[189] This is so funny because I read your list of TV recommendations, right, this morning.

[190] And I noticed there was nothing I was involved with.

[191] So I was like, okay, there's a pretty good chance he has no clue who I am.

[192] And I got to go even further.

[193] I screen grabbed your list and I sent it to Brad Pitt because you love spy game.

[194] And you've seen it 12 times.

[195] And I thought even Brad Pitt will get a kick out of it.

[196] Oh, for sure.

[197] That's such a clever movie.

[198] Really amazing.

[199] I had a single complaint.

[200] The trailer for that movie showed Brad Pitt with his shirt off.

[201] And then the movie itself, he never has his shirt off.

[202] And I remember being upset about that.

[203] That is fraudulent.

[204] I mean, false advertising to the nth degree.

[205] Okay.

[206] I want to add one thing before I move off of childhood, which is just, and it's back to Melinda and your mother.

[207] I think you nailed it as far as my own ego, which is, really, I want the respect of somebody I respect.

[208] That's really what I need approval from someone I too look up to and admire.

[209] So I think that's a very truthful, honest part of the answer.

[210] But do you think having a mother like we had is the antidote to misogyny in some level?

[211] And I'm sure I have still degrees of misogyny, as we probably all do.

[212] But do you think that that's part of what will break that cycle is having women who are, you know, very empowered and people that demand respect and deserve respect and that that then helps the offspring of those people for boys like us?

[213] Yeah, I think realizing that your mom is every bit as capable as your dad and actually my grandmothers were both smarter than my grandfathers.

[214] It took me a long time to beat one of my grandmothers at cards.

[215] So I had the sense of it, wow, just because men have gotten the interesting jobs, it's not based on the fact that they have some depth understanding.

[216] And so that, I think that gets you off to a good start.

[217] Yeah.

[218] Now, your appetite for reading as a kid, I just was curious, could you say that it was driven by the joy of expanding your horizon, or was it a source of relief driven from a frustration of not knowing how things worked and needing to find out?

[219] I'd say it's a more positive thing.

[220] You know, in the summer the library would have this contest of who read the most books.

[221] And it was always me and girls.

[222] Sure.

[223] None of the boys.

[224] It was considered kind of bad form to even enter that thing.

[225] Well, it was a weakness to be well read.

[226] And even before I read the grandmother who was good at cards read to me and my older sister quite a bit.

[227] So the idea that that was really joyful and that the pieces would make sense over time and more and more of them would fit together the more you read, was phenomenal.

[228] Yeah, I got to say once I went to college, I really, really enjoyed getting context, right?

[229] Like, I was always curious why we have the customs we have or why am I doing this thing?

[230] What is this vestige of love?

[231] And where did all this come from?

[232] Like, just having some sense of it's not random.

[233] There's an origin for all these things we do.

[234] I found just very stimulating.

[235] The idea of how humanity, you know, how we learned to farm and then we could make more food so we could do other things.

[236] I love that kind of historical, scientific mindset to understand how things proceeded.

[237] So people like Jared Diamond or Pinker or a more obscure guy, Voslav's meal, that explain who figured out what, when, and why then, why that person, that history is endlessly fascinating.

[238] But also so fascinating that you had that particular interest and maybe in some way that led to you contributing.

[239] Like, you're on that list of big advancements that have changed the course of history.

[240] So, you know, maybe that interest inadvertently led to that.

[241] Yeah.

[242] Yeah, to be willing to try or to say, hey, software can change things.

[243] Why don't these older people see what software can do?

[244] Now, took these chip people who came up with magic chips, you know, Intel.

[245] We didn't do that part.

[246] But that enables us to come in with our part that is magical.

[247] Yeah.

[248] Now, they ask you pretty clearly and plainly in the documentary, like, you know, when do you realize you're smart and there's a couple examples that were given?

[249] I do wonder, have you noticed that your brain has any deficits?

[250] Is there any price to the aptitude you have in these other areas?

[251] Are you completely deficient in any areas that you've observed?

[252] Well, I'm certainly not that great socially.

[253] I find you to be incredibly charming and dialed in, so I don't know.

[254] You know, I don't know how to cook.

[255] I'm very embarrassed that I don't speak any languages fluently.

[256] You know, that's super stupid.

[257] And then every once in a while when I'm learning something new, it does take me a while to adopt to it.

[258] And I feel like, God, I'm such a fraud.

[259] This is more confusing than I expected it to be.

[260] But I think everybody has some of that.

[261] Oh, yeah.

[262] Your ability to, you know, take on a completely new discipline, economics, or biology, or health, or, you know, all these things.

[263] Are there specific disciplines that have been hard for you?

[264] Well, I have this mindset that I'm still a student.

[265] And many people, as they become adults, leave that mindset.

[266] I also, for any subject I study, I know somebody who knows the subject super well.

[267] So I have a lifeline, you know, like when I'm studying macroeconomics, you know, I can say to Warren Buffett or Ray Dalio, God, unconfused me here.

[268] So I know I'm not going to get stuck.

[269] And that helps you be kind of brave of pushing ahead.

[270] I mean, macroeconomics, that's a complicated one, you know, quantum computing.

[271] There's things that are on the edge where you've got to say, do I really have the time to figure it out or not?

[272] Now, medicine has become this thing that I get a kick out of, because there's all these diseases our foundation works on.

[273] So I've been rewarded for putting the time in, and eventually it all makes sense.

[274] You have to be willing to be confused.

[275] Most adults, the minute they start getting confused, they're like, oh, this isn't for me, I'm not good at this.

[276] So you kind of have to feel good about, wow, I've just jumped in here, and I am so confused.

[277] and then eventually pursue the things that don't fit until they really do.

[278] That's great advice.

[279] Yeah.

[280] I guess, yeah, you have to have, for me, my particular kink is Malcolm Gladwell.

[281] I love having things exposed to me that are counterintuitive.

[282] I don't know why I take such joy in that, like, oh, no, people don't commit suicide if they don't have an easy option.

[283] Oh, wow, I would have thought they just find a way.

[284] but we have the data and that's not the case.

[285] That's mind -blowing.

[286] I love, you know, finding out I'm wrong, I guess, as a hobby.

[287] Oh, he has such good stuff like.

[288] Well, and I just, because we were just talking about it, books you like, but I assume you've read the Yuval Harari books.

[289] Have you read those?

[290] All of them, yeah.

[291] He's great.

[292] Oh, man, do I love him.

[293] I got to talk to him and is the fastest experience with time I've ever had where I really felt like I understood relativity.

[294] I was like, no, no, that was 12 minutes.

[295] That wasn't an hour and a half?

[296] Like, I really time traveled.

[297] He meditates a lot.

[298] Yeah, which you're new to, right?

[299] You've kind of started to see the value.

[300] I'm like 10 minutes a day, so I'm more of a headspace person than a real meditator.

[301] Okay, so back to the different disciplines.

[302] Have you been interested in any of the social sciences or psychology?

[303] Do those things fascinate you at all?

[304] Oh, absolutely.

[305] The idea of how we transfer our unease onto other people and how that leads to, racism.

[306] The social sciences are, you know, super interesting.

[307] Now, it's harder to prove your good, harder to know the answers.

[308] They're way less developed.

[309] And I'll put economics in that group as well.

[310] And so I love the fact that people like Dubner, who you interviewed or Gladwell, they're helping us figure out the boundary between the hard science piece and the soft science piece.

[311] But, you know, it's really relevant when you think about the work you're doing, because I was watching the segment on polio this morning.

[312] And, you know, you come up against this issue where rightly so, there's a very strong suspicion of white people, colonialists, as is deserved, but then it mutates itself into these vaccines are going to make people sterile.

[313] This is a eugenics project, right?

[314] So at that point, the rubber's meeting the road with the social sciences, right?

[315] You have to think about the psychology of what's going on.

[316] You have to have an answer that treats probably the emotions they're feeling less than the data.

[317] Yeah, you have to find someone they trust and have them actually take the vaccine.

[318] So when we got the Amir of Kano to take the vaccine himself and give it to his kids, that was in Nigeria where these negative rumors really got going, that was our first step back was that they looked up to him.

[319] And so you've always got to figure out in this group, where is the, the trust and can you convince them?

[320] Just the outsider, nobody should trust an outsider.

[321] And to be gladwellian about it, who's the tipping point in that society that we can empower to help?

[322] Now, and this is my own high horse issue, is it so frustrating to you that there it makes sense.

[323] There's a historical reason for that distrust.

[324] But the anti -vaxxer movement in this country, I find to be so frustrating.

[325] And I have to imagine it's largely steeped in not really understanding how successful vaccines have been.

[326] Is there anything in medicine that's been as successful as far as just preventing gross deaths?

[327] Antibiotics and vaccines.

[328] Vaccines win over antibiotics.

[329] Antibiotics came first and did a very good job.

[330] Then you have vaccines.

[331] Also sanitation, understanding that getting human waste away, those are the three things that have allowed the population to grow.

[332] you know now fortunately when we get wealthy enough the growth comes to a plateau but yeah vaccines are miraculous here's a guy like you dedicating all your wealth asking all your friends to dedicate all their wealth to help on one side of the equation aren't we responsible for anything like the recipients of all this it's the ask not what your country can do for you part it's like come on guys that makes sense in Nigeria but that does not make sense in this country this should that this is to have this viewpoint.

[333] We see with measles or this pandemic, convincing people that the vaccine, once it's really been approved as safe, it will benefit other people, the same way mask wearing does.

[334] And yet there's this pushback that in the U .S., some of these things that shouldn't be political have become political.

[335] Well, if you happen to see someone did a, they mapped the highest levels of anti -vaccine, against Whole Foods locations.

[336] And it's perfectly correlated.

[337] No, I'm not going to say Whole Foods causes anti -vaccine, but it is ironic that it is a part of maybe this natural lifestyle that people are, to some degree, romanticizing if they think that vaccines are no good.

[338] Yeah, and you get that with anti -GMO, which is another one that holds back our foundation's ability to make improve seeds for the developing countries.

[339] Because even though it doesn't matter for the U .S. or your, Europe.

[340] For these countries, it can solve the starvation that's still a problem there.

[341] Well, one thing about the anti -vaxxers that I found interesting is it's often in pockets of very affluent areas.

[342] And that just goes to show, again, privilege and luxury.

[343] Like, you have the luxury of thinking this isn't real.

[344] Well, we have the luxury of growing up and going to school where three of the students didn't have crutches from polio.

[345] But we're not seeing that because that vaccine, works.

[346] Exactly.

[347] Yeah, that's the irony of health is that your very success breeds complacency.

[348] Yes.

[349] And the canary in the coal mine that comes back and see their measles or pertussis, where you'll get a small community that all the parents have talked to each other.

[350] And then if measles comes in, it can spread because you have a bunch of kids who aren't vaccinated.

[351] Yes.

[352] Okay.

[353] Now, Okay.

[354] Have you watched Last Dance?

[355] It's fantastic.

[356] Oh, we're obsessed with it.

[357] We couldn't have enjoyed something more.

[358] Yeah, and I'm not a basketball person, but the whole way he handled himself and what he had to deal with, and his, just how amazing he was.

[359] Yes.

[360] That was brilliantly done.

[361] And I got it saying, and I understand this is at great risk to answer this, because it could appear to be egomaniacal.

[362] But you had to have been watching that and going.

[363] yep, I see another fisherman at sea.

[364] He knows what it takes to be number one.

[365] Well, it's still so amazing how good he is, and God knows where that comes from.

[366] The idea that as he got successful, that his life became a little unnatural in terms of, you know, people seeking him out, in my view, he handled that pretty well.

[367] He's become less distorted by it.

[368] I mean, he would joke around about, hey, I had a piano up on my room.

[369] and he had some friends that he'd trust.

[370] Even his security guys, he got kids.

[371] That was pretty funny.

[372] By the way, the least intimidating group of security I've ever seen.

[373] One guy was like 80.

[374] Yeah, I guess they had very good aim or something.

[375] They had a lot of martial arts training.

[376] That wasn't obvious.

[377] Stay tuned for more armchair experts, if you dare.

[378] What's up, guys?

[379] This is your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

[380] And let me tell you, it's too good.

[381] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[382] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[383] And I don't mean just friends.

[384] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[385] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[386] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[387] We've all been there.

[388] Turning to the Internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rash.

[389] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[390] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[391] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[392] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[393] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[394] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[395] Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.

[396] Well, when I was watching it, of course, I couldn't help but ask myself this question, as I think many of the people that watch it did, is like, can you do what he did and be a sweetheart?

[397] We have these other examples, you being one of them, Steve Jobs now, He's become one.

[398] Do you think you can do what he did, what jobs did, what you've done, and be a sweetheart?

[399] Well, maybe not.

[400] I mean, I certainly wasn't a sweetheart when I ran Microsoft.

[401] And what it is is if you push yourself super, super hard and you're so tough on when you made a mistake and you better wake up to that mistake, you definitely project that onto other people, particularly if you're trying to move at full speed.

[402] And the business I was in, every day counted.

[403] We had to see what we were doing wrong.

[404] And so we said, hey, this is not for everyone to sit here and work these hours and be as tough on each other.

[405] The reason you're here is because you're amazing.

[406] So don't get confused when we're being kind of tough.

[407] We're a team.

[408] We're in this together.

[409] And, you know, every once in a while, we may have been tougher than we needed to be.

[410] I was not as tough as Steve.

[411] And I love the Jordan thing, which I think you could say for Steve or myself, which is I never asked them to work any harder or be tougher on their mistakes than I was on myself.

[412] It doesn't completely forgive it, but at least it shows where you're coming from that you're projecting your own values and trying to get everybody to be kind of hardcore like you are.

[413] And if they're not fine, there's another place for them to, you know, another basketball team or another sport for them to go hang out in.

[414] Well, that is ultimately where I'll be kind of, you know, libertarian or something in that viewpoint where I'll go like, look, no one begged you to come do this.

[415] This isn't conscription.

[416] So part of me does go like, if you don't dig it, man, go somewhere else.

[417] Now that I'm older, I do think I'm more subtle in terms of motivating people without having to push as hard.

[418] I mean, I was in my 20s, so I'm a little better at that.

[419] So don't you think it maybe reflects how much you kick your own ass?

[420] Is that lightened up over time?

[421] Yeah, because you become a little wiser.

[422] When you have a great spouse and kids, your breath of, oh, my God, if I don't succeed at this, it's everything.

[423] And so it's not quite as extreme.

[424] You know, in my 20s, all I did was try and make Microsoft succeed.

[425] That was it.

[426] Not weekends, not vacations, not broad reading.

[427] And I love that my competitors were always pissed off about how much harder core I was than they were.

[428] So that was like a tribute in my book.

[429] You used some great word where you came to like that you were there 24 -7.

[430] Yeah, that was the ethos for that period of time.

[431] Do you think Jobs deserves this deity status?

[432] Jobs was a genius.

[433] What he did, particularly when he came back to Apple.

[434] I mean, yes, he did a brilliant job founding Apple.

[435] He did some interesting stuff next, but it didn't succeed.

[436] But when he comes back to Apple, all the things that have worked and not work for him and his ability to pick people, his taste in people, even for skill sets that he didn't have himself.

[437] He didn't write code, but he picked amazing people.

[438] for manufacturing.

[439] What he did at Apple during that 10 -year period, it's truly phenomenal.

[440] And there's no chance in hell it happens without him.

[441] I mean, Apple was on its way to die.

[442] And they actually were negotiating to buy a different company than Steve's.

[443] That guy, John Louis Gosset, asked for a little too much money.

[444] So they went to Steve as their backup plan.

[445] And then Steve walks in and says, okay, this time I think I know what to do.

[446] So that period between when he goes back to Apple and when he sadly dies quite young, no one else can do what he did there.

[447] Yeah.

[448] I couldn't have done that.

[449] I don't know anyone who could have.

[450] So he belongs in the Pantheon, even though he was at times one tough, tough, tough person.

[451] Yeah, yeah.

[452] Yeah, I would say he's like, he's as much in the Walt Disney camp, maybe, on that Mount Rushmore.

[453] Absolutely, to recognize things in a new place that there really was no model for.

[454] I mean, he was such a wizard at over -motivating people.

[455] I was a minor wizard, so I couldn't fall under his spells.

[456] But I could see him casting the spells.

[457] And then I would look at people and see them mesmerized.

[458] And I would say, no, no. You were like second -year Hogwarts, and he was graduated.

[459] I was so jealous.

[460] Oh, good, good, good.

[461] Good, good, good.

[462] Wait, I have a quick question.

[463] You were talking about mistakes, and we have a mutual friend, Adam Grant, and he wanted me to ask.

[464] With Melinda and how much of a perfectionist she is, he says that you help her all the time in realizing mistakes can be fine and how to get over them.

[465] And he wanted tips on how you do that and how you guys help each other in that way.

[466] Yeah, I'm super lucky.

[467] I mean, this is the most profound partnership in my life.

[468] If I had a partnership with Paul Allen to found Microsoft, I have them with Steve Ballmer to turn it to an amazing company with our foundation, with our kids, with our marriage.

[469] You know, I've got this, you know, amazing person.

[470] And when she's pushing herself too hard, I'm good at, you know, helping her see the biggest picture.

[471] So we do that for each other.

[472] And I can't imagine, you know, doing these big quests where some things go wrong or when things go back.

[473] better than you expect, you know, who's there to appreciate it, to laugh with you about it.

[474] You know, it's so crazy the way we're working on with heads of state and big things.

[475] But, you know, we've gotten into this great pattern of helping each other out.

[476] You know, she'll see I get too up or too down, and that's a real help to me. And, you know, the same goes with her where, you know, she's quite driven as well.

[477] What's the cute code words?

[478] So my wife, my wife monitors me right, and she'll go like, huh, a lot of nicotine today, huh?

[479] We doing good?

[480] Like she'll point out, you know, a lot of coffee today.

[481] She's got like the little indicators.

[482] Definitely, Melinda has a look, particularly when we're in a large meeting.

[483] And I'm really kind of repeating myself with my negative feedback.

[484] So, and I can get, I can use clever analogies and it's like, wait a minute, you've made your point.

[485] Okay, now just quickly back to the jobs thing, you pointed out he was just tremendous at recruiting or picking the right people.

[486] And again, one of the things back to Titan that I was blown away with is, I guess I would have thought that guy worked 24 -7, but he didn't.

[487] And he had this very interesting relationship with delegating, which I think was novel at that time.

[488] have to imagine for me as a control freak, the very hardest thing that you must have had to, you know, eventually do is learn to delegate.

[489] Was that one of the bigger challenges for you in Microsoft?

[490] Yeah, and that's a kind of scaling that is a huge challenge.

[491] So at first I wrote all the code.

[492] Then I hired all the people who wrote the code and I looked at the code.

[493] Then eventually there was code that I didn't look at or people that I didn't hire.

[494] And of course, the average quality per person is kind of going down, but the ability to have big impact is going up.

[495] And so that idea that a large company is imperfect in many ways, and yet it's the way to get out to the entire world and bring in all these mix of skills, most people don't make that transition.

[496] And, you know, there are times where you go, oh, my God, I just want to write the code myself.

[497] The famous thing I'd always say is, you know, I could have come in and written that over the weekend.

[498] Well, eventually I couldn't.

[499] The individual contributor and the orchestrating an organization, those aren't often found together because there's a certain contradiction to that craftsman.

[500] For sure.

[501] And that wonderfully takes me to Warren Buffett, which is your relationship with him, I find to be so cute and fascinating.

[502] That was a relationship he sought out, which I thought was interesting.

[503] And you had low expectations.

[504] She just wanted to get in and out.

[505] Your mom basically said, no, you got to go meet Warren Buffett.

[506] He wants to meet you.

[507] And you had kind of allocated 90 minutes and then turned into hours.

[508] And I wondered, was it his financial wisdom?

[509] Clearly, you knew you were going to have to have a big understanding of economics and market and all that stuff.

[510] Or was there something else about him that attracted you to him?

[511] Well, his reputation was that he bought stocks that were undervalued, and I didn't think of that as that relevant to me. The fact that the way he did that was to have this broad framework for economic value and how competition worked.

[512] So that when I first meet him, he asks me about, well, why can't IBM wipe you out?

[513] Well, that's a brilliant question.

[514] Because IBM has all these resources, they can see that I'm better than them at this one thing.

[515] Why can't they just go hire people?

[516] And nobody had ever asked me that in the right way before.

[517] And so, you know, the first hour he's getting me to explain what it is that makes us special and why it's so hard for somebody to come after that.

[518] And then I get to ask him, okay, how do you see a head for different companies?

[519] What is it you're looking for?

[520] And it's not some silly, volume chart thing.

[521] It's the fundamentals of their future profit stream.

[522] He wanted to buy undervalued stocks, and I wanted to revolutionize personal computers and the empowerment, but our view of the world in terms of who's talented, who's flawed, how do you mix people together?

[523] Even now, we're talking every week because the world is so askew in this interesting way that it's, you know, predicting, okay, what's going on is more interesting than ever.

[524] So it was very profound, and we were lucky that we ran into each other.

[525] He was 25 years older than me, but, you know, he's so much fun.

[526] Yeah.

[527] I do think it's really interesting what you just said.

[528] You can learn about yourself by answering a question that someone asked, right, that maybe you haven't asked yourself.

[529] So it's like you may not have prior to that been able to define your strength.

[530] But when he asked you, why?

[531] Why can't IBM do this?

[532] You'd then, in answering it, discover your strength and know what to double down on.

[533] Yeah, being forced to teach something, you can really tell, do I understand this thing or not?

[534] Right.

[535] I got to teach Warren about Microsoft.

[536] Yeah, so it clarifies your thinking a lot.

[537] Is there any father figure element to it, or was it way more peer ship?

[538] Like, did you enjoy the approval from someone like him?

[539] Absolutely.

[540] So it's, we're kind of peers and he's kind of like a father figure.

[541] And it's got both wonderful aspects, you know, like when we go golfing, we're both terrible.

[542] So that's like a peer, you know, we have a dollar bet on the first person to get a par.

[543] And we have special rules if you go 18 holes with no par, who gets the dollar bill.

[544] So that's how bad we are.

[545] Okay, great.

[546] But then again, when something's complicated and troubling, then the debt.

[547] depth of his experience is so valuable to me. Yeah.

[548] Now, I do not have the intention or objective to blame you for anything.

[549] I'm literally curious about your feelings about having started a tech revolution.

[550] There's no one to point to more than you.

[551] And now we're, I don't know, what are we, 30 years into it, or 35 years into it.

[552] You know, there's social media, and I'm sure you have opinions on social media.

[553] And does this ever just cross your mind like, oh man, well, without the thing I did, that doesn't exist.

[554] And is this getting out of hand?

[555] Well, certainly anything that dramatically changes society is going to be used for bad things.

[556] You know, Henry Ford has to say, yeah, we're running over a few people.

[557] You know, is this good?

[558] And kind of netted out.

[559] So there definitely are things like, you know, people use encrypted communications to do criminal acts and that falsehoods are, they're so titillating that certain feed -based architectures make people spend more attention to false things than to the boring true things.

[560] And, you know, I'm an optimist, so I think, okay, let's be creative.

[561] Because overall, it's so positive, let's figure out how to at least minimize some of these negatives so they don't get out of control.

[562] Well, and again, I would imagine all of you are incentivized to handle it before some bureaucracy decides to handle it for you and doesn't really understand what they're doing.

[563] It's tricky that for car safety, you know, the U .S. had to figure out, okay, seat belts and really regulate it.

[564] There will be some things about how these tools are used politically.

[565] Should you be able to do micro -targeting?

[566] I actually don't think so.

[567] As far as ads?

[568] Yeah, I don't think certainly when I. anything is political, that it's really not that visible what you're saying to this person versus what you're saying to this other person.

[569] And the idea that the government should be able to see what's being said under the right circumstances, people fight against that.

[570] But I'm someone who thinks that eventually the law should be able to see some of these bad acts like they used to do with wiretapping.

[571] I'm watching parenthood with Melinda, but I'm watching the wire by myself.

[572] Oh, yeah.

[573] What a show.

[574] Your first time with it?

[575] Yeah, totally.

[576] Davis, the Netflix documentary, who's a super good friend, told me I had to watch it.

[577] So.

[578] Oh, maybe the best written show ever on.

[579] What episode are you on?

[580] I just started season three.

[581] Oh, it's tasty.

[582] On the topic of, you know, I just recently watched these House Judiciary Committee hearings.

[583] I didn't watch a lot of them.

[584] I watched enough of them to see a congressman, dressed down Jeff Bezos.

[585] And what I would have found is to be a very offensive manner.

[586] I was a little offended by the notion of someone who maybe hasn't created something that runs very efficiently and helped drive everything forward to be so critical of this other person.

[587] I want your opinion on that.

[588] They're lining up all these people and, you know, is the government crushing COVID?

[589] No. If you gave COVID to Bezos, I think he'd knock this thing.

[590] out in three weeks.

[591] Like, do you know what I'm saying?

[592] Yes, but if you're as successful as I am or any of those people are, you deserve rude, unfair, tough questions.

[593] The government deserves to have shots at you.

[594] I testified in front of the Senate, and I was tempted to do this sarcastic thing where they were, you know, being tough on me. I was going to say, senator, senator, I have discovered capitalists.

[595] I've discovered 43 capitalists who work at Microsoft, and I'm so apologetic that I've discovered this.

[596] It's really awful.

[597] They've infested my company.

[598] Anyway, I got told by adults not to do that particular joke.

[599] But, you know, when you've got so much share that, you know, should you be able to have in -house products on that market, should your logistics overwhelm everyone else, or should you have to unbundle that?

[600] You know, what should Mark Zuckerberg do about these titillating things and even really bad things like kind of attacks that get orchestrated on his service?

[601] These are hard questions.

[602] Jeff Bezos and Amazon, they have done a phenomenal job.

[603] But that type of grilling comes with the super successful territory.

[604] It's fine.

[605] Oh, good.

[606] You changed my opinion.

[607] You glad well did me. But is that a new opinion?

[608] over time now that you're older and wiser?

[609] No, with these tech developments, the Congress has to think are the laws up to date with respect to these companies, the competition laws, how we do acquisition laws, that's okay.

[610] The idea that they get to hide out, I mean, actually, they didn't even have to fly there.

[611] I had to fly there, but so.

[612] And I had competitors sitting next to me who were being tough to me. But so even then, I did not begrudge the fact that it's part of the process.

[613] If anything, the fact I didn't hire lobbyists in D .C. And that I kind of ignored D .C. That was a naive mistake on my part.

[614] Yeah.

[615] So you just said the word.

[616] And I do think it is if it's not on par with whatever mental aptitude you have, it's very close.

[617] And that is you are an optimist.

[618] It's really crucial.

[619] I think you have a naive optimism maybe even at times, which is such an asset.

[620] to have.

[621] And the moment I would say it's most detailed is for people who haven't seen it or don't understand, you know, I think you bravely and I think you're isolated enough and protected enough to be able to be one of the few people who can do this.

[622] You say, look, wind and solar is awesome.

[623] It's great.

[624] It should be exploited as much as it can.

[625] But we are going to have to have a source of energy that is on demand when we want it.

[626] That's just a fact.

[627] We cannot build enough batteries to run Tokyo, right?

[628] It couldn't be done.

[629] And so what are the other options?

[630] Sadly, it's nuclear, right?

[631] And then, but you have this crazy, again, I think kind of naivete to go, well, what do people hate about it?

[632] Well, they hate nuclear waste and they hate that they melt down.

[633] So let's build one that doesn't melt down and that runs on previously created nuclear waste.

[634] It's awesome.

[635] I am so grateful to you.

[636] I'm not fluffing your pillows.

[637] We do this three blessings thing in the morning with the kids.

[638] I try to get them to list three things they're grateful for.

[639] You make my gratitude list once a week.

[640] I'm literally like, I'm so grateful that that.

[641] that Bill Gates chap is up there in Washington figuring out how to give us nuclear energy.

[642] So with that said, you have worked at this point for years on this project, to my understanding.

[643] You know, you get all this, you put so much time into the relations and getting the permission.

[644] And years in, you get a phone call that says Trump has ended it one second ago with, I assume, very little knowledge of what the hell he just ended.

[645] And your reaction to me says everything about you.

[646] I at least read on your face, which is like, okay, that's the next.

[647] turtle.

[648] Yeah, well, we have a new strategy.

[649] We're going to build it here in the United States.

[650] Even in the best case, it's about a three -year setback.

[651] But, you know, I've been spending time with the Department of Energy and the Congress about how we get it built.

[652] I mean, basically for clean energy, there's three ways it could get solved.

[653] We could have a miracle in storage so you can store all that renewable energy.

[654] That may not happen.

[655] You've got fission, which is this terror power nuclear plant.

[656] And then you have a fusion, which is even harder.

[657] But one of those three, at least one, has to work, or else this whole clean energy thing will be nearly impossible.

[658] So we should put tons of money behind all three to give ourselves the best chance.

[659] Yeah, I guess I have such limited knowledge on it.

[660] But I guess I had always heard that the kind of fusion model is just science fiction, or is that not science fiction?

[661] Well, they always say it's been 50 years away for the last 50 years.

[662] So the technical difficulty of solving the problems of vision is probably the easiest of the three.

[663] It's almost just engineering and societal acceptance for the vision path to work.

[664] The other two paths require breakthroughs, but there's lots of crazy optimistic people who are working on the storage miracle or the fusion miracle.

[665] And we should get behind those people in parallel.

[666] Let's nerd out for one second.

[667] Why is the storage issue in your estimation harder to mount?

[668] What is the hurdle there?

[669] Well, every battery ever built in the history of the world couldn't store a month of power for Tokyo.

[670] And so it's unnatural to be able to store that much energy.

[671] And the physics constants about how you improve that are, very daunting.

[672] I've lost a lot of money in battery companies.

[673] Oh, okay.

[674] And the batteries for electric cars, the amount of storage is like 50 times less than for this grid storage.

[675] So we'll solve the electric car problem.

[676] There are people like Elon and Jake Deep and various great innovators who will make the passenger electric car become mainstream, but lots of incredible work.

[677] So the passenger art thing is in good shape.

[678] Being able to make electricity reliably, even when you have a 10 -day storm so that wind and sun wouldn't work, that I hope we solve, but there's only those three paths.

[679] Now, time management, your commitment early on to taking time for yourself, these week -long periods where you allow yourself to step out of the forest.

[680] And I think that's such great wisdom behind that.

[681] And I'm glad people are really teaching that as something of value.

[682] but I do wonder, how much time do you allocate for self -interspection?

[683] Well, until I did the headspace thing, which is only like 10 minutes a day and I miss some days, you know, at night, I like to stay up late and I'm more of a night person.

[684] Melinda's more of a morning person.

[685] So I get, you know, a little bit of alone time to reflect at night.

[686] And that's helpful.

[687] Usually the kids have gone to bed.

[688] Hopefully they've gone to bed by then.

[689] Well, I did have that as a specific question because, you know, You're the sole reason I keep drinking Diet Coke.

[690] And I use it as my defense all the time.

[691] Because I get so much heat here in L .A. about drinking the Diet Coke.

[692] And I got, listen, the smartest guy in the world's drinking, I don't know, 35 a day.

[693] And that one video of you reading your books, man, the fucking time lapse, they're just piling up.

[694] And I'm thinking, oh, my God, he must, he should have a shoot next to his desk that just goes out to the recycling.

[695] It'd be so helpful to you.

[696] Let me install that for you.

[697] Do you have trouble sleeping?

[698] And tell me why Diet Coke's fine for us.

[699] I must be acclimated to a reasonable level of caffeine.

[700] I don't drink coffee after noon because it's a much more intense dose of caffeine than Diet Coke is.

[701] But, you know, I'm able to sleep quite well.

[702] You know, I think I'm used to Diet Coke.

[703] If I stopped drinking it, I think I'd have a little bit of withdrawal.

[704] Of course.

[705] And so it's great.

[706] Well, I quit doing drugs and drugs.

[707] drinking alcohol 16 years ago.

[708] And I one time quit Diet Coke for about eight months.

[709] I was like, I don't even want to be alive.

[710] I just not even worth it.

[711] There's no reward to this.

[712] I don't enjoy being on planned earth without it.

[713] If I pitch the Coca -Cola company as you and I is like the spokespeople.

[714] And it's just like you and I just enjoying the shit out of life, pounding Diet Coke.

[715] Are you up for that?

[716] I know you don't need money.

[717] I bet they pay us a lot.

[718] Okay, Coca -Cola, if you're listening, we're your guys.

[719] I think if you win, through time and you looked at the people who built Ford, DuPont, you name it, Boeing.

[720] Those people have not been historically good fathers.

[721] It's really a time -consuming endeavor, and I wonder, can someone do both?

[722] And what has been your evolution on that?

[723] Yeah, so I stepped down a CEO in the year 2000.

[724] Then I left my full -time work at Microsoft in 2008.

[725] And I would definitely say I was a better father after I read.

[726] retired.

[727] I'm not saying you can't be a good father and do hard jobs, but in my specific case, I was able to put more time into it.

[728] And even talking to my oldest, she's like, yeah, you could have done a little better in those early years.

[729] And, you know, if you go another 20 years doing really well, then I'll forgive you for that.

[730] You'll be back to zero.

[731] Exactly.

[732] So kids are nice.

[733] We joke around about it.

[734] But yes, there was some tension.

[735] And that, you know, would come up between Melinda and I is, okay, you're doing a dinner tonight.

[736] You're headed off to that trip.

[737] And, you know, being a father's a lot of fun.

[738] So I'm lucky that I was able to have most of my kids childhood when I wasn't nutty about my work.

[739] My 20s, I mean, I couldn't have even been a husband in my 20s.

[740] I was 38 when I got married.

[741] And then I was 41 when our first child is born.

[742] I'm similar.

[743] I was 38 and 40.

[744] And yeah, A, I just was way too self -centered prior to that.

[745] Two, I would think regularly when they were having like their hour three of a fit, I thought, you're so lucky.

[746] I'm not in my 20s.

[747] It would have been a dangerous place.

[748] I just barely made it at 40 years old with the patients.

[749] Do you think in a way they may have saved your life in that?

[750] So I have had a similar experience where I evaluate everything much differently now.

[751] I do jobs.

[752] The time commitment is the first thought.

[753] The money is really second.

[754] It's all about the time commitment.

[755] It's how much am I going to be at home with my kids?

[756] And that's done two things for me. One is it's helped with the workaholism.

[757] And then two, it's given me another pillar of my identity.

[758] One that I really, that fills me up.

[759] That gives me so much self -esteem that it helped me de -prioritize and de -emphasize this other thing that was my sole identity.

[760] Yeah, when I was in my 20s, you know, when things were going well for Microsoft, I was too ebulent.

[761] When things were going poorly, I was too negative.

[762] I mean, that was all I was.

[763] You know, my view was, okay, if this thing doesn't succeed, I'm a complete, worthless person.

[764] And for me in my 20s, okay, it worked, even though I don't recommend it for everyone.

[765] Now that I have the kids, the foundation, the foundation has many different projects.

[766] I'm a lot more calm and unemotional about, okay, this malaria vaccine failed.

[767] Okay, that's really sad.

[768] But here's how we regroup, you know, no yelling required.

[769] So yes, between being a parent and aging and broadening my sense of self -worth beyond the one monomaniacal thing, it's a much healthier life, I have to say.

[770] I bet you'll live a lot longer.

[771] It also probably opened you up in a way for your philanthropy that probably wouldn't have existed.

[772] Stay tuned for more armchair experts if you dare.

[773] I got to tell you the sweetest thing.

[774] They saw me a lot.

[775] I have five and a seven -year -old.

[776] They saw me a lot over the last two days watching stuff, reading about you.

[777] And they would ask, what are you doing?

[778] Oh, I'm interviewing my favorite person.

[779] Oh, Bill Gates.

[780] So my seven -year -old watched a lot of the documentary with me. And I was just leaving to come here.

[781] And my seven -year -old came outside and she said, daddy good luck interviewing Bill Gates and I said you know what honey if I do a bad job I come home you're still my daughter and I really that's the truth that is the truth like I could fuck this up nine ways till Sunday I could be disappointed myself and I walk through the door and I'm like oh my god I'm that little girl's dad it's all gravy absolutely you have three yeah girl boy girl what's the gap between the oldest and the youngest it's about three years three years and then three years.

[782] Yeah.

[783] So the youngest probably has a much different experience as your child than the oldest.

[784] Yeah, she got more time at a younger age.

[785] Of course, it's...

[786] But you're less interested because it's your third, right?

[787] It's like it's a weird, it's a weird ratio.

[788] No, the oldest feels like we were way more strict with her.

[789] So she's like, come on.

[790] Give me a break.

[791] Why are you so easy on her?

[792] She tries to parent her much younger sister a little bit.

[793] Anyway, it all works, but, you know, and this pandemic, you know, it's mostly a bad thing.

[794] But in terms of times with kids, actually, I've gotten way more than I expected, and that's made it very special.

[795] Leonardo da Vinci's notebook.

[796] This is something that you bought at some point, yeah?

[797] That's right.

[798] Is it one book or is there many?

[799] Well, he has several notebooks.

[800] All of them except for this one are in European museums and don't travel.

[801] So this is the only one that gets out and students around the world have a chance to engage with.

[802] Oh, so you loan it a lot.

[803] It travels nine months a year and then it sits in darkness the other three months.

[804] First of all, why did you want it?

[805] Well, it's kind of weird that somebody can own a da Vinci.

[806] I mean, he was the Renaissance man. He figured out things that nobody had ever figured out.

[807] His breadth of understanding was incredible.

[808] There's a great Walter Isaacson book about him.

[809] Oh.

[810] I'll read that for sure.

[811] Isaacson's a great writer on all the stuff.

[812] His Steve Jobs book is probably the most popular.

[813] It's just called Jobs.

[814] Exactly.

[815] That's him.

[816] Yeah, yeah, that's the one I read.

[817] So, you know, I told Melinda I'm going to buy a notebook, and she was like, well, but you already have a notebook.

[818] And I was like, no, no, not this notebook.

[819] So it's weird to own it, but it's just so brilliant.

[820] Is he, if you had to list or rank the people that you were most enamored with, as far as being intellectuals, where is he had in that list?

[821] Well, I did that he pushed himself to understand things, and the broad way he did that, he's up there, you know, with, you know, maybe 20 people who self -motivated asking themselves constructive questions and not giving up.

[822] That's inspirational.

[823] Do you need an eyepiece for it?

[824] Did he write with some eyepiece that inverted it, flipped it, and did something else to it?

[825] He wrote upside down and backwards, but now the view is that he did that.

[826] I'm a left -hander, and so I always have ink on my hand.

[827] And if you write like Da Vinci did, then you'd never get ink on your hand because you're left ink.

[828] Monica, okay, you're going to love this.

[829] So I requested for Monica.

[830] This was years ago, yeah.

[831] Years ago, I said I'm going to start writing, how did I describe it?

[832] Backward, yeah.

[833] Just back.

[834] Yeah, you wanted to start on the wrong.

[835] right side of the paper and work your way.

[836] That's right.

[837] I was, I was going to learn to just spell everything backwards.

[838] That was going to be my plan and reverse engineer every sentence.

[839] And then, so she, she made me a notebook with the binding on the other side so that I could accomplish this.

[840] And he never used it.

[841] Well, it's harder than I thought it'd be.

[842] Yes.

[843] Not for Da Vinci, but.

[844] Now, when you, when you hold the book, can you feel anything?

[845] Well, it's, it's parchment.

[846] It's just paper.

[847] and the paper in those times actually was not acidic, so it's extremely well -preserved.

[848] And paper was expensive enough.

[849] He did a lot of things all in one place.

[850] And so historians have gone and figured out.

[851] And so I know this one super well.

[852] I enjoy looking at it.

[853] He has very good penmanship, which I do not.

[854] Of course, he was one of the best drawers ever.

[855] And he used drawing as a way of stimulating his thinking.

[856] You can see, like, he's figuring out rivers and erosion and two rivers meet, and he ends up seeing it through drawing it.

[857] Exactly.

[858] That was his way.

[859] You know, people mostly know him as an artist, although he was just a curious kid who fell in between.

[860] He wasn't upper class to go to school, but he was a bastard son of a noble, so they couldn't make him work in the fields.

[861] So he was just a free person walking around.

[862] And then he was.

[863] he gets at age 15 apprenticed to the great art masters.

[864] After two years, they're like, oh my God, you're ahead of us.

[865] Was his thing that he hated finishing stuff?

[866] He was a perfectionist.

[867] And so even when he dies, three of his paintings that he'd been working on all of them over 20 years, they're still with him and he's touching them up and working on them.

[868] So yes, he finished very, very few things in his life.

[869] He did a lot of plays.

[870] The thing he finished the most were these entertainment things because the nobles found that so valuable that a big part of his job were the little plays that he produced.

[871] Oh, no kidding.

[872] That was part of the guild era, right, where they started paying recreationally to bring talent like that in.

[873] Yeah, well, then he left the guilds and there was a rich man who he would be in charge of making weapons for him or entertaining for him or doing architecture for him.

[874] Whatever the guy wanted, he was kind of this jack of all trades, but mostly he wanted entertainment.

[875] That's who I want to be for you.

[876] All right.

[877] I'll do wheelies in the front yard on motorcycles.

[878] Like, whatever you find amusing, I'll be the jester.

[879] Well, work on your drawing then.

[880] Oh, boy, that's not good.

[881] No, he's really good at drawing.

[882] They're very odd drawings, but they're good.

[883] They're not very realistic.

[884] The giving pledge, which is so incredible, is it hard for you to ask people for their money, Or does that come easy to you?

[885] Well, the giving pledge, you're not giving me any money.

[886] Right.

[887] You're just committing that over your lifetime, you'll give the majority of way, which if you have massive amounts, it shouldn't be too hard.

[888] So, you know, some people turn me down in terms of joining the group.

[889] But it's a group that we're learning together, encouraging each other to do more, to do it earlier.

[890] You know, particularly in the pandemic, there's been a lot of talk about, okay, what is the government not doing well?

[891] how do we step up and fill those holes?

[892] You know, income inequality is incredibly real.

[893] It's a big concern of mine.

[894] But at the same time, I'm not on board with objecting to billionaires.

[895] And especially with what you've done and what Rockefeller did, you know, there's a freedom that you have that is so valuable.

[896] Again, you don't have to do something that's popular.

[897] You don't have to do something that you need political support for.

[898] You are free to tackle any problem you want.

[899] Would you agree that there's great value in billionaires so long as generous as you and Buffett and these other people who have signed up that it is of great value to us?

[900] Absolutely.

[901] And there's lots of room to collect more on taxes from very rich people and still have enough that philanthropists can go out and pursue things that government's not risk -oriented or doesn't know how to assemble the right kind of team.

[902] So philanthropy, even though it's a small part of society's resources, I do think it's quite valuable.

[903] But I do separate that from the idea that, hey, they should make people like me pay a lot more taxes, not 100%, maybe I'm selfish to say that.

[904] What's the number?

[905] Because I think I'm pretty open to more taxes, but there's certainly a number.

[906] When I heard 70 %, I was like, nope, that's too high for me. I don't want to go 30 cents.

[907] on the dollar?

[908] What's the number for you?

[909] Well, somewhere between 50 % and 70 % as you get to very high levels.

[910] Even at very high levels, something like 70 % is doable.

[911] And we've had, historically, the U .S. actually had these very high taxes.

[912] So, you know, you can push it too far, but there's a lot of room to collect more.

[913] Would you say that, are you a centrist?

[914] Very much.

[915] Yeah.

[916] Yeah.

[917] Me too.

[918] I feel like we're unicorns at this point.

[919] In fact, anytime I say something, Both sides hates me. And I'm like, oh, I see why people are disincentivized to be a center as both sides hate you.

[920] No, it's a lonely center when you think, you know, we're going to overregulate, underregulate, overregulate, underregulate.

[921] But, you know, democracy has a way of being self -correcting.

[922] So, you know, just making sure there's enough technical skill to help the well -meaning people is the part that I can help with.

[923] So as you've been more and more immersed in COVID and trying to stay abreast, and it's almost impossible, right?

[924] because it's hourly that something's completely negated we were working upon.

[925] So you've got to be flexible to be as immersed in it as you are.

[926] But as this vaccine becomes available, what should our role be as a country, as the richest country in the world?

[927] Well, the U .S. historically on global health things like this, like smallpox eradication or polio or HIV and malaria, the U .S. has been phenomenal.

[928] And, you know, President Bush started a thing called PEPFAR, which is, got 18 million people alive on HIV medicine.

[929] That's very bipartisan.

[930] This situation, weirdly, we're so domestic focused that we're doing a good job funding the research and development to create a vaccine, but we haven't stepped up to help fund that vaccine for the poor countries.

[931] We've only made factories just for ourselves.

[932] And so hopefully in the next week or two, we'll get something like $4 billion to buy those vaccines.

[933] So that's my hot topic right now is that even though 99 % of this money should go to help the U .S., if we set aside that 1 % from a humanitarian point of view, strategic point of view, and just selfish point of view of the disease not coming back, you know, that 1 % will be phenomenally well spent.

[934] Well, let's add national security into there, which is - Absolutely.

[935] People really underestimate how much of this stuff is preventative that costs us so much more money down the road if we have to go to war with somebody.

[936] But these acts of goodwill are hugely instrumental in keeping us safe, aren't they?

[937] And yeah, I'm driving stability in these countries, which is a win -win.

[938] Making sure that there's factories outside the U .S. as well as inside the U .S. That's the part that we're missing right now.

[939] And that can be done just by setting aside a modest amount of money.

[940] Is there any fear of that tech getting exported?

[941] Let's say that you could make it in China for 10 cents on the dollar?

[942] Will that be a roadblock?

[943] Well, actually, the factories in India, not so much in China, will be part of this global coalition because they have very high volume factories there.

[944] And so the pharma companies are, for the first time, allowing something they invented to be made in another company's factories.

[945] And I'm very happy with that cooperation.

[946] they keep saying to me, well, will the U .S. fund the procurement?

[947] And I say, yeah, yeah, we'll take care of that.

[948] But, you know, this may be our last chance until into sometime next year because the election will get everybody distracted.

[949] So this bill, we're going to try our best to get it into this bill.

[950] Okay, my last question, and it's totally self -serving, is I love that the doc starts with you getting arrested for speeding.

[951] Do you still like going fast?

[952] Yes, but not to the same degree.

[953] I have this Porsche Tycan now.

[954] Oh, you have one.

[955] It can accelerate like nothing else, so it's a little tempting, I have to say.

[956] Do you like cars?

[957] Do you collect any?

[958] I'm not an expert like a lot of people.

[959] You know, my very first car was a Porsche 9 -11.

[960] Oh.

[961] You know, we, you know, our family has overly nice cars.

[962] But this tie can, you know, as soon as I could get it, because I'm very big on climate change, It's electric.

[963] You know, the Tesla's a fantastic car, but this one is kind of a special deal for me. Yeah, they're incredible.

[964] I've only seen pictures of it, but I'm a host of Top Gear, so I think I'm going to get to drive it soon, and I'm really looking forward to it.

[965] It's me, like, adding the Porsche racing history, racing feel, the handling, if that gets mated with what this insane acceleration of Tesla has produced, sign me up.

[966] I'm in.

[967] Yeah, they do a good job on the synthetic sound effect.

[968] So, you know, it doesn't sound like a Porsche, but they make a sound like a Porsche.

[969] Did you keep that first 9 -11?

[970] Because, you know, those things have skyrocketed in value.

[971] No, I eventually sold that.

[972] You know, for a while, I almost lost my license, so I slowed down for a little while.

[973] I love it.

[974] Now, it also came out in the dock that you're a fast skier, you're a fast mountain biker.

[975] You've got a healthy amount of daredevil.

[976] Again, when we get into this impossible, you know, lining up of variables that make you, you that's certainly there, right?

[977] I mean, the risk taker part of you.

[978] Yeah, certainly if you've taken risks and they've worked out, you're tempted to keep pushing the limit.

[979] And so, you know, funding nuclear energy or an HIV vaccine, you know, even though the odds, objectively, of all of this innovation stuff I do are quite high, I know that it can work.

[980] And, you know, of course, I'm lucky now that I have resources to back.

[981] brilliant inventors.

[982] So yes, my optimism has been reinforced through good luck.

[983] Yeah, you're a little bit on a closed loop of like really great outcomes.

[984] This is dangerous to say, but I've been, sympathetic's not the right word.

[985] Maybe I've been understanding of politicians who've gotten themselves in hot water because I go, yeah, their whole life, they did something that everyone said couldn't be done.

[986] And they discovered by and large, they could do it.

[987] So when you tell them, you can't have an affair in the White House, says who?

[988] I did this other thing.

[989] Like, you can get in trouble from that close feedback loop of positive outcomes.

[990] And you've managed to not destroy your life.

[991] And it's really impressive more than I think people might give you credit for.

[992] No, success is a dangerous thing.

[993] And being married to the right woman is the best anecdote for that.

[994] Wait, one more thing just because I don't think anyone knows this.

[995] But when I spoke to your communications person before we got to chat, with you.

[996] She said something I didn't know about your foundation, which, and you can tell me if this is wrong, after you or Melinda, whoever passes last, the foundation is going to end 20 years after that?

[997] That's right.

[998] It's a spend down foundation because they'll be rich people in the future who will understand the problems at those times better than we do.

[999] And our foundation is really good at ending childhood death, ending HIV, malaria.

[1000] And so we should take all our resources and the thing that we really focused on, including U .S. education, and do our best to achieve those instead of having, you know, some old friends sit on the board and feel prestigious.

[1001] I like that.

[1002] This has been so fun.

[1003] And I just want to make myself available to you.

[1004] When you get to season, I don't know what, of parenthood and I do some naughty business.

[1005] and you want to call me and yell at me, I am at your disposal.

[1006] All right, all right.

[1007] This was fantastic.

[1008] Yeah, you really made our year.

[1009] So thank you so much for your time.

[1010] Thank you for everything you do.

[1011] You'll continue to be in our gratitude list.

[1012] Well, thanks.

[1013] This is a blast.

[1014] Good job.

[1015] Okay, great.

[1016] Take care.

[1017] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1018] William Gates.

[1019] Oh, my God.

[1020] We did it.

[1021] Oh, my gosh.

[1022] How many days did your buzz last?

[1023] Still going.

[1024] Still going, yeah.

[1025] I have residual buzz for sure, but I was high as a kite for about four days.

[1026] He's your hero and you got to chat with him.

[1027] How did that feel?

[1028] He was so cute and funny.

[1029] So cute.

[1030] Playful.

[1031] Oh, my gosh.

[1032] I hope he doesn't mind me referring to him as playful, but, you know, that is what I tell my hairstylist.

[1033] What?

[1034] Just make it playful.

[1035] Oh, sure.

[1036] Yeah, I always say, like up the playful of it.

[1037] Anywho, what a guy.

[1038] I mean, of course, he's going to be smart.

[1039] You already know that.

[1040] Yeah, duh.

[1041] That's a foregone conclusion.

[1042] But then you see him, he looks so cute.

[1043] It's impossible.

[1044] My only fear was that he might be reserved.

[1045] Mm -hmm.

[1046] But he was so great at communicating.

[1047] Do you think our show is the kind of show that the publicists tell them, like, you got to stay guarded?

[1048] Probably.

[1049] Well, well, it's counterintuitive because you can't really stay guarded.

[1050] No, it would be a bad.

[1051] interview.

[1052] Yeah, exactly.

[1053] So you have to have some vulnerability.

[1054] Yeah.

[1055] Sadly, his favorite color is not green.

[1056] I was happy about that because I've always carried around a lot of guilt for liking blue the most.

[1057] And I believe he said blue.

[1058] He did.

[1059] He did say blue.

[1060] Between that and the D .C.'s.

[1061] Oh, yeah.

[1062] Oh, that was another thing.

[1063] So you said you wanted to memorialize this and then you like held up your die -cog but the viewers didn't know.

[1064] Oh, oh, oh, good.

[1065] I'm glad you red flag that.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] So if People were wondering, yeah, there was a Diet Coke cheers because they both love it so much.

[1068] Did it almost make you want to drink a Diet Coke?

[1069] You know what?

[1070] Yeah, with Bill.

[1071] We only had one left.

[1072] I know.

[1073] What luck or misfortune?

[1074] No, it was luck, because what if you didn't have one?

[1075] We would have had to cancel the interview.

[1076] You're right.

[1077] But had I a 12 -pack of DCs, I would have banged back six of them for sure, just to show off in front of Bill.

[1078] Yeah.

[1079] Show them what kind of league I'm in on the DCs.

[1080] Okay, but Green, so I looked at.

[1081] what colors mean about people.

[1082] Oh, great.

[1083] So black, people who choose black as their favorite color, and this is in psychology today, not Wikipedia, people who choose black as their favorite color are often artistic and sensitive.

[1084] While these people aren't introverts, they are careful with the details of their lives and do not share easily with others.

[1085] White.

[1086] People who like white are often organized and logical and don't have a great deal of clutter in their lives.

[1087] Well, you're partially white.

[1088] Go ahead.

[1089] I don't know about that.

[1090] Okay.

[1091] Red, those who love red, live life to the fullest, and are tenacious and determined in their endeavors.

[1092] Jess.

[1093] I think you just associate red with Jess because of his hair.

[1094] I do, yeah.

[1095] And it sounded like him.

[1096] I do that too.

[1097] Blue.

[1098] If blue is your favorite color, this is you.

[1099] You love harmony, are reliable, sensitive, and always make an effort to think of others.

[1100] You like to keep things clean and tidy and feel that stability is the most important aspect in life.

[1101] It doesn't really sound like you.

[1102] So.

[1103] This is that classic thing that, anytime you hear a description of yourself, you'll identify with it because it's about you.

[1104] Yeah.

[1105] What's yours?

[1106] Orange?

[1107] No. Ew.

[1108] You told me that the other day.

[1109] No, purple is my favorite.

[1110] Oh, purple, purple.

[1111] Okay, but I'm not there yet.

[1112] Green.

[1113] Those who love the color green are often affectionate, loyal, and frank.

[1114] Green lovers are also aware of what others think of them and consider the reputation very important.

[1115] Are we more green?

[1116] I do love green.

[1117] Oh, it's a great color.

[1118] It's my second favorite.

[1119] Yellow.

[1120] I also love yellow.

[1121] You enjoy learning and sharing your knowledge with others.

[1122] Finding happiness comes easy to you, and others would compare you to sunshine.

[1123] Oh, that's nice.

[1124] Purple.

[1125] Oh, is it the opposite of sunshine?

[1126] Oh, my God.

[1127] Wow.

[1128] You are artistic and unique.

[1129] You have a great respect for people, but at times can be arrogant.

[1130] So I guess that's right.

[1131] And I guess it's the opposite of sunshine, as you said.

[1132] Well.

[1133] That's fine.

[1134] No, no. The colors yellow and purple are objectively opposites, right?

[1135] Like, to me, purple's one stop before you're black, that you've mixed too many colors together.

[1136] It's like last stop before black.

[1137] And then I think light yellow is the last stop before white.

[1138] Oh, wow.

[1139] All right.

[1140] That makes sense.

[1141] Okay, thank you.

[1142] Yeah, that makes sense.

[1143] Brown, you are a good friend and try your hardest to be reliable and dependable.

[1144] Flashy objects are not something you deserve.

[1145] desire you just want a stable life.

[1146] So now we know there was no orange on here, but good thing I hate orange.

[1147] Oh, yeah, I don't care for it.

[1148] I actually don't hate it, but it's not.

[1149] You look great in it.

[1150] Oh, thank you.

[1151] You've got some pangaya, pangaya, pangaya in orange.

[1152] And it's a great color on you.

[1153] Thank you.

[1154] Yeah.

[1155] It pops.

[1156] Okay, so he said garage, but I'm pretty sure he met attic.

[1157] Oh, right.

[1158] He said he wasn't at the garage, but I think he met the attic, which, to be fair to him is above the garage.

[1159] I went a step further, as you recall, and I thought he meant garage.

[1160] And I was like, someone researched me enough and told him, hey, this knucklehead loves cars.

[1161] You could just say that, and you'll be off to the races.

[1162] Which may be.

[1163] No, you're definitely right.

[1164] You're definitely right.

[1165] Oh, by the way, don't you love how much entertainment he watches?

[1166] Yes.

[1167] And did Brad Pitt respond?

[1168] No. Dang.

[1169] Dang.

[1170] Don't put me on blast.

[1171] Yeah, it's been a week.

[1172] Okay, sorry.

[1173] At least.

[1174] He's gonna.

[1175] He's just busy.

[1176] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1177] Okay, so we talked a little bit about Kent, but we didn't say who Kent was.

[1178] You were referring to the documentary, and in case people who haven't seen it, Kent was his childhood best friend.

[1179] And he died as a kid in an accident.

[1180] Yeah, well, not only was he his best friend, he was, like, a genius as well.

[1181] And his hobbies were super eclectic, and he collected Forbes magazine and entrepreneur.

[1182] magazine, aviation magazine and all this.

[1183] He was a daredevil intellectually and then decided the best way to snap out of his geekdom was to start mountain climbing.

[1184] So he was in a class and died mountain climbing.

[1185] It was crazy.

[1186] So sad.

[1187] Okay, the notebook I made you, I wish I wanted to find it because it had to be more than just I bound it on the other side.

[1188] Right?

[1189] Because wouldn't I just, wouldn't we just flip over a regular?

[1190] No. There was trace paper involved as well.

[1191] Yeah, but why?

[1192] See, that's the thing.

[1193] I think I invented something that I forgot I invented.

[1194] And I think you manufactured the thing I invented and neither of us can remember it.

[1195] Oh, no. We're going to need to find it and blow off the dust on it.

[1196] You can say I forgot about more products than you've ever invented.

[1197] Oh, my God.

[1198] You think that would be a good burn?

[1199] Yeah.

[1200] Next time you're arguing with somebody about who's made more products.

[1201] Brought more products to market.

[1202] Oh, my God.

[1203] Some of these presents we've given you are so stupid.

[1204] They're so thoughtful.

[1205] Also, speaking of thoughtfully, you wore a suit, which I thought was so cute.

[1206] And here's what I was upset with is that you told me you knew I was going to do that.

[1207] By the way, it didn't occur to me to last minute.

[1208] So you knew before I knew.

[1209] And yet you did not arrive in a ball gown.

[1210] That would have been so great if it was like we were receiving the president or something For a cocktail party.

[1211] First of all, I don't own a ball gown.

[1212] Wow.

[1213] I wish.

[1214] If I had my prom dress and I thought you would wear a suit, it occurred to me on my drive -over.

[1215] I said, you know, I think he's going to show up in a suit.

[1216] Okay, okay.

[1217] So I didn't have time to plan, but I did plan.

[1218] I wore all green stupidly.

[1219] And I wore a green tie.

[1220] Yeah.

[1221] We both were certain he was going to pick green for his favorite color.

[1222] It was so embarrassing.

[1223] We were trying to play to his ego.

[1224] Is it if it's so flattering to get our approval?

[1225] So he's watching Parenthood, which is so flattering, right?

[1226] So lucky.

[1227] You've been so flattered this week?

[1228] I have.

[1229] Yeah.

[1230] It's pretty bonkers.

[1231] I sent Ketam's a thank you text for that.

[1232] I said there was a point when he said he liked parenthood and he was in the middle of it and was excited to talk to Crosby.

[1233] I just like relax so much.

[1234] Yeah.

[1235] I thought, oh, good.

[1236] He's not completely inconvenienced by this.

[1237] Yeah.

[1238] He might even enjoy it.

[1239] But you said when you get to a certain season and you're doing some naughty business to forgive you.

[1240] Spoiler alert coming?

[1241] Well, no, I'm just going to say it's season two.

[1242] Okay.

[1243] Episode 17.

[1244] And things really hit the fan.

[1245] Yeah, it's called Do Not Sleep with Your Autistic Nephew's Therapist, which is a bit of a spoiler.

[1246] That's quite a spoiler.

[1247] But that is what it's called.

[1248] So.

[1249] That might be the episode that's fallout from it.

[1250] Do you think they would really label it that?

[1251] Okay, maybe not.

[1252] Oh, you know what?

[1253] You know what I'm saying?

[1254] It's not.

[1255] The next episode, we probably fight about it the whole episode.

[1256] This is so embarrassing that I know this, but you're right.

[1257] It's not.

[1258] The one where you actually commit the crime is called, like, it's Max's birthday party, and it's that magician, and it's, like, called something about that.

[1259] He's a bug guy or something, Max.

[1260] Yep, that's the one.

[1261] Bingo.

[1262] We did not get him to say diarrhea, unfortunately.

[1263] That's maybe my soul.

[1264] shoot you're right because he says it so frequently in the documentary as he has to he's talking about sanitation it's not like he's being excessive it's just required but you don't expect to hear the world's most brilliant man say diarrhea diarrhea diarrhea diarrhea over and over and it started getting to monica and i am boy we get the giggles every time it came up yeah i had a friend who had to turn it off because it was too too many times she just she didn't know how to handle it because it was so serious a topic that she felt really guilty about laughing.

[1265] So she just had to turn it off.

[1266] That's where you and I's strength really shining because we don't feel that guilty about that.

[1267] True.

[1268] So the anti -vaccine Whole Foods thing, I was looking at that.

[1269] I couldn't find the chart, but a lot of places we're saying the anti -vaxers are often described as middle and upper class women who breastfeed their children, shop at Whole Foods, and scour the web for vaccine -related conversation.

[1270] They believe that their thinking supersedes that of doctors.

[1271] Typically, their families earn more than $75 ,000 a year.

[1272] So that's just some stuff.

[1273] It's not everyone.

[1274] It's an interesting niche of the population.

[1275] It is.

[1276] Yeah.

[1277] Because it's anti -science, which you associate with not Whole Foods shoppers.

[1278] Yeah, there's definitely an arrogance that comes, I think, with education, where you're like, I'm smart enough to know that there's falsehoods here.

[1279] smarter than yeah yeah yeah yeah oh i want to clear up i tried to address it on instagram but the whole i was confusing the raven with telltale heart oh oh yeah kind fellow pointed that out to me so we should do another reading under the floor yeah maybe we'll tackle a telltale heart when i have more energy yeah let's can i give you a little theory i have yes please when it got onto cars and he said you know we've gone electric.

[1280] Of course he has to.

[1281] Of course.

[1282] I could tell he was looking at me like, if I visit you, I want to go out in some shit.

[1283] Oh, okay.

[1284] Well, that's some assumptions.

[1285] I want to go out in some shit because daddy still likes a pleasure in the dirt.

[1286] Okay.

[1287] Okay.

[1288] That's what I think happened.

[1289] It was just a glance.

[1290] All right.

[1291] I didn't catch it.

[1292] You can say a lot in a glance.

[1293] You really can.

[1294] Yeah.

[1295] You can say everything.

[1296] One thing I have to make clear, we forgot to do something and it was important and we forgot.

[1297] Uh -oh.

[1298] On the documentary, Bill's, I think, assistant packs a bag for him.

[1299] Every time he goes anywhere, it's a humongous bag full of books.

[1300] Yeah, yeah.

[1301] Because he needs to read all the time.

[1302] It looks heavy as fuck.

[1303] It looks so heavy.

[1304] So Kristen wants to make Bill a bag that says Bill's book bag.

[1305] Well, is it wants to or already have?

[1306] She hasn't done it yet that I know of.

[1307] She just wanted to put out an official invite.

[1308] That's right.

[1309] And she's made a few bags for other people over this quarantine.

[1310] She has.

[1311] Molly and Clay Cullen, beautiful couple, friends of ours.

[1312] She made Molly a beautifully decorated love bag with clay on a Subaru jumping over some dirt.

[1313] One of her many strong suits is bag making.

[1314] Bag making.

[1315] And just art in general.

[1316] Yeah, definitely.

[1317] And she uses puff paint.

[1318] And it's very cute.

[1319] And she would like to send Bill, Bill's book bag.

[1320] Is that too much to ask?

[1321] We're not asking nearly enough.

[1322] And I guess we're asking the assistant, right?

[1323] Bill doesn't give a shit what bag gets handed to him as long as that thing's packed to the gills with super dense scientific spreadsheets.

[1324] I don't think he'll care.

[1325] He won't care.

[1326] He won't even notice.

[1327] He'll get photographed with it.

[1328] Her Etsy store will blow up.

[1329] I am worried about his back.

[1330] Like, I want him to wear a backpack.

[1331] because I'm nervous about this one -shouldered bag that's so heavy on his body.

[1332] But he's so mindful.

[1333] I imagine he has a whole program where he alternates shoulders to keep them equally strained and fit.

[1334] It's still going to hurt.

[1335] Okay.

[1336] Okay, I'm worried.

[1337] You are pretty worried, aren't you?

[1338] Very.

[1339] Okay, so this is tough.

[1340] So as we talked about on the Sean Penn episode, you have had to change your profile to 60.

[1341] And you know where I'm going now?

[1342] I do.

[1343] How old is he?

[1344] Let's look it up.

[1345] What would you guess?

[1346] 67.

[1347] He is 64.

[1348] Okay.

[1349] Okay.

[1350] So I don't have to go up very much higher.

[1351] It's not asking a lot because you're already at 60.

[1352] Yeah, I'm happy to go to 60.

[1353] You're going to go to 65 to include Bill.

[1354] Of course.

[1355] If there's a Bill Gates type out there, I want that.

[1356] I think we would have heard of them, right?

[1357] Another Bill Gates type.

[1358] Maybe he's just not known yet, but we'll become known in the next year.

[1359] Oh, like a 33 -year -old.

[1360] Well, I guess that would be one of these other.

[1361] No. You could lassoe one of the up -and -coming Bill Gates's too hard for me, grab them at 33.

[1362] That takes a lot of projection on my end to know if they're going to become a Bill Gates type.

[1363] I need to like just get one of the 64 -year -olds that already is that type.

[1364] It is Bill Gates.

[1365] Yeah.

[1366] Oh, my God, can you imagine raising little Bill Gates if you had a little boy?

[1367] If you had a boy, a son, would you name him Bill Gates, Jr.?

[1368] I would.

[1369] And I'd put him in a little work shirt right away, like a little button up.

[1370] Bill Gates Jr. Oh, my.

[1371] And I'd call him by his full name every single time I refer to him.

[1372] Bill Gates Jr.?

[1373] Oh, my gosh.

[1374] Come over here.

[1375] Let's refresh those batteries on that calculator.

[1376] That would be so funny to name your kid Bill Gates Jr. I don't always have them in business categories.

[1377] Oh my gosh I think I hit them all Okay last question Okay Because I think we share this You know I have alternating Low self -esteem In Meglamania Okay There's almost no stop in the middle I'm either thinking something so bad about myself That couldn't be possible Or something so grandiose I have entertained the notion That he's going to reach out to me to chill I really hope that happens But do you think it's completely delusional No I don't I think it's in the realm of possibility.

[1378] Well, look, we did the best we could.

[1379] I feel like we left our best routine on the stage.

[1380] Is that the saying in cheer?

[1381] We left our best routine on the stage.

[1382] We left it all on the floor, on the mat.

[1383] On the stage?

[1384] You guys were on a stage, right?

[1385] Yeah, but you wouldn't say that.

[1386] You'd say the mat or the floor.

[1387] Okay.

[1388] But also, we just don't say that.

[1389] That kind of thing.

[1390] Good job we won again.

[1391] This is getting boring.

[1392] We got to start losing so we can mix it up a little bit.

[1393] change the odds yeah no i hope you feel proud of yourself it was a really good interview oh thank you i thought you were spectacular too you were very very relaxed as well pangaya you're blaming it on the guy yeah okay dokey well we check that off our life list oh no i gotta add one more two cents okay this is very special it is i'm not gonna be fearful being saccharin okay i got to give you even more credit because I have in you what I was lucky enough to have in Aaron Weekly, which is if we would have eaten shit, we would have shared it and laughed about it for the rest of our lives.

[1394] Yeah.

[1395] There was going to be a win, whether we triumphed or ate a big old duty duty.

[1396] Yeah.

[1397] A poody duty.

[1398] A poody duty?

[1399] And it's solely because I share this with you.

[1400] Thank you.

[1401] I love you.

[1402] Love you.

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