Original subtitles

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n

I'm not going to ask you anything

generic or anything I've heard you

answer already uh I'm going to be a

little selfish and ask you questions

that uh I try to answer for myself a lot

of the time maybe like you know uh

there's no better person to learn

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from so we do this once in a month Bill

and uh we primarily cater to to the

young entrepreneur in India uh the idea

is to get really good people on the show

and help a young 20-year-old boy or girl

in India who's looking to become an

entrepreneur give them uh advice

guidance help them learn from what you

might have learned already I've met Bill

a bunch of times I think the very first

time I met you was uh when I caught you

at we and bugged you for an hour with

random questions a few years ago I

joined Bill's bletch last year thank uh

the one thing I want to clarify is a lot

of Indians when they hear about a Indian

sign on to the pledge I think there's

four of us right we're all from

Bangalore and all of us are friends uh

people somehow assume that the money is

going out of India the money which is

going to make Society better uh it's

actually not the case and uh I would

also like to say I think the Gates

Foundation who I work worked with in the

past we've done a school project

together we're doing something around

malnutrition together I think the impact

and the effort that they're putting into

India in improving Society uh is is uh

is great and I hope you guys continue

this association with India for a long

time do you want to talk a little bit

about your relationship with India and

how it's evolved over the last many

years well I've been I've had a

fantastic relationship with India

starting with the the Microsoft

experience where and we hired some very

smart I graduates brought them to

Seattle later they go back uh create a

development center for us uh that's now

in four locations 25,000 people and of

course a lot of the amazing people I

work with and have so much fun uh in the

Microsoft success with are part of the

team who had hired from India you know

top of that list is SAA uh who know uh

is doing a great job of CEO so in my

digital first career uh the connection

to India was uh fun and made a huge

difference um in what the company was

able to achieve it was during that time

that I was kind of learning oh wow India

is such a study and contrast you know

you know first class in so many ways but

still a lot of poverty uh and challenges

and uh you know I was beginning to think

okay how do I give this money back uh

together with uh Melinda and so she came

over as we were starting to do

foundation work um I start the

foundation I fund it in the year 2000 so

I'm 45 years old and still um

full-time I stayed full-time for another

uh eight

years uh but IND you become comes you

know an important place for us because

we realize that

vaccines uh were this missing uh thing

and it was a crime that these uh

diarrhea rotavirus vaccines were getting

to the rich kids so you know I get to

know serum I learn

about making cheap uh

vaccines uh you know the Indian

government at the time had not adopted

new vaccines for a long time you know so

uh how do we is foreigners uh form

Partnerships and not come across uh in

the wrong way so it's a heck of a

learning curve uh another big program we

had here at the start called avahan uh

was about making sure that the HIV

epidemic didn't explode you know by

making sure that um the sex workers were

insisting on conomus and so that the the

numbers would stay small and that was

also quite successful and very much a

partnership with the government um you

know other than the US this is the

country we spend the most money in uh we

have a fantastic team of people here do

you want to put a number to that in

terms of the scale of how much the

foundation does in India yeah we do uh

if you take direct and indirect uh it'd

be close to a billion a year you know we

help buy vaccines through uh gavi we uh

fund a lot of different things our

foundation is about 9 billion a year and

our health is our biggest agriculture is

our second biggest education uh although

super important uh it's not uh super

high percentage because we're

so specialized on the health stuff uh

and we've had so much uh progress on

that we want to uh make sure we do that

super well I'm not going to ask you

anything generic or anything I've heard

you answer already uh I'm going to be a

little selfish and ask you questions

that uh I try to answer for myself a lot

of the time maybe like you know uh

there's no better person to learn from

when it comes to uh Society at

large a lot of really wealthy people

today uh are virtue signaling in the

manner that being wealthy is a Bad Thing

somehow it it it's starting to seem like

the class and race divides of yesterday

has become the new uh wealth divide has

become that thing in society today uh

which is very socialist in the very

thinking of it inherently socialist when

people think of it that way and when I

go on my own path of philanthropy I

often ask myself like even at the pledge

I find myself asking this question does

philanthropy in that sense truly makes

sense and me as a 37 year-old who's

starting on this path how do I think

about this well there are some things

that only philanthropy can do because

they require taking risks and you know

the basic needs of the people the safety

net that's not really the role of

philanthropy because you need to count

on that year in and year out and the

government you know through the

political process needs to decide that

and of course the market-based system is

where most of this wealth comes from and

anything the market can do you know like

how many restaurants like this should we

have you know the market does that so

well but we know there are

diseases and

challenges that either the government's

not Innovative enough or the market

opportuni is not enough that the two big

actors you know private sector you know

which is like you know 70% of the

economy and you know the government

which is like

28% this third sector which is only a

few

percent can step in to do when we had uh

Democratic capitalism there was always

this concern that the poorest would kind

of overtax the Rich and that the

incentive system would be broken down in

fact you know that really hasn't

happened you you have in northern Europe

very high tax rates but even there the

incentive system works so I think it's

it's important to separate out is my

country's tax system as Progressive as

it should be uh so when you look at

billionaires you know do they kind of

have more than they should and then if

you look at whatever the billionaires

have o left over after they paid their

taxes are they engaging in thoughtful uh

philanthropy are they kind of spoiling

their children uh who are kind of

arrogant to view themselves in a class

of Their Own

uh and being kind of extravagant in what

they do and that's very hard you know to

draw the line what is uh that

responsibility even with the giving

pledge this idea give back half you know

some people say well half if you have

you know $4 billion dollar that means

for your own consumption and your your

family you're keeping two billion well

it's not a upper bound we'll have you

know people who will give away

99% but it and it's great to debate

these things

because um you know we're not trying to

take over government functions we

couldn't possibly afford afford to do

that uh but a lot of the best government

programs if you look into them some

philanthropist funded the pilot you know

brought together talented people and

often you're using the same skills that

you cause you to be able to be

successful and now using it on behalf of

of equality you know how do you design a

school or take AI technology into a a

farmer's advisory system uh and that

that experience that sense of

urgency uh can be very helpful in

philanthropic Innovation I'm I'm with

you when you say that the anomalies of

capitalism the billionaires on the very

end should be taxed higher but if you

had to redesign societ do you think

capitalism over socialism any day well

capitalism gives you the freedom to

start a new business and try out a new

product and the idea of okay who do

people choose to buy

from that's a form of freedom because

it's not based on your background or

your class or something like that and so

the discovery power of the capitalistic

Market to oh this guy knows how to do

this cheaper this guy knows how to do

this better oh you know people are

interested in that kind of a movie um

you know tops down

systems even though with lots of Digital

Data you could run a tops down syst

system less ineptly than

say the Soviets or the North Koreans did

but still the discovery process and the

price comparison that takes place

there's it is it is the fundamental way

things should be done but government has

to look for monopolies it has to create

the safety net you know you can argue

about the relative role of the

government in education and in health

care but they need to make sure that uh

everybody gets those Services right

you're looking fitter than I remember

seeing you the last yeah I know I've

been playing more tennis a little more

pickle ball uh it's because really

picking up that much it is in India in

North America it's unbelievable

particularly California Florida I mean

it's actually more people play

Pickleball now than play tennis right uh

so it's actually passed it

by uh the last time we met I kept

bugging you about what supplements do

you take now that you've gotten even

healthier looking is there any hack that

you would like to recommend to young

entrepreneurs I take vitamins you know

because it's there's no downside so

getting blood tests every once in a

while and seeing if there's anomalies uh

that's good and now there's a thing

called The Grail test um it's not

covered by all Insurance in the US so

probably not by much in India but if you

can afford it uh that is almost magical

at helping to see cancers way before

other techniques would catch

those uh so we have a foundation bill

which does work around clate it's called

rain

matter uh just for the sake of not

having this debate publicly let's

between us assume climate change is real

uh I've heard you speak about uh the

Breakthrough energy fund energy

transition appears to be a big

opportunity for young entrepreneurs to

work in over the next decade are there

any sub facets of that if I were a

22-year-old boy or girl wanting to to

build a career in energy

transition uh where do you think there

are most Tailwinds what factor should I

focus on well because the sources of

emissions are so Broad and we need deep

innovation in many many areas so for

electricity

generation you know we've got to make

solar cells better we have to make off-

win cheaper um there's probably

something dramatic that can happen in

nuclear

fision uh hopefully something dramatic

that can happen happen in nuclear fusion

uh in the long run that may be uh the

cheapest source of electricity now we

have some companies uh trying to get

there you know over in the agricultural

space um rice uh is a huge source of

emissions and there's new ideas about

genetics and direct seaing with house

you can vaccinate them change the

genetics uh in the industrial side you

can try to get cheap green hydrogen or

you can try and change the process for

example steel instead of using a form of

coal uh you could use electricity for

the reduction and

so I'd say there's probably 20 areas

that if you want to help in climate

Innovation uh these things are are

begging uh and I think it will be

startups and of course they'll have

tie-ups with big companies but the

open-mindedness most these breakthroughs

won't come straight out of the big

companies is there a starting point

though let's assume I have no Capital at

hand and I'm 22 starting off in

Bangalore uh how do I how do I go about

attempting to be a part of the energy

transition solution the ideal is

actually to find a philanthropist um

breakthrough energy has a fellows

program where we look for people with

really uh good early stage ideas and we

do that as a

grant uh with a little bit of of options

but you don't need a business plan then

if you get past that stage either on

your own or with the uh fellas type

Grant then there are Venture Capital

groups that really specialize in finding

Climate Technologies and they're willing

to fund very risky stuff um and I know

all of them including breakthrough

energy are like gosh are we missing some

in India and so now there's a network

you know if you have a good idea you

know if you pass it to me if non-one

pass it to me there's a bunch of us

Venture Capal and hopefully some who

would also come in domestically uh so

for risk Capital uh this is a very good

time if you have something that that

looks attractive could have a

significant

impact artificial general

intelligence uh you know more about this

than most

people how do you think Society changes

if you could paint a dystopian and a

utopian picture let's say there is Agi

what happens to the society post AGI

from a jobs what is money what is societ

what is family

standpoint well the amazing thing about

this technology is um we know it can

help uh in key areas we know it can

create like educational tutors lot of

great pilot work uh several projects

here in India Salon in the US is the one

that um may have started the 1 and is is

uh showing great results on that

so the potential is incredible and if if

we knew that all it did was make a lot

of jobs say three times more

productive so doctors are three times

more productive so you know the demand

for more people to see doctors and get

good advice that's probably good for

software um you know we'll still need

those software Engineers well we may

take some of the extra productivity for

Quality some for quantity but we're not

going to um you know start uh not not

needing software Engineers the fact that

over time and we don't know the the rate

of improvement um and there doesn't seem

to be an upper bound if it gets so that

it's a complete replacement that it can

do all the medical advice or it can do

all the coding that's a world of

excess where you know it's it's got to

be wonderful in the sense that you know

handicap people old people you're you

know taking care of them you're

shortening the the work week but you can

get to a point where the very organizing

principles of society uh and the whole

philosophy about you know what you value

um that world of excess which I

personally think won't come in the next

20 years but I can't guarantee that you

know I was personally not expecting this

reading writing

breakthrough to take place just because

you know gpt3 got scaled up to

gp4 but that really showed something

profound in knowledge

representation uh had taken place and so

most of us are working on the hey let's

go build that tutor and that Health

advisor and farmer adviser um but while

we do that we should be aware that okay

so so much extra productivity

will uh surprise people and require us

to rethink uh about a lot of different

things so when Sam Alman was in India he

fielded a bunch of questions around chat

jpt and uh generative AI per se when

these large language models take as much

computational power as they require an

Indian entrepreneur who has lesser

access to Capital compared to a western

one how does an Indian entrepreneur

compete with the West in this domain

without the same kind of access you know

that's a very good question so if you're

an entrepreneur who's trying to build

foundational models models from the very

ground up like Google does or Microsoft

with opening eye does and they have four

five

others you have to raise you know two

three billion dollars uh now maybe some

government will decide because you're

domestic they'll help you do that or

provide some of that but there should

either be like zero one or two cases

where an Indian company goes after that

very base level uh and hopefully focuses

on some specific Indian applications of

that uh most of the

opportunity is at the level above you

know where you're saying okay let's take

this and help Architects or let's take

this and help this group of farmers or

you know the Indian legal system is very

different believe me

what legal things are done for the US

won't apply here but you know just

imagine if you could make everybody the

legal system four times more productive

you know that changes Justice because

right now the

backlog uh is kind of nightmarish um and

and here you know comes potential

solution so I'd say there's a thousand

opportunities where you you're you Pi

either pick or just use one of those

base level models but you're doing the

extra data value added user interface to

go after a particular application that I

think will is where we'll see the most

activity uh if somebody's bold enough to

say no I'm going after foundational

piece you know Screw you Bill Gates you

don't know I say hey good for you you

know I I could be wrong we are in you

know this is all very new uh stop are

there any arbitrages in place like a

unique Advantage India either by virtue

of population or the demographic

diversity has that that will help a

young entrepreneur focus on a particular

facet around building

this um or is there a legal Arbitrage is

regulation better here than that I think

it's very

possible that the health advice piece

that the US will over regulate that and

uh you know just see the the risk and

not not the benefit and that middle

income countries and I put India at the

top of the list will engage in a

dialogue and and drive very aggressively

to get the benefit but yes I would

expect uh definitely in Health

definitely in

agriculture a lot of the most exciting

fast-moving things uh will be here in

India education I think everybody's

going to be doing it and and including

India I've seen this happen in Indonesia

do you think the business of delivering

medical advice and prescribing people uh

not with the human on the other side but

a model per se do you think the

potential for that is big in India for

young entrepreneurs to focus on yes um

you know there's going to be a quality

bar uh

and and yes and you know maybe at first

it's okay pregnant women or people

dealing with

diabetes um because it's easier than to

think through all the possible questions

and make sure the quality is right but

eventually you bet your your lifelong

medical agent that takes all your sensor

data and you know how you felt you know

when you eat this or drink that uh it'll

be there and it'll be reading the latest

literature um and it'll be super helpful

to you okay last question to you Bill if

you were 25 years old living in India uh

no no crazy skill set at hand and about

$100,000 of money to start a business

with what would you do today I'd

probably

build pick some AI

thing and just use the Google Microsoft

platforms and and go on top of that and

try and because I'd be in touch with the

customer so well and improving my data

keep

ahead um you know and I'd say okay who's

the most demanding customer for this uh

and go after that it might be fun you

know like clearing legal backlogs you

know that one kind of fast fascinates me

uh because it it's a mechanism that

helps all uh business activity um I'd

Envy the guys who get to work on the

foundation models I'd say damn uh even I

sort of Envy them because when I was

young I thought gosh you know when is AI

really going to make the

Breakthrough it took a lot longer uh

than I expected I'm glad now I get to

play a supportive uh role help shape it

a bit s uh engages me and now you know

we're using AI in our foundation work

and whether it's drug Discovery or all

these things uh so we can be way more

ambitious than we were before it came

along I happened to meet Satya and Sund

when I was in the US and uh we were

having dinner at a certain place

together and these guys seem to talk

about AG

AGI in a very precocious manner like

it's much closer than anybody is

thinking it is do you think that there

there could be one day when suddenly we

are surprised like a couple of years

down the line and there's so

much there's not really a really good

definition these models already today

when you have lots of lots of documents

you know more than a human could read in

lifetime it is able to find things and

reason across these documents in a

superhuman way

and so when you think about a lawsuit or

a drug filing you anything that gets to

be over say 10,000 Pages human cognition

even a great specialist person you got

10,000 pages I dare you uh and these

things it's not just keyword search this

is semantic

representation of that level of

complexity so we're already

superhuman in a dimension that is kind

of surprising I mean I thought robots

you know would be taking over the

warehouse you know 10 years before

they'd be studying our legal and

Regulatory documents and we know that we

have Brute Force scale up we have a lot

of external algorithms you know to help

the AI know how hard to work I mean most

people don't realize

today it works exactly the same amount

where it puts out the next word

is and it doesn't think in advance it

doesn't think okay I have to write this

poem let me figure it all out no it it

it it's generating word by word and so

getting it to go faster when it's easy

or take more time like math problems you

know we we all laugh because it's

actually quite bad at certain type of

recursive math things like Sudoku

puzzles which are trivial uh in fact if

you say to the AI put this into

algebraic form and then give it to a

tiny little solver it's perfect but its

current algorithm is this single linear

pass print the most probable token

single and so there's a lot of control

architecture work that's been played

around with to deal with these quality

issues you know clearly humans we think

okay for this

problem it's just a joke blurt something

out uh they're asking me for medical

advice advice or marriage advice I

better you know really um think through

the implications and and so the control

system uh as well as the the extra scale

is going to drive improvements at you

know some rate that could be quite rapid

right no thank you so much bill for

having taken the time with me today and

uh look forward to seeing you in May

Califoria thank you

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hi guys we are in there today I'm trying

to fruit a new a very interesting guest

and

uh we're going to do something fun what

else we have for what else what else we

have for did you

know that your

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baby save us actually being serious did

you

know that your

baby would

something this is our beautiful

beautiful venue we have Mark that

Sheldon everyone's setting up lights

this is where everyone's going to be

sitting we're going to have a live

screen monitor here which I'll probably

be looking at a

boom broad mic and that's what we're

going to place on top of the two sers hi

Chan this the first time we working

together what are your

thoughts you don't look stressed at

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all that's called a skimo that we're

going to put over the guest that's our

spot and that's how big the schemmer is

I'm also worried about other things so

let's see then how it looks and then

take a b we're going to change the rose

it doesn't look so nice does it

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is that okay yeah that was

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fantastic how does it feel

good little bit a little bit more H say

something wait