BILL GATES REVEALS: "I Was Wrong About Success…" – Transcript

00:00This is a world where somebody can have over a hundred billion dollars. What is that? These fortunes are almost illegitimate unless in a very smart way given back. One of the biggest names in business, tech, and philanthropy.

00:15Exploring and investing in innovative solutions to some of the world's toughest problems. Bill Gates. Starting with Microsoft where I had monomaniacal focus, giving up weekends and vacation wasn't some big sacrifice. I loved it.

00:29The idea that everybody would use computer was somewhat ridiculed. So, it was kind of fun saying, "No, no, this is really going to be mainstream." If you look at it from the outside, you see Steve Jobs and yourself having this competition, envy, jealousy. What was it actually like?

00:43He said we were the General Motors and he was Mercedes. Social networking, we're still arguing about what the policy should be. Algorithms reward outrageous things even if they're not at all factual. I've always underestimated how incredible my father was. He would say, "Hey, I'm sorry I worked so hard."

01:02And I'd say, "No, no, that was fine." I feel lucky that he lived as long as he did. It brings tears to my eyes because he was incredible. Do you remember one of the final conversations you had with him? The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one and only Jay Shetty.

01:27There's so much conversation today I feel about work-life balance. Do you think that that sacrifice and that dedicated time was necessary for the levels of success or would it have been possible in another way? No, I think for Microsoft to be successful, even though we were the first, we and we had a broader concept of software than the other companies, we needed to be what I would call hardcore.

01:51And you know, in that case, the work is what I want to do. It's It's not like, "Oh God, you know, I've got to earn a little bit more money." It's, you know, this is the thing that throughout my childhood I was so lucky, you know, because of my parents and some early friends, school I went to, I had these exposures to computers that were very rare. And so, I had, you know, all these

02:19thousands of hours of programming experience and great feedback on, "Okay, how do you do it better?" from the very best adults. I got to see what was coming, and the idea of being part of making that real, you know, I woke up and said, "Okay, I I'd love to get to work." My younger self could stay in, you know, days at a time. I I don't do that now, but then it was just in no way a a hardship. You know, because I I, you

02:47know, felt we were part of something that uh was would be very empowering. And, you know, competitively I wanted us to to be the ones to make it happen. One of your favorite quotes that I've always loved is you've said, "We overestimate what we can do in 1 year, and we underestimate what we can do in 10 years." At the beginning, did you over or underestimate yourself? Well, people, when they would hear us say a computer

03:12on every desk and in every home uh running Microsoft software, they were like, "You kids are really out of it. I mean, every desk, every home, you know, what would people do with these things?"

03:25But, because the chips were improving exponentially, doubling every couple of years, it allowed us to think of the computing part as essentially being free. And so, the only thing that would hold you back is, you know, okay, can you help people with photographs? Can you help them with documents? Can you help them stay in touch with people far away or find

03:49information? And we knew over time uh that as these things got better it would would be part of the mainstream. And so as people sort of came around to that, they were like, "Wow, whether it's at work or at home, this is just part of how how people do things."

04:09And we wanted, you know, to get it out to everyone, you know, students everywhere, you know, even in the the countries that are are low-income. You mentioned your parents earlier and when I was reading this book, I felt like they are such a big part of this book and the storytelling and the incredible experiences and memories. And one of the things you mentioned is you say that they felt that they accepted that you were different from your peers.

04:36And I was wondering in what way? How did you know that they'd seen that and accepted that? Well, it definitely compounded them that sometimes I was pushing back in a pretty tough way, you know, as though, you know, we were in some competition.

04:51They would hear from teachers and they were very good about staying in touch with my my teachers. You know, some teachers would say this kid should be skipped ahead one or two grades. Some teachers would say this kid should be held back. You know, so that kind of is what, you know, make up your mind. You know, I had one experience where I worked on a a report about the state of Delaware and I ended up doing this 200-page report with the gray wood cover. Well, the other kids turned in,

05:18you know, five or 10 page reports. And it was very embarrassing that I thought, "Wow, did I, you know, kind of overdo this thing?" And yet, you know, that ability to concentrate, you know, would hold me in good stead in terms of reading long books and applying that concentration and curiosity first to cards, then to math, and then finally to software and how would software

05:44change the world. But, you know, they were never were quite sure what to do. And, you know, sending me to a therapist actually ended up being brilliant. Uh, and sending me to a very nice private school where the classes were a bit smaller. And, you know, I could get I always got an unfair share of attention from the teachers. You know, we'd have like 15 people in the class, but, you know, almost 20% of the teacher's time

06:11in terms of telling me what to read or, you know, marking uh, my writing up. You know, I I got an unfair share, partly because my curiosity or energy level, you know, did mark me out uh, in both positive and and negative ways. Yeah, what what influence do you think Dr.

06:28Cressey actually had on you? Because therapy at that time, and in your early age, looking back on it now, what do you feel it gave you? What skills did it give you? Well, it's a very it was a very rare thing. In fact, the other people coming to him were these couples that were having arguments. And so, in a I hope privacy-appropriate way, he would get kind of give me a sense of that. He gave me a few IQ tests. He, you know, had me read about Freud and all these

06:53things. But, slowly but surely, he was saying to me that fighting your parents really has no purpose. I mean, they really do love you. They're on your side. You should apply your energy, uh, towards other things. And, you know, eventually, he made me feel kind of foolish. Like, yeah, why was I taking these what I thought were kind of arbitrary rules or where my mom would say, "You should

07:20respect me." And I'd say, "Well, you know, I don't know." And, a little bit, as I figured out, I could understand things like playing cards as well or better than my grandmother. Or, you know, I could read books that had complicated things. I was a bit showing off to saying, "Because my cognition is good, why should you be able to set arbitrary rules?" But, anyway, I'm embarrassed when I think about it now.

07:44Uh but, Dr. Cressy was so encouraging to me in general and then got across uh he probably understood at the first meeting, you know, that I uh had to be convinced to make this change, but he did it in this uh super nice way. And And so, the idea that no, my parents, yes, they're imperfect, but wow, they're on

08:10my side. That that changed my behavior. Yeah, and did he also had these beautiful ways of you said he never belittled you. And I believe he used to mention to you you're going to win or or he wanted you to win. And I feel like that's What What did those things do? Because it's almost like you're saying he made you have this almost this realization that you were wrong, but it seemed like he did it in a very graceful, elegant way. Like, how did how did he do that?

08:37Absolutely, they you know, I thought, oh, I need to be so clever to win, and I'm going to apply all this energy to win. And so, the idea when he says, no, you're going to win, it's like, oh, I see, it's not because I'm clever, it's because it's us, you know, they they care for me and they're trying, you know, to help me, and you know, their main concern is am I ready, you know, to go out in the world, and if

09:02I have capabilities, will I develop those and use those, and you know, my mom always had a way of kind of pushing me to do more. I said to her once, you know, you told me to go to the hardest school, and she said, no, I never actually said that. And I said to her, well, wait a minute, when other parents would come over, you'd say how bad they must feel that their kid didn't go to college or something like that.

09:29So, okay, it was indirect, but, you know, it was kind of there. So, you know, my mom certainly encouraged me, you know, and sometimes I felt overwhelmed by that, but my eventual reaction to just okay, try to outdo any level she set and ended up working out well. Yeah, what was something that you didn't value about your mom at that time that now looking back you say no, I do

09:55value that. Well, things like table manners. I'm like, well, you know, okay, I have to take the ketchup and put it in a bowl and then do this and I'm not supposed to put my elbows on the table and you know, she was just, you know, trying to make sure I was civilized a little bit, you know. What I would wear and they definitely got me engaged with adults, you know, my social skills were

10:22slow to develop with people other than a few boys like myself, but with adults because they were having them over and I, you know, got so I could ask those adults to talk about what they were doing. That was really valuable to me cuz I ended up through that and through one of my early friends having more of an outlook of okay, where am I headed at quite a young age, which

10:48was was super helpful. Yeah, it's so it's so funny as I was reading the book, I was reminded of so when I graduated from college, I didn't go to my graduation ceremony because I left to become a monk. Wow.

11:00And my parents were they were very kind and accepting of my decision, but my mother still has this feeling that she doesn't have a picture of me graduating wearing the hat and you know, holding my certificate and I remember I was having the same feeling that you were where my mom would always maybe say to me, oh, when I go to my friends' houses, they're telling me about all the jobs that their kids are doing and the apartment they just moved into and you're just there being a monk like, you know, she'd say that to me.