Video2015

The next outbreak? We’re not ready

Gates warned that the world had invested in nuclear deterrence but not in epidemic preparedness, modeled a Spanish-flu-scale outbreak and called for a standing response corps, germ games and vaccine platforms. Five years later it became the most-cited prediction of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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2013
The Giving Pledge
Three years after the pledge’s launch, Rose interviewed its three founders and signatories including Pete Peterson, Sara Blakely, Steve and Jean Case and Jeffrey Skoll about how the campaign recruits billionaires and what it has changed.
2014
From Poverty to Prosperity: A Conversation with Bill Gates
In a 70-minute conversation at the conservative think tank, Gates made the case that foreign aid works, that capitalism and philanthropy are complementary, and that software will reshape jobs (‘software substitution’) within 20 years; he also defended the Common Core standards.
2014
Why giving away our wealth has been the most satisfying thing we’ve done
The couple’s first joint TED appearance, interviewed by Chris Anderson about how they decided to give away their fortune, the division of labor in the foundation, and raising children with great wealth. Melinda discusses the early Africa trip that shaped the foundation’s priorities.
2014
Stanford commencement address
Bill and Melinda alternated at the podium, urging graduates to pair optimism with empathy: Bill recalled the soft-drink-can-sized ambitions of early Microsoft and the Soweto hospital visit that reset his priorities; Melinda described a Calcutta sex worker named Mina.
2014
Bill Gates on the Ebola outbreak
An hour-long Politico conversation during the West African Ebola epidemic, in which Gates discussed the foundation’s $50 million response and what the outbreak revealed about global preparedness, themes he would turn into the 2015 TED talk.
2015
Drinking water made from sewage on The Tonight Show
Gates brought Fallon water produced by the Janicki Omniprocessor, a foundation-funded sewage-to-water plant, and drank it on air; the clip went viral and became the public face of the foundation’s sanitation program.
2015
The next outbreak? We’re not ready
Gates warned that the world had invested in nuclear deterrence but not in epidemic preparedness, modeled a Spanish-flu-scale outbreak and called for a standing response corps, germ games and vaccine platforms. Five years later it became the most-cited prediction of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2015
Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates
A 55-minute three-way Charlie Rose conversation with Buffett and both Gateses about philanthropy and their work with the Giving Pledge, broadcast July 17, 2015.
2016
Bill Gates on climate change and clean energy
A 55-minute Rose interview centered on the Breakthrough Energy Coalition announced in Paris three months earlier and on the 2016 annual letter’s energy theme (‘If you could have one superpower’).
2016
Peer to Peer Conversations: Bill Gates
Rubenstein’s biographical interview covers the decision to license rather than sell DOS to IBM, Buffett’s $30 billion gift, and how meeting Melinda changed his life; it is one of the more personal television interviews of the decade.
2017
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates at Columbia
The two returned to Columbia for a student Q&A one week into the Trump presidency, defending foreign aid, discussing polio tracking via sewage sampling and vaccine misinformation, and answering questions on artificial intelligence and the future of America. Buffett called Citizens United ‘a terrible decision’.
2018
Politico Playbook interview
A 51-minute Politico interview on foreign aid under the Trump administration, the foundation’s priorities and Gates’s own meetings with the president; it was broadcast live by C-SPAN2 during his spring 2018 Washington visit.
2019
Al Jazeera English interview
A 29-minute Al Jazeera English interview in which Gates explains the foundation’s work and responds to critics who question the role of a private foundation in global health policy.