Welcome back to The Deep Dive. This is where
we try to give you that intellectual shortcut,
digging into figures who've really shaped our
world. And today, we're tackling someone truly
massive, William Henry Gates III, Bill Gates.
Yeah, I mean, his life story. It's like three
different epics rolled into one, isn't it? Trying
to synthesize it all is, well, it's a challenge.
It really is. You've got the software revolutionary,
the guy who basically defined the PC era. Then
there's the corporate architect. Yeah. Bolding
one of history's biggest monopolies. And then.
The global philanthropist committing, what is
it now, over $100 billion to tackling these huge
global problems. It's just staggering. It is.
So our mission today, yours and mine, is to get
past the usual headlines. We want to understand
the choices he made, the levers he pulled to
get that kind of influence. Right. And the scale
we're talking about. Yeah. Youngest self -made
billionaire at 31. That was 1987. Just think
about that. And holding that title, world's wealthiest
person for what, 18 of the 24 years between 95
and 2017? Yeah, just dominated it. And even though
he's stepped back from the day -to -day at Microsoft,
that influence, that private power, it's still
immense. Still up there. As of like mid -2025,
his net worth is hovering around $115 billion.
Still 13th richest globally. Yeah, we need to
trace that path. From that early competitive
streak. Right. All the way to the IBM deal, which
was just pivotal. Definitely. And then Microsoft's
culture, the management style, the antitrust
battles. Yeah, those were huge. And then the
massive shift, the pivot to philanthropy, global
health. Climate change. Right down to things
like his recent political donations, his land
ownership. It's a huge canvas. It really is.
OK, let's dive in. Where do we start? Seattle,
1955. Exactly. William Henry Gates III. Trey,
they call him. And the sources, they all point
to one thing, that competitive fire. It started
at home. It wasn't learned later. Yeah, you read
about his family. I mean, talk about high achievers.
Father, a prominent lawyer, grandfather, a bank
president. And his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates,
was incredibly influential. on the board of First
Interstate Bank United Way, a major figure in
Seattle. And the home environment itself. Yeah.
Sounds like everything was a competition. Playing
cards, pickleball. Even swimming to the dock.
There were rewards for winning, penalties for
losing. It was structured competition ingrained
from day one. So that idea, win or lose, was
just baked in. Absolutely. It seems like it taught
him this intense focus. If you're going to play,
you play to win. Full stop. His parents apparently
wanted him to go into law, follow that traditional
path. Right. But he found, let's say, a different
outlet for that intensity at Leakside Prep School
around age 13. And this is where the story gets
that almost accidental twist involving the Mother's
Club. It's incredible, isn't it? They held a
rummage sale, raised money. And bought a teletype
Model 33 terminal, hooked up to a GE mainframe
somewhere. And for young Gates, this machine
was just... Perfect logic. He was apparently
fascinated by how it executed code flawlessly
every single time. A stark contrast to, you know,
messy human interactions or the nuances of law
his dad dealt with. Precisely. And he just dove
in, got obsessed. They even excused him from
math class so he could program in BASIC. Writing
his first program? Tic -tac -toe. But that curiosity,
it quickly turned into something else, didn't
it? He wanted more computer time. Always more.
He and his friends, Paul Allen included, figured
out how to exploit bugs in the system used by
the computer center corporation, the CCC. Basically
hacking the system to get free time. Exactly.
They got caught, got banned. But here's the crucial
part. The pivot. Right. Instead of just being
banned. They went back, formed the Lakeside Programmers
Club and made CCC an offer. We'll find the bugs
in your software. Give us unlimited computer
time. Brilliant, really. Absolutely brilliant.
Because that deal gave Gates access. Access to
study sophisticated source code, Fortran, Lisp,
machine language. He got this deep systems level
understanding that most kids just didn't have.
So even before college, he's not just a coder.
He's a systems thinker who knows how to leverage
technical skill. And that led to their first
real venture, TrafoData, with Paul Allen. Building
traffic counters using Intel 808 chips. Still
teenagers. It's just relentless application.
Then comes Harvard, 1973. Scores almost perfect
on the SATs. 1590 out of 1600. Yeah, clearly
brilliant academically. Met Steve Ballmer there,
future Microsoft CEO. But even at Harvard, he
wasn't just coding. Ah, the pancake sorting algorithm.
We have to talk about this for a second. It sounds
obscure. It is a bit, yeah. It's a problem in
combinatorics about sorting a stack of different
sized pancakes with the minimum number of flips
using a spatula. Okay. But the point is his solution
worked out in a class was so efficient it remained
the best published solution for over 30 years.
Wow. So that tells you something about how his
mind works, doesn't it? It's not just software.
It's abstract problem solving optimization. Seeing
patterns. Exactly. That same intensity, that
drive to find the absolute optimal solution.
You see it applied later to business, to strategy,
even to global health problems. Pure analytical
power. But Harvard wasn't the end game. 1975
rolls around. And the January issue of Popular
Electronics hits the newsstands. Featuring the
Emite's Altair 8800 microcomputer kit. The spark.
That was it. Gates sees it. Allen sees it. They
realize the hardware is finally here for personal
computing. But it needs software. Desperately
needs software. So he takes what he later called
an official leave of absence from Harvard. Which,
let's be honest, was never going to be temporary.
No. That decision leads directly to the birth
of Microsoft. And the way it started. It's pure
audacity. That famous bluff. Right. They see
the Altair article. And what they just call it,
mites. They call Ed Roberts the president of
ITES and tell him they have a BASIC interpreter
ready for his machine. Which they absolutely
did not have. Not even close. They didn't even
have an Altair to test it on. They had to write
an emulator first, running on a Harvard computer,
then write the BASIC interpreter itself. All
in a matter of weeks. The pressure must have
been incredible. Intense. But they pulled it
off. Flew out to Albuquerque, demoed it. Roberts
was impressed. Licensed Altair BASIC on the spot.
And Microsoft was born, dropped the hyphen pretty
quickly, incorporated in 76. And almost immediately,
Gates lays down the law about software value.
That brings us to the open letter to hobbyists
in February 76. Yeah, this is fundamental to
understanding him, isn't it? He basically takes
on the entire hobbyist community that. in a way,
nurtured him. He does. He argues that people
copying software without paying, which was totally
common then, was basically theft. He said it
destroys the incentive for professionals to write
good software. Exactly. Developers need to be
paid. Intellectual property, software IP has
value and must be protected. It wasn't just a
belief. It was the cornerstone of the entire
future business model. Software as a product.
not a shared community resource. That mindset
directly leads to the moment that truly changed
everything, the IBM deal, 1980. This is it, the
turning point, where technical skill meets unbelievable
strategic and legal maneuvering. So IBM, the
giant, comes knocking. They need an operating
system for their secret PC project. And surprisingly,
Gates initially points them elsewhere to digital
research run by Gary Kildall, who had the dominant
OS at the time, CPM. Why do that? Just being
cautious? Or was it strategy? Hard to say definitively.
Maybe a bit of both. Maybe he felt Microsoft
wasn't ready for IBM scale yet. But whatever
the reason, it worked out perfectly for him.
Because the talks between IBM and digital research
fell apart. Right. Over NDAs and pricing or something.
Yeah, the story goes, Kildall's wife, who handled
the business side, was wary of IBM's terms. So
IBM comes back to Gates. Can you provide an OS?
And at this time, he doesn't have one ready either,
but he knows where to get one. No bluff needed.
Exactly. Pure execution. Microsoft goes to a
small Seattle company, Seattle Computer Products.
Buys their existing OS called 86 DOS, sometimes
QDOS for Quick and Dirty Operating System. Right.
For a reported $50 ,000, maybe $75 ,000, they
quickly adapt it, polish it up a bit, and license
it to IBM as PC DOS. Okay, but here's the absolute
genius move, the part you really need to grasp.
The licensing terms. This is the billion dollar
decision. IBM gets the OS, yes, but for a relatively
small one time fee. Microsoft crucially retains
the copyright. They own the software. IBM didn't
insist on owning it. That seems like a huge oversight
from them. A colossal oversight in retrospect.
They were hardware guys. They probably didn't
grasp the long -term strategic value of the operating
system copyright. Gates absolutely did. So when
the IBM PC launches, it's a huge hit. And almost
immediately, other companies start cloning it.
Compaq, Dell, Gateway. The clone market explodes.
And because IBM didn't own the OS. Every single
one of those clone makers had to go to Microsoft
to license the operating system. Yeah. Now called
MS -DOS. Precisely. Microsoft basically put a
toll booth on the road to the entire PC industry.
That single decision, retaining the copyright,
transformed them from a small player into the
dominant force practically overnight. It was
built on that legal detail. That intensity. That
control. It permeated the early company culture,
too, didn't it? You hear stories about him reviewing
every line of code himself for years. For the
first five years, reportedly, yes. Absolute micromanagement,
ensuring everything met his standard. And as
they grew, that translated into a, let's say,
challenging management style. Challenging is
one word for it. Verbally combative, known for
tearing into managers' ideas. Famous for lines
like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Or the classic, why don't you just give up your
options and join the Peace Corps? Right. It was
brutal. But some people say, you know, if he
really engaged with you, even aggressively, it
meant he respected your intellect enough to argue.
If he could pick apart your logic and you could
defend it, you earned your place. A high pressure
cooker for sure. Yeah. Intellectually demanding,
but maybe not great for morale. Probably not.
And that intensity at other costs. Paul Allen's
departure in 1983. That was complicated. He had
Hodgkin's disease, needed treatment. But there
was also a serious dispute over his equity stake
in Microsoft, right? It got pretty contentious.
It did. They did reconcile later, became huge
philanthropic partners, donated massively back
to Lakeside. But yeah, that early conflict shows
the harder edge of Microsoft's ambition. And
the ambition just kept rolling. Windows launches
in 85, taking on Apple's graphical interface.
Microsoft just keeps growing, keeps dominating.
Leading up to the late 90s, the peak of their
power, but also the peak of the conflict, the
antitrust era. Right. Massive lawsuits in the
U .S., in Europe, the government. Essentially
accusing Microsoft of being an illegal monopoly.
And the courts largely agreed. The core finding
was about anti -competitive practices. Specifically
leveraging the Windows monopoly to kill off competitors,
right? Like Netscape Navigator. Exactly. Bundling
Internet Explorer with Windows for free, using
their OS dominance to force out the leading browser.
The courts ruled that was illegal monopolization,
actively blocking competition. And Gates' own
performance during the legal proceedings, especially
that 1998 deposition. It became infamous. Oh,
yeah. Widely seen as evasive, argumentative,
quibbling over the meaning of basic words like
compete. Reports said the judge actually laughed
at some of those responses. It was a PR disaster.
It really was. The image of the brilliant strategist
suddenly looked like arrogance under pressure.
That whole period, the late 90s, early 2000s,
really marked a shift. He starts stepping back.
Steps down as CEO in 2000, hands over to Ballmer,
stays on as chief software architect for a while.
Then transitions away from day -to -day operations
around 2006, becomes chairman. Finally leaves
the board entirely in 2020 to focus just on the
Gates Foundation. But even looking back at that
era of total dominance, you know what he calls
his greatest mistake? It's not the antitrust
stuff, is it? No, it's losing the mobile OS war.
letting Google's Android become the standard
for non -Apple phones. He sees that as a massive
strategic failure that cost Microsoft hundreds
of billions. Fascinating. Even with all that
success, it's the missed mobile opportunity that
stands out to him. Which tells you something
about his focus always on the next platform,
the next strategic battleground. Okay, so post
-Microsoft, he doesn't just retire to an island.
He pivots. Hard. Completely. He steps into this
role. Almost like a global strategist or a philosopher
king of technology and risk, focusing on huge
long -term challenges. And the things he started
talking about his biggest fears. They weren't
market share or quarterly earnings anymore. No,
he was talking pandemics, nuclear war, bioterrorism,
existential risks. And he was talking about pandemics
way before COVID -19, that 2014 speech. Yeah,
where he basically warned the world was completely
unprepared for a major infectious disease outbreak,
said it could kill millions more than a war.
He highlighted how vulnerable we were. That foresight
gave him enormous credibility when the pandemic
actually hit, didn't it? Absolutely. The foundation
was already working in that space and he'd been
sounding the alarm. He also started talking more
about AI risk. agreeing with people like Elon
Musk that superintelligence is a serious long
-term concern. Asking why more people aren't
worried about it. Right. But the area where he's
put maybe the most focused energy and investment,
besides global health, is climate change and
energy. And his approach here is, well, it's
very Bill Gates, isn't it? It's about optimization.
Totally. He believes policy changes are important,
but not enough. We need breakthrough innovation.
We need clean energy to be radically cheaper.
His goal, he said, is to make it a quarter as
costly as fossil fuels. So cheap that developing
countries just choose it automatically. That's
the ultimate optimization problem for him. How
do you engineer that cost reduction? Which led
him to start... Breakthrough energy. Right. This
huge coalition of investors pouring money into
really high risk, potentially high reward clean
tech startups. Things like advanced batteries,
green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel, even
synthetic breast milk, oddly enough. De -risking
the R &D for technologies that might normally
take decades to develop. And pushing governments,
too, with mission innovation, getting countries
to commit to doubling their clean energy research
budgets. He's orchestrating on a global scale.
A prime example is TerraPower, his own nuclear
venture. Yeah, focusing on advanced reactor designs.
They're developing a sodium -cooled reactor,
uses molten sodium, not water, for cooling. Supposedly
safer, more efficient, can use different kinds
of fuel. And they're actually building one, right?
in Wyoming. That's the plan. A demonstration
plant with Pacific Corp, a utility company, trying
to bring advanced nuclear into the real world,
potentially replacing coal plants. It's incredibly
ambitious. But his climate work isn't without
major controversy. The geoengineering stuff,
for instance. Ah, yes. Funding research into
sun dimming, the Scopex project at Harvard, looking
into stratospheric controlled perturbation experiment.
Basically researching the idea of spraying aerosols
high in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and
cool the planet. It's hugely controversial. The
potential for unintended consequences messing
with rainfall patterns, ozone layer impacts is
enormous. Plus the governance issues. Who decides
to do this? But Gates is funding the research
to understand if it's even feasible, what the
risks are. It shows his willingness to look at
extreme technological fixes. Absolutely. Same
with his push for rich nations to switch entirely
to synthetic beef. A massive societal change
driven by his analysis of methane emissions from
agriculture. And he backs up these technical
ideas with political action when needed, like
lobbying Joe Manchin on the Inflation Reduction
Act. Right. He personally got involved, made
the case to Manchin, and when it passed, Gates
called it maybe the most important climate legislation
ever in the U .S. He's willing to use his direct
influence for policy out. Which brings us to
the quieter engine behind a lot of this. His
personal investment firm, Cascade Investment.
This isn't the foundation. This is his private
wealth. And the scale here is also mind -boggling.
Cascade manages the billions not given to the
foundation yet, and its holdings are significant.
The most talked about holding. Farmland. He's
the largest private owner of farmland in the
United States. Yeah, something like 242 ,000
acres across nearly 20 states. It's an astonishing
amount. What does that mean, practically, owning
that much land? It means huge influence over
agriculture, land use, potentially food prices,
adoption of farming technologies. It's a different
kind of power, much less visible than the foundation's
work. And Cascade holds big stakes in regular
companies, too, right? Major positions, like
16 % of AutoNation, the car retailer, largest
single shareholder in Canadian National Railway
key infrastructure, a big stake in Ecolab, which
does water treatment and hygiene. So logistics,
infrastructure, resources. Exactly. Plus, they're
still making venture bets in cutting -edge tech,
synthetic biology with Kinko Bioworks, AI. chips
with luminous computing. And during the pandemic,
Cascade actually bought Melologic, a UK company
that made rapid COVID tests. Which shows how
his investment interests and his philanthropic
goals can sometimes overlap or align. Investing
in the tools needed to solve the problems the
foundation targets. Okay, let's shift fully to
the philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. The scale is just unprecedented for
a private charity. Totally. Around $60 billion
given to the foundation itself, part of that
$100 billion total commitment. It's the largest
private foundation on Earth by far. And its influence
on global health is immense. They modeled it
after the Rockefeller Foundation, right? Yeah,
focusing on huge systemic problems that others
maybe ignore or can't fund at scale, especially
infectious diseases. Their main targets are really
specific. Polio eradication, malaria. tuberculosis.
Relentless focus. Massive funding for vaccine
development, delivery systems, mosquito nets,
diagnostics. Also funding things like golden
rice, the genetically modified rice with vitamin
A to fight malnutrition. And the sanitation work,
including that unforgettable moment with the
Omniprocessor. Ah, yes. Bill Gates drinking water
that had been moments before human sewage sludge
processed by this machine they funded. A dramatic
way to prove the technology works. Definitely
memorable. It highlights that engineering mindset.
Find a technical fix for a massive problem like
lack of clean water and sanitation. Plus, huge
investments in family planning access and education.
Then there's the giving pledge. co -founded with
Warren Buffett in 2010. Getting billionaires
to commit to giving away at least half their
wealth, it's a public statement about the responsibility
that comes with extreme wealth. And it aligns
with his own plans for inheritance, right? Leaving
his kids relatively little. Yeah, he's been clear.
The vast majority, over 99%, will go to the foundation,
not his children. They'll get... maybe $10 million
each, a tiny fraction of his fortune. He wants
the money put to work solving problems. When
COVID hit, the foundation was positioned perfectly,
given their work and his earlier warnings. They
launched the COVID -19 therapeutics accelerator
quickly. He became a global spokesperson for
preparedness, vaccine development, constantly
saying, another pandemic will come, we have to
be ready. But the pandemic also threw that core
tension in his career into sharp relief, didn't
it? The IP issue. The TRIPS -Auror controversy.
Yes, this was huge. Can you break that down?
What was the waiver about? Okay, so TRIPS -S
is the WTO agreement on intellectual property.
During the pandemic, countries like India and
South Africa proposed waiving patent protections
for COVID vaccines and treatments. The idea being,
let any country with a manufacturing capability
make cheaper generic versions faster. Exactly.
Boost global supply, especially for poorer nations.
But Gates? opposed it which seems counterintuitive
given his focus on global health access why his
argument went right back to that 1976 open letter
He believes strong IP protection is essential
to incentivize the massive R &D investment needed
for breakthroughs like mRNA vaccines in the first
place. He argued the real bottleneck wasn't patents,
but the difficulty of safely transferring complex
manufacturing tech and ensuring quality control.
Right. But the criticism was fierce. People saw
it as his fundamental belief in IP monopolies,
the very thing that built Microsoft overriding
urgent humanitarian needs during a global crisis.
It's the central paradox, isn't it? Imagine of
his wealth creation potentially hindering the
distribution of life -saving tools he helped
fund. It really is a defining tension. Alongside
the foundation, he also makes large personal
donations, often putting his name on buildings
at places like MIT and Stanford. And uses his
profile for specific fundraisers, like those
tennis matches with Roger Federer for education
in Africa. Yeah, the Match for Africa events
raised millions. So he leverages his fame and
connections in multiple ways. Let's talk about
his public image. It's been a real roller coaster.
Oh, absolutely. He started as the ultimate tech
villain for many in the 90s, the ruthless robber
baron of software. Then, post -Microsoft, post
-foundation launch, he undergoes this transformation,
becomes the saintly savior, the techno -philanthropist
everyone admired. For about two decades, that
image largely held. But then around 2021, coinciding
with the divorce announcement, things shifted
again quite dramatically. Yeah, the narrative
darkened. Suddenly he's portrayed more like a
tech supervillain again in some quarters. Scrutiny
intensified massively. And old controversies
resurfaced alongside new ones. The antitrust
findings from the 90s never went away, obviously.
The courts did find Microsoft abused its monopoly
power. But the focus recently has been much more
personal. Especially the connection to Jeffrey
Epstein. Right. Reporting, particularly from
The New York Times, detailed meetings between
Gates and Epstein starting around 2011, well
after Epstein's initial conviction. The reports
said they met many times, and crucially, that
Melinda French Gates had concerns about this
relationship as far back as 2019, reportedly
contributing to her decision to seek divorce
lawyers then. Gates himself has called meeting
with Epstein a huge mistake. He said the goal
was philanthropic fundraising. trying to connect
Epstein's network to global health causes, but
admitted it was naive and damaging. He expressed
deep regret, especially for the impact on his
family. His political stances also add layers.
He's generally advocated for higher taxes on
the wealthy. Which is always a bit ironic coming
from one of the wealthiest people ever. But he's
also taken direct action lately. That huge donation
in the 2024 election cycle. Exactly. A reported
$50 million donation to Future Forward USA Action,
a group supporting Kamala Harris's presidential
campaign. And using a 501c4 structure, right,
which allows for less disclosure than direct
campaign contributions. Often called... Dark
money. It allows for very large contributions
focused on political advocacy. Gates justified
it by saying he felt this election is different,
implying the stakes were exceptionally high,
warranting that level of personal financial intervention.
It's a significant move, showing another way
he wields influence. And of course, during COVID,
his high profile on vaccines made him a lightning
rod for conspiracy theories. Just wild stuff.
Microchips and vaccines, depopulation plots.
all completely unfounded. He tends to dismiss
them as people looking for simple, albeit sinister,
explanations for complex events like a pandemic.
Which is probably true, but the sheer volume
and reach of those theories were remarkable.
On the personal front, the divorce from Melinda
was finalized in August 2021. They deliberately
waited until their youngest child finished college.
And then there's that fascinating revelation
from his upcoming memoir, Source Code, writing
that he believes he's likely autistic. Yeah,
citing lifelong patterns, intense focus, pattern
matching, difficulty with social cues, even physical
stimming like rocking. It offers a potential
lens, doesn't it, for understanding that incredible,
sometimes awkward intensity that drove both his
business success and his very focused philanthropy.
It does add context. And his personal life seems
to have moved on. He confirmed dating Paula Heard
in 2023. And described her as a serious girlfriend
more recently, saying he's moved past the divorce.
Okay, so wrapping this all up, synthesizing this
life, it's quite a task. It really is. You have
the hyper -competitive software genius who built
an empire on intellectual property control. Then
the transition to the concerned futurist warning
about pandemics, AI, climate change. And finally,
the hyper -focused philanthropist applying that
same analytical intensity to try and solve the
world's biggest health and energy challenges.
Three careers in one. He's received major honors,
Presidential Medal of Freedom, Honorary Knighthood,
Pakistan's second highest civilian award. But
the awards almost feel secondary to the sheer
scale of his ongoing real world influence. Which
leads us, I think, to the final thought for you,
the listener. Yeah. When you consider everything
we've discussed, the foundation's agenda -setting
power, the massive private investments like TerraPower
and all that, Farmland, the vaccine IP stance,
the huge political donations. It forces you to
ask a fundamental question, right? How do we,
as a society, navigate a future where so many
critical global issues public health strategy,
energy policy, even democratic outcomes, are
increasingly influenced, funded, and shaped by
the specific priorities, technological bets,
and personal decisions of a handful of unelected,
ultra -wealthy individuals like Gates. That concentration
of power, originating from tech wealth, now steering
responses to humanity's biggest threats. Something
profound to think about. Exactly. What does that
concentration of private influence mean for all
of us? That's the question we leave you with.