Warren Buffet's Life Advice Will Change Your Future (MUST WATCH)

Seventy years ago I was in high school for almost a third of the time the country has existed, and when I was in high school I really only had two things on my mind, girls and cars, and I didn't do very well with girls, so We

will

talk about cars, but let's imagine that when we finish I

will

let each of you choose the car of

your

choice. Sounds good, don't you choose the color you want? He will be tied. with a bow and it will be at

your

house tomorrow and you say well, what's the problem and the problem is that it's the only car you're going to have in your

life

now, what are you going to do knowing that's the only car? that you're ever going to have and you love that car, you're going to take care of it like you wouldn't believe now what I like to suggest, you're not going to have just one car in your

life

, but you have to get one. body in one mind and that's all you're going to get and that body of mine feels fantastic now but it has to last you a lifetime, the important thing is to decide what it is so you can define which ones you can come to terms with. smart decision and which ones are beyond your ability to evaluate you don't have to be right about thousands and thousands upon thousands of companies you just have to be right about a couple of companies I met bill gates on July 5, 1991 we arrived in Seattle and Bill He said you have to have a computer and I said why and he said well he said you can do your income tax with it.

I told him I don't have any income. Berkshire doesn't pay dividends, yeah, he said, well, you can. keep track of your portfolio I told him I only have one stock I said yes I mean, he says it's going to

change

everything and I said, well, will it

change

if people chew gum and he said, well, probably not and I said what will change what type of gum they showed and I said well then I'll stick a piece of gum on you and you'll be left with the computers, which is bad I don't have to understand all types but there are all types of businesses I don't understand but there are thousands of opportunities there I didn't understand the Bank of America , you know, and I'll be able to do it.

I can understand a certain percentage, but Ted Williams wrote a book called the science of hitting and in the science of hitting he has a The diagram shows him at the plate and he has the strike zone divided into seventy-seven squares each the size of a baseball and says if I only swing pitches in my sweet zone, which shows there and has his batting average. it would be 400 if he had to swing with outside low pitches but even in the strike zone his average would be 230 he said the most important thing when hitting is waiting for the right pitch now he was at a disadvantage because if the count was oh and two or one and two or so, even if that ball was down where it was only going about 230, he had to hit it to reverse, there are no called strikes, people can throw at Microsoft, that guy, you know, call him whatever you want.

General Motors shares and I don't have to swing and no one is going to call me to strikes. They only call me for a strike if I swing a pitch and miss, so I can wait there and look at thousands of companies day after day and only when I see something I understand it and when I like the sale price then if I swing if I have it right yes I lose it is a strike but it is a hugely advantageous game and it is a terrible mistake to think you have to have an opinion on everything, you only have to have an opinion on some things, in fact, I have told students that when they leave school They received a punch card with 20 holes in it and that's all the investment decisions they would make.

If they had to make in their entire life they would become very rich because they would think a lot about each one of them and it doesn't take 20 right decisions to become very rich, you know, four or five will probably do it over time, so I don't do it. worrying too much about things, I don't understand it if you understand some of these companies that are emerging and you can spot things if you can spot them on Amazon, for example, I mean, it's a tremendous achievement what Jeff Bezos has done and I tip you. My hat to me is a wonderful businessman.

He's a good guy too, but could he have anticipated that he would be successful and ten others wouldn't? I'm not good enough to do that, but luckily I don't. You have to know that I don't have to form an opinion about Amazon and I do form an opinion about Bank of America and I do form an opinion about Coca-Cola. I mean, Coca-Cola has been around since 1886. There are 1.8. billion 1.8 billion 8 ounce servings of coke products sold every day now, if you take a penny and get a penny extra, that's 18 million dollars a day and 18 million times 365 It's 7 billion 3 minus 730 billion or 6 billion 570 million dollars, so annually 6 billion 570 million dollars of one cent Do you think Coca-Cola is worth one cent more than you know?

Jo's Cola I think so, just so you know, and I have about 127 years of history listed, so those are the kind citizens I like. to do and you may have a completely different field of experience than I would have and probably much more up to date in terms of the type of businesses that we're looking at and you can become very wealthy if you just understand some of them. and understand their

future

, what do they share? What makes this friendship so satisfying for both of them? Well, I think we both certainly share a curiosity about the world and come from two different but related worlds, so we probably spent about 10 hours there. of this one hour visit that bill was scheduled for July 5, 1991 his mother had to speak to attend to it and we were not halfway there, I mean, we have no room in terms of our eventual agenda, right in That time, in fact, the governor of Washington came and bills that had to come to the bedroom, well, for starters, we had fun.

I mean every relationship should be so much fun and we find the world in such an interesting place so we like we compare notes when we compare notes we have a lot of fun doing it part of the time as I remember the conversation. By the way, there is an extraordinary documentary about Lauren that is on HBO. I think it opens on Monday the 30th. You should take it on Monday. It's time to take a look at the bills involved in that and you'll see in a sense what it's called. I think it's increasingly Buffett, yes, that's what it's called because, after 86 years, you're doing well, although well, so far, yes, that's still it.

To come, yeah, one of the things that happened on I Bill was I guess your dad at dinner said, do you know what he uses, what's been the most important quality to you, and you found out that you and Warren had the same word. , Yeah. I think the curiosity that Warren mentioned is an amazing thing where you try to predict what's going to happen and then when it doesn't, you think well, you know that drug wasn't invented, stocks could go up, that approach wasn't like that. . popular What is it? What does my model of the world have?

It's wrong? Do you know who I could talk to? What could I read? and the things that have happened since 1991, mostly good things, have been incredible and you know, you're a lot of fun to talk about. You know, just so you know, we read the news and we think, God, what was Warren thinking? That you are both readers. You both read all the time, all day. Warren Bill, you are a reader. You also do many types of online courses. What has that done? What has that done to your life? A feeling of constantly learning. Well, I'm glad Bill.

It is an incredible time to learn. I remember when I was young and I had the World Book, which is one of Warren's products and it was very good, but yeah, I always felt like God. I want to go deeper into this. I wonder if the videos that are online and the courses you can buy with the best teachers are better these days. It's phenomenal. You know, taking a subject like climate or climate change or what is happening in economics what is known what is not known now with the foundation a lot of what I need to learn is about biology how to make vaccines and what is happening with these various illnesses this is a phenomenal time to be a person curious information that's out there, you know, my biggest problem is that I stay up very late because I'm reading and then I'm a little tired the next day.

The other thing you share besides reading is the optimism that you believe in America. You absolutely know that you have told me more than once that I would give up a year of my life just to find out what the next fifty will be like, yes, even for now. I mean, why did you choose a number that I found fascinating? What happened in my life, you know, 86 years. I should mention one thing about reading. It was in the library here at Columbia, where I spent probably more time than any other student. I practically lived there, but I got the book out. who is in the United States and told me something about my professor Benjamin, where I am and then I looked up and went to the library and said: I want to look more, learn more about this because I learned this here that changed my whole life.

I know we own it. Now I go through that library and they tell me there is another book and then I move on. It's the opportunity. I read about a fifth of the rate of the bill, but I still spend five or six hours a day reading, I mean. It's just that you can learn a lot. I particularly loved the biography, you just know, being able to live the lives of these people who have been extorted, they seem so extraordinary, the lessons and the ones you meet, the discouragements they face, everything about it, so I did it.

I never got tired of reading what surprised you most about Bill. It's an interesting question. I guess what really surprised me at first was that we found so many things to connect with. He tried to sell me a computer that way and that was probably the only sale he didn't make. having that whole computer changed my life for the better greatly afterwards, but well, he just had the same curiosity and the other word, you've used his approach, well, the approach, there's no doubt if I mean we both came to where were we. They are largely due to the approach and Bill, which surprised you about Lauren.

I was very surprised that he came to invest with this broad model of the world, so one of the first questions he asked me was if Microsoft is a small company, IBM says it is a company. Why can you do better? Why can't they beat you to the software gaming plane? And you always know, you know, every day I was thinking about what advantage we have, what we do, but no one asked me that question and we talked. about software economics, which is something very different and special, and he could relate it to things that he had seen and, you know, I didn't understand banking, why some get ahead and others don't, and that's why he was able to put that into very clear terms and then I found someone whose model was rich enough that it helped me understand things I really wanted to know and we were able to laugh at the things that surprised us.

I would say his humility in this sense of humor really stood out in this incredible way, I mean, he enjoys what he does and shares it with other people and even you know when I ask questions that are quite naive, he's probably been asked 15 times, He's very kind, well, it took me a long time. To figure this out, Bill, but here's how it works, I tested Bill with some non-transitive dice and I read about him in Scientific American or some places, there were only two people in the world in the history of these dice who actually calculated.

I found out while I was trying to take money from them and one was the biggest token audition in the world and the other was a drunk who really didn't know any better, that's the only question, but Bill said, wait a second, you pick first and the game was over. and you taught him, no, you didn't teach him, but you made him appreciate bridge a lot. Yes, he played bridge, but the family is big on games. His family was very, very big into gaming. We played bridge together and played in China going down rivers. We're supposed to

watch

the scene.

We had a good time. Yes that's fine. We have many questions. We will not talk about the audience. Someone we want to start with. ending on the balcony so you know we haven't forgotten you, it's hard to see, but is there a number there that has a question? Okay, start wherever, yeah, number six, thank you both for being here today. The question is with respect to public health and vaccines, given our current private stance of the private presidents, who publicly stated their stance against the use of the United Nations both in this country and abroad, how would you recommend that we, As students and

future

leaders in the health sciences, let us better allocate our resources to achieve the greatest effectiveness? resist your alternative fact political philosophy regarding national and global public health, thank you, but Bill, that's a good place to start, yes, well, the facts about vaccines are very clear and very solid, and that is that they are safe and that the vaccine schedule has been designed to reduce disease and you know that the more parents adhere to it, the more not only their children will be protected, but there are also some children who are immunocompromised, so, Unless the children around them are protected, those children are put at risk and there are diseases like measles or whooping cough, all it takes is a small group and then mostly those diseases would come from abroad, butYou can get infections in some European countries where you have had deaths because children were not vaccinated.

I don't. I think the US government is going to make negative statements, there may be a commission and fortunately if you look at the facts, the facts are pretty unequivocal, we are certainly speaking in favor of vaccines, so I know I'm a little surprised. that we have to defend them, but it is true in every country where these rumors are heard and particularly in today's media those rumors can come to light and get ahead of the facts because the rumors are more salacious or you know, contrary to what you have been told. said, write things here, I am sure that We have the opportunity, if necessary, to go over the facts again and receive a clear and positive message from the government and the risk is that if vaccines somehow people are afraid to get vaccinated, the risk is there, we are committed right now to the eradication of polio and the only way to achieve this is to get 95% of children to receive these vaccines and there we find a form of anti-vaccine sentiment that is even worse than rumors and it is that two terrorist groups, one in Nigeria, Boko Haram and another In Pakistan, Afghanistan, Natale Bond said that vaccination was an American measure. plot and you know, they would sterilize the women and it was a very bad thing and they took the women who were going to the children's homes and they gave them these oral drops, the oral polio vaccine and they actually killed several of them, for so those negative rumors are the only reason.

We still have polio today and it was not done because of that part of Nigeria where the Bokke Roms caused riots in the border areas including Balochistan in Pakistan where there have been these anti-vaccine sentiments so you know our risk is just those things negative. This not only happens in rich countries, but it causes deaths. If parents don't know, they bring their children and fully vaccinate them, and their goal in eradicating polio is to prove that it can't be done right. since it began in 1988 when it had already been eradicated in the Americas so these were the ones for the US in the 60s, the rest of the Americas and in the 70s they showed that it could be done, and so on in 1988 , long before our foundation got involved, Rotary and several other organizations said, let's get rid of this and it's been harder than expected just because of these these feelings, you know, here we are in 2016 and 17 last year, less of 50 cases so we are very very close in fact there are very few cases now the way we track where the virus is is we go and look at sewage samples and we see it because a lot of children get infected and die without being paralyzed, so just through wastewater samples we know that there are still about four places in Pakistan and Afghanistan and one place in Nigeria that we have reached there.

Let's look at the next question. I could see a number one car. Thank you both very much for being here. My question again, sorry, is a little bit on the political spectrum. I was wondering what you are most hopeful about in these new political environments. They have and also what worries them the most they both want to have hope to worry rather I am sure that the United States will advance has not been the moment when I was born so far the real GDP per capita of this country one of six for one, I mean , no one ever dreamed that would be possible and when you look at what has happened in this country for over two hundred and forty years, you know it is an absolute miracle when I went to a business school in September of 1951, a woman in the class, I want to say this country is moving forward and you can't stop it, so I'm huge.

Lee, I say the luckiest person in the history of the world was the baby that was born today in this country and we'll go and you know everyone. Half the country will always be somewhat unhappy, about half because of the last election, but I grew up in a house in the late 1930s, my father was very Republican, my sisters and I didn't eat dessert unless we said something. bad about Roosevelt, I mean, it was just necessary and I heard all these apocalyptic opinions that after his third term there will be no more elections. I've been hearing that my whole life and you know, year after year after year, with occasional setbacks and an occasional seizure like the one we had in 2008 at nine, but this country is all about profit, folks.

I mean, you know, when I went in thinking what it would have been like in 1776, nothing here and now we've been the speed of change, oh yeah. on the move, I mean guys like Bill, you know they don't quit, you know, I mean, he goes on to something like polio, he mentions 50 cases in the world, there were over 50 in the room I went to when I was a teenager to see. a friend of my sisters and they're all on these rocking machines and everything, they were destined for a terrible, terrible life and it was just a neighborhood in Omaha and now you know, that's the yearly total, thank you initially and currently dubrow. tourism, but people continued working, this world moves forward and has been working.

I bought my first shares when I was 11 years old in April 1942, the Dow Jones was 100, haven't you looked, it's 20,000, something good

must

have happened and will continue to happen, friends, bill. I know you fear optimism, what about worries? Well, the optimism is partly because I think American innovation is strong. You know, support for research is generally bipartisan, so there are health advances or even energy advances. I think you know every year that passes. we're going to have more of those things now that this administration is new enough, we don't know how their budget priorities are going to turn out, you know there are things like foreign aid, which is a small part of the budget, about 30 billion a year, but That means that the US is that every time there is new leadership we have to intervene and articulate the benefits, it is well spent, it is not the image that people had in the past and, therefore, now I think there is a lot of intensity to make sure we get that message across. and getting both the executive branch and Congress to maintain amazing things like the Presidential Malaria Initiative or PEPFAR, which is an HIV issue.

These things started under President Bush, so our foundations had a great working relationship with Democratic and Republican administrations, most people. I wouldn't realize that US foreign aid as a percentage of the economy, which is how it is generally measured, hit its lowest point in 1999 under the Clinton administration. I'm not saying that as an administration it was a mix of the administration that Congress did then during During the Bush years it increased substantially, now the economy helped with that, but these initiatives were really amazing and I am hopeful that they will maintain or even grow These initiatives are a priority when there is a lot of talk about tax cuts and different spending. activities, so it's a little bit up in the air over these coming months and you've often pointed out that no matter how big the private contributions are sometimes in terms of levels, you need a government, yeah, someone asked me, Bob, today . to know if PEPFAR, which is this aid program, was canceled when private philanthropy made up for the more than five dylaney of pEPFAR or if it is this aid program, which is something phenomenal that has saved more than ten million lives and which is more bigger than our foundation, which is the largest in the world. world, so there is no chance that the government sector, the US, the UK, other European donors, will be a hundred and thirty billion dollars here in coal, which is making these poor countries better in health and education, and if we lose the consensus around that, if people withdraw too much inward, we will be harmed. progress and millions of lives will be lost because of it, very well, one thing that could be mentioned, Charlie, is that the difference between now and sixty or seventy years ago in the ability of really brilliant people, really innovative people, really energetic people, to obtain financing to do so.

Things are dramatically better than they were at the time, so now, if you have good ideas and there are good ideas among this crowd and you have energy, it's much easier to get funding to move those ideas forward. In fifty or sixty years, because of the Internet or crowdsourcing, there is now much more capital and people were more optimistic about people, but there were better ways to connect the city and the capital and, absolutely, it is a dramatic willingness to take on risks. You know, the first venture capital stuff goes back to the 1960s and it was a little Microsoft, when we were taking outside investments, we took one and we evaluated from twenty million dollars, we took a million dollars for 5% of the company. .

I'll do it retroactively, you already had your chances of winning we never spent the money, I mean our business was profitable enough, we didn't really need to do that, but we wanted the people on our board to give us

advice

and there's an episode of Silicon Valley where all these venture. The capitalists are courting this guy and that really reminded me of what it was like back then, in 1984, there were dozens of venture capitalists and that's something that other countries have tried to duplicate, they've done it in a small part, but not as much. good like this. willingness to take risks.

I did, if you have a failure, it's not a sign of shame, hey, what will your next startup be? You heard the secret people, he gets his ideas from Silicon Valley, make sure yes, all the cards, let's see where the cards are. Well, number three, take the cart from there. This talked about how you can make a model and it won't accurately predict what happens, and on the other side of the coin, I was wondering what happens when you create such a well-developed predictive system. technology and what the ramifications and implications of that result are. Well, I don't think our predictive technology is like an oracle.

His nickname is the Oracle of Omaha, but you know the percentage of times you've converted things like macroeconomics. because they involve emotional feelings, you know, we are very far from that. The biggest model I'm involved in is a disease modeling group, so we look at HIV or tuberculosis and understand, what do we need to do in terms of diagnosis and medications to reduce these things once we're done with the polio will continue and our next big challenge, which will take decades, but I hope will be achieved in my lifetime, is the eradication of malaria, so these models are not yet at the point where they can take into consideration the human feeling you knows the field of economics a very basic question about what we should have done differently before the financial crisis there is really no consensus, either with the public or within the profession of economists, they agree that some of the emergency treatments What I did was necessary and important and you know, I wish it was better understood, but in terms of the root causes, it's actually a little baffling how little our models understand, explain how that imbalance became so extreme.

Okay, number two, right? in school here in Columbia and I wanted to ask you what you were talking about, that you love to read. I wanted to ask you if you have any particular book that has changed your life, the way you think about things and I also wanted to ask you what it is. What I admire most about each other, I do about Warren and the other way around, thank you, you kind of touched on the second question, but they came to me when I added books, even though they changed your life first. Well, one book changed my life and it was a biology fellow who taught here at Columbia and Benjamin Graham and I read the book when I was 19 called The Intelligent Investor and I had been interested in investing since I was maybe seven or eight years old. , but Never and I had read all the books in the public house and in the public library, but why do you think you were interested in investing when you were seven or eight years old because I was too dumb to be interested?

My dad had a very small family. investment firm and I was going to read all the books that he had there waiting to go to lunch or whatever and then I went through the public library in front of everyone and it was a fascinating topic to me and but I didn't have any that I knew of, but everything the world thought all that at a young age, but what Graham wrote made sense. I happened to buy that book at a bookstore in Lincoln, Nebraska, but investing per se, is there something about your core competency that made investing the perfect place for you to be, yeah, I mean, it seemed like it was a matter of eliminating all other competencies.

I was left with one thing, I was actually wired in a way that it would be something I would do. be good at what and what connected in what way I can't tell you precisely but I have the right temperament for it which is more important than IQ if you have more than 120 IQ points so sell the rest. it's someone else, you don't need it, investments, but you do need the right temperament, you do it, you have to be able to think for yourself and, going back to, you know the previous question, the first question I asked myself when I looked at the business, alreadybut the bottom 20% is quite phenomenal in the case of China, South Korea and Singapore.

So looking at what we've learned in charter schools in terms of building the culture, giving feedback to teachers, what is good teaching? Do we give teachers the opportunity to learn from each other about that development that makes the subject seem relevant and important? There are excellent teachers, but spreading those practices has been very, very difficult, so I would say that it is a top priority and we have taken our base for our work in the United States, education is the top priority, whereas outside the The US takes on health, it is a difficult problem because educational institutions are quite resistant to change and people are still not convinced by the various approaches very easily, but we

must

continue like this, we are going to stay and even invest even more money. in trying to help create models, okay, up to number six.

Hello, first I wanted to thank you. Well, I witnessed how he found all his bases and eliminated polio in India and I am very grateful for that. My question is more about how to set the base level. of debate in any public sense, as if there are a lot of trade-offs, how do I explain climate change policy to people who are losing jobs in the coal sector? How can current short-term economic goals be balanced with a peaceful long-term transition? to renewable sources of energy now is a good question and certain issues are so complicated like climate change that really getting a broad understanding is a little difficult and particularly when people take some of that complexity and try it and create uncertainty about it and We know, for example, India's kind of Attic paradigm in the sense that they want to electrify for all kinds of good reasons having to do with health and night reading and quality of life and the question of whether they delay electrification for climate reasons It is going to be very difficult.

The ideal is to innovate in such a way that they can advance at full speed in electrification without emitting the co2 that the natural path for them today, which is coal, is the way to follow, so we have a lot of cost reductions to make because rich countries can buy premium electricity when it hits middle income or that's just not going to work. This happens and you know that democracy allocates these resources in terms of investment in the future and things like research and investment in the present and when you have a problem like the financial crisis, then you get a little bit more short term.

Thinking and I'm hopeful, I think it's better for the world and the country if we can refocus a little more on the long term. We have some questions from Facebook. One of the central tenants of your investment is investing. the long term and this comes from Brian White, who says how my bill and my order convince investors to think beyond short-term returns to encourage world-changing innovation. Well, I've spent my life trying to convince people to invest for the long term and listen. If I know how to double my money tomorrow, probably and those with the short term, it's much easier to invest long term if you're just talking pure and that's not because you know what's going to die and, in my opinion, very high, probably what will happen in 10 or 20 years in an important way and I have no idea what will happen tomorrow or next week, but if we talk about social issues, it is very difficult because politicians face elections every two or six years and The way bridge constituencies have been organized, primaries have become more and more important, so it is very difficult for politicians to think about something that is wonderful for the country for 20 years but will cost them elections within two years and that is a basic problem and a democracy and it becomes a bigger problem as we are prosecuted we have organized congressional districts so that the primaries dominate because a very limited number of people flock to their ranks.

The reasons tend to be on the extremes of both parties, so it's not easy if you're going to make an investment in a company or if you're going to buy the company now, what are the factors that have to be that you're looking for? For what test am I looking for a lasting competitive advantage. I'm looking for something that has a moat around it for a considerable period of time and I'm looking for honest and capable management in Toronto because I don't know how to run. I bought it myself and I am looking for a purchase price that is not excessive but it is better to pay a little too much for something that is a very good deal than to buy some bargain but believing in a company but without much future and not I don't know, I don't have the ability to predict with a higher probability of success the future of most companies, so I'm looking for the exception, but the good thing is that there are thousands of companies out there and we don't have to be right on a couple, I want to say it's the exact opposite of baseball where you've called strikes and the pitchers try to throw it to the worst part of the strike zone for you and if he makes it to that corner two, three times and you don't swing, you're out and you reverse it's a no it's not a cold strike things I can sit there all day and someone can throw me company after company and I finally got one of my sweet spots that you both have chosen Both the wives and the partners, well, Charlie Munger added that Charlie Munger changed my views: he would find them enormously in terms of looking for quality companies and looking further for the ability to make an investment that would perform well. for five, ten, twenty years, unlike something, there might be one, I call it cigarette butt reversal, where one drag was left on the butt, the cigarette was free, so he picked up these disgusting looking things and took a drag . and he moved on to another one and it worked well, but it was small scale and it didn't really build something satisfying, so he kept forcing me to say: you know there is actually a business that we want a forever home. and we want to have a Soviet it's like a marriage I mean you want to partner with this person forever and it's a great way to see things build your wife Melinda has added how well she does with the kids because she's your partner and she was there in philanthropy, I would say one at Microsoft.

I had two partners who were amazing. I had Paul Allen in the early days and then Steve Ballmer, that company got bigger and we wouldn't have accomplished anything we did without those partnerships because you know. when things get tough, when you're making big decisions, having someone who's really committed to you, you know, for me, I couldn't have done it without that for the foundation. Melinda is an amazing partner, she thinks about people's problems better than I do. She, you know, knows when I get too excited about science, she can, you know, make sure we're realistic about it and she makes it fun, you know, last week I went to Europe to build economic trainers, she went to Nigeria and then this weekend.

We just sat and talked, okay, what did we see? What does that say about the work we should be doing? So, you know, I don't think I would have enjoyed it without a partner and, in particular, without someone amazing like her. It's more fun with a partner. I mean, Charlie and I have had more fun working together than any of us would have individually and we've never had an argument after working together for 58 years, you can't talk every day anymore because we know what the other is up to. to say just run, we talked about it all 50 years ago, so if you see Charlie and he says why are you calling, you'd say well, I knew what you're saying anyway, let's say noir, hi, my name is Molly Zanger, I'm a student. at Barnard College I guess what I'm basically wondering is what are his main considerations when choosing where to donate, what causes to donate to, and what are the main challenges associated with that?

Yes, I look at wholesale because I made a choice that I wanted to have, originally my first wife and I planned that I would accumulate and she wouldn't, that was plan number one, but she died in 2004 and then I had the problem of discovering the Best way to distribute the book. which turned out to be a lot of money and I wanted some people who had similar values ​​and summer goals that I have. I also wanted people who brought intelligence and energy, and in Bill Melinda's case, many of his own funds work full time, but who really saw society the way I saw it, which is that every life has equal value and that if you start with that and then think about what you might be good at changing, whether it's medicine, education, early learning or whatever. you may know that was my answer, wholesale and retail philanthropy would drive me crazy, but hotel philanthropy everyone likes Bill, yes, because of our work at the foundation, the belief in innovation that both Melinda and I saw in Microsoft, our question was: how?

Do we provide that type of innovation to help the poorest in the world? And we learned that when coming up with new vaccines, although you can pay a lot to create them, the marginal cost drops to less than $1. It's great to get a new vaccine for most. cause of diarrhea or pneumonia that can be something phenomenal, so you're looking for these super non-linear dramatic things because, as you know, the criminal or the person is compared to the government funding, the philanthropy is actually quite small and, without However, the government does not fund vaccine projects. As good as that as a philanthropist who builds a team and over time learns to do it very well and we had models in the Rockefeller Foundation, it was a phenomenal foundation, the Green Revolution is just one of the many things that they did that elevated agricultural activity . and saved, kept hundreds of millions from starving and so studied the other foundations that have made these great strides and created a model from them that was very informative to know what we've gone after which one is the most important lesson you have learned about how to do. foundation investments today that you learned along the way.

Well, I think when we started I thought that simply creating a new vaccine or drug would be enough and that the world would then take it and get it to all the children. of the world, you know partly through the field, as I did, that Melinda looked at the statistics, that the delivery system does not reach many of the children and therefore she has to find out how the people were hired or how it was funded and We measured this, what's called primary health care, which we were drawn into because, out of necessity, it didn't fit with the normal type of laboratory, you know, we came up with this big mix and yet , to achieve our goals, we needed to think about those delivery pieces, in fact, sometimes the state of the product had to be simpler in some aspects to be able to overcome that very limited delivery capacity and now we are vaccinating eighty-six percent of the world's children, it was about 70 percent when we started, so that's a good increase, we still have 14% to go.

It's nice to have incredible powers of convocation and persuasion too, so I mean, they bring something much more to the table than just money, I mean, they work incredibly well. hard as are my three children and our foundations, but they work incredibly hard to get governments involved in vaccines or whatever it takes and that's, you know, it's an added dimension that I think very few people have in the field, yes, i mean. It is a practical experience, it is a trip to when Melinda is in Africa and has a baby in her arms. I mean, she's actually thinking, you know this kid needs to come back, that he has a decent shot at education, all of which I feel the same way. the boy, but what I really believe is that he's not going to pee on me, so you know there's a difference in that human touch that makes a big difference.

I'm halfway between I think he's closest to me, my number three and my number four first. one, then three, then four, me at Columbia Business School, if the current administration asked you for

advice

on immigration or health care reform, what would you recommend? Well, I'm on immigration, yeah, well, immigration, I mean, this country is built on that. I would say that people who are against immigration, let's say in retrospect, actively, all leave this country if they think about it. I'm little Ferguson before my part, but we're sitting here in part because of two Jewish immigrants who in 1939 in August. signed perhaps the most important letter in the history of the United States and you can go on the Internet, search on Bing and simply type Einstein Roosevelt 1939 Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein two immigrants came here, both came directly from Germany The Lardon came from Hungary before that and they told President Roosevelt that the Germans would probably develop an atomic bomb that would probably work.

It's less than a full page and we'd better get to work on something quick and the Manhattan Project arrived. outside of that and if it had been for those two immigrants, you know who knows if we would be sitting inthis room, immigration, I mean, this country has been built in the west exactly by immigrants and you can take them out of any country you want. They want to and they have come here and found something that unleashed the potential that the place they left from did not and we are a product of that. Let me also ask the question about medical care, that is, what can you tell us? medical care that you think is important in terms of considering what might happen.

I mean, if you were putting together a health care plan for the United States, what would be the elements you would want to include? Well, there is no doubt that to provide decent health. I care, the percentage of GDP dedicated to this will increase over time, it is already very high and yes, there are some efficiencies to be gained, you know, 18% is numbers, but as society ages we come up with new things such as joint replacement. organ transplant that is going to create a lot of human benefits, we are going to have to have more resources in general, including more government resources for health care, so it is a difficult problem because today there are access problems and cost problems, and I know every time I see a problem I have this simple lens, which is that innovation should help here, but in this case innovation will provide innovative drugs that will save costs, as if you can cure Alzheimer's, which we certainly haven't. still. that will save enormous long-term care costs, so we have these chronic diseases that we've made less progress on than some of the others and you know the market mechanism to get the pharmaceutical industry to do those things and basic research because the funds I'm pretty optimistic that we will have some breakthroughs, but they will also give us some very expensive things that will mean we spend more money and I hope you know that at some point we will really be asking for the best minds to look at incentives for breakthroughs the most efficient system we have here I think there is a lot of unhappiness in the country right now due to the fact that the healthcare system is not working and yet people are saying less. government plus government, you know, I don't think they're being given a deep education on why it's so difficult that more time will help them vote on the depth of the explanation.

I mean, let me go to Facebook in a moment, but where did I promise three, four, and six? Three are there and six are up there, so quote three sixes and then we'll go to Facebook. Hello. My name is Josh Shaffer and I am a dental resident in Columbia. My question is for future doctors at Genesis in the United States. What advice can you give on how to have the right balance between providing healthcare and also mastering the concepts of business and economics? Well, I told Gowanni, you know? It's incredible, Walter. He in the current issue of The New Yorker has the latest in wonderful articles about the healthcare system and is talking about the people who perform heroic surgeries like him and get twice as much money. the people who are continually and gradually learning about the patient and seeing what works for them and he's a chorus calling to say hello, although that part of the system needs to work better, it needs more resources and you know, I think it's brilliant. that he is saying that and it also corresponds to what is working in other countries.

Six, you both have invested a lot of money abroad, but some prevail in the belief that there are pressing issues. In America there are poor people here, there are sick people here and we should take care of that first before we even address anything overseas, so what's your take on that? My personal opinion is that every life has equal value and in many ways, in many ways. If you have a small amount of dollars, you can actually do more for more people outside of the United States and we have greater resources here for our 320 million people than there are around the world for seven billion people, so if you can improve the many more people by intelligently spending a billion dollars or any other amount in other areas of the world and then here and I understand that I come from Omaha and having the money that I have people can say well, why not spend it all in Omaha ?

You know you grew up here and pretty much did all kinds of things for yourself and I absolutely know that, but in the end, if I have X dollars to spend, I can improve the lives of more people if I can intelligently allocate them to others. parts of the world actually than the United States and that draws a fair amount of criticism, but you know I live with that because I read that it's what I believe that all lives have equal value, it's really the driving force. I mean, I found an accident I gained the ovarian artery when I was born in the United States in 1930 it was 40 to 1 against me being a man now it is 80 to 1 against being a man in the United States in 1930 I just got lucky in my Life had been very different Bill always said that if I had been born a long time ago I would have been some animals' lunch because I can't run fast and I can't climb trees and everything and I would think that I should allocate Capital, it wouldn't work and I was lucky, but 79 of the 80 were not as lucky as I was at that time.

Go ahead, Bill, yes, in terms of helping people in other countries and abroad, a group of Americans. This is 0.8 percent of the budget and in the coming years there will be a debate about whether what we are doing saves lives for approximately a thousand dollars of lives saved and in terms of stability and that countries will eventually be self-sufficient to meet As part of the world economy, that has enormous benefits, so if we were talking about whether we should spend 20 or 30 percent abroad, well, that would be a very interesting discussion, but what we are trying to preserve is something that He has become smarter. and smarter all the time as proven benefits, all of which are things that our founding currencies invest in the same things like polio is 0.8 percent, so I'm hopeful that in a big world that can still be a priority, let me go. to another Facebook question, this one is from Nadia Rockwall, she says how my Bill and Lauren encourage innovation, especially among teenagers and young adults, how do you encourage innovation well?

I think there is a market system that offers rewards for that and we have it, I mean we have it. an innovation incubator in the United States and you know Bill can drop out of school Andy Grove can come from Hungary and I mean he appreciates this and thank God I mean that's why we have the kind of prosperity that we have I mean The question of how it is divided is a secondary question and that is not solved so well by the market system, but our system is designed simply to then see what has happened, very good, number one, so I also want to make sure that that we reach the people. the back so not only do we have five minutes left so there's a couple of hands up in the back so please acknowledge it hello my name is ah here I'm a senior in engineering school like men of great influence I am.

It's funny and we touched on this a little bit in the last question, but how do you deal with reconciling your convictions with maybe what the public believes, maybe even a majority, considering that you have the wealth, the power and fame to make such wonderful things happen? Well, I don't see, you know the convictions that I have, you know, I love sharing them and talking to people, understanding, you know, what people don't agree on, you know, I can focus too much on the science, you know there's all kinds of causes that are It's very important that our foundation, because we have limited resources, we can't go and do it, there are a lot of diseases, there are aspects of education, you know, part of the strength of philanthropy is its diversity, and just by Sharing the fact that it's fun can really have a measurable impact.

I hope it is an example for all philanthropy. I don't think you know that my voice should be much louder than other people you know, so you know some of these big political donations. at least you know that I and I are also worn out, you know that we have chosen not to be a huge way, you know that we are spending our money, that is a personal choice, you know that money is saved not for the megaphone. but for the work of the foundation we have a podium of a certain kind, you know, but people don't, with a partner like Charlie Munger, you don't have to worry about my use being accepted automatically, point out the shortcomings and the influence of money In politics I really think it is bad news for this country.

I think citizens united was a terrible decision and the idea that someone can invest millions and millions of dollars in a campaign and in certain cases not even be identified, I think it really goes against the kind of America that I believe in, y'all two created together with Blend and others created Giving Pledge, how is that going? Good day, Atlanta, this kind of color, it's exactly, yeah, okay, this is, you know, we love philanthropy. of all kinds and part of the strength of the American clamp is actually the people with very little who are incredibly generous here, although we said that for the people who are very fortunate and have over a billion dollars, we want a group that works together and that you are committed to giving the majority of your wealth to learn from each other what has worked what has not worked how to involve your children how to hire staff and they will find areas where they are working together and cooperate, but we are not taking money and We thought we would meet twenty-five people together and, in fact, now we are one hundred and fifty-six, so it is a wonderful annual event.

I have raised some excellent people. I think the quantity and quality have increased. has increased because we are meeting, we will never be able to measure that directly, since we are making special efforts in China and India because now we have a lot of well-being that did not exist before and in their own countries. I think they will do this by having a strong philanthropic sector that will help those countries and therefore help the world. What's interesting now is that I'm having dinner with a group tonight, for example, but if you go back 100 or 150 years, people got rich by earning something. money from the first oil refinery or still a mill and build another one Henry Ford would build a plan to build automobiles and then it would be from the retained earnings that eventually became cash now you can get rich very young just by having an idea and you can monetize and capitalize on that idea in a way that you can't believe, so we are particularly interested in getting younger people interested in flying because there will be huge fortunes from people who are now in their 20s and 30s and just think on the potential of that group and so on.

This has worked much better, including having younger people join us. Number six. Hello, my name is Christina Nunez. I am a fellow dental student. Josh, thanks for talking to us. Today I am curious about your vision related to relationships. Personally, I have a desire to honor myself and respect other people. Throughout my life I have found it difficult to discern which relationships to really foster and invest in, embrace challenges, and which types of relationships. give up and abandon because they are more harmful than helpful. Are there any important life lessons you have learned through your personal experiences?

It's a very important question and the more you move in the direction of the people you associate with, then it's important to associate with people who are better than you and in fact the most important decision many of you may not be. the spouse they choose and they really want to associate with people who are the type of person they would like. be and you will move in that direction and the most important person, by far, in that sense is your spouse. I can't stress enough how important it is. You're right, the friends you have will shape you as you go. through life and make good friends, keep them for the rest of your life but make them people you admire, just like Wykeham, don't do that, yes some friends bring out the best in you and those are good ones.

Invest in those friendships. You and I know that some friends challenge you about the things you're doing and you know that level of intimacy is great. I wouldn't say I'm you know I was so obsessed with work that I didn't Invest, I would say in my 20s and 30s, everything I should have done is really through Melinda and I've seen you meet other people. I realize. It's okay, you know it's really worth investing in having those people since you're always there to help. them and vice versa you