风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
那天我知道我余生想做什么
https://www.gatesnotes.com/The-day-I-knew-what-I-wanted-to-do-for-the-rest-of-my-life
演讲如何帮助我决定专注于慈善事业。
作者：比尔·盖茨 2019 年 9 月 20 日
Netflix 纪录片系列《走进比尔的大脑》的第 1 部分讲述了盖茨基金会重新思考世界上最贫困人口的卫生设施问题的故事。第一步：改造厕所！从我在高中爱上软件到今天在我们的基金会工作，这种对创新力量的信念一直是我一生的信念。接下来的故事讲述了我在这条道路上的一个清晰时刻，以及一路上一直担任批评指导的人的影响。
如果你在二十多岁的时候问我是否会提前从微软退休，我会告诉你你疯了。我喜欢软件的魔力，以及微软提供的不断上升的学习曲线。我很难想象我还愿意做什么。
到了四十多岁，我的观点发生了变化。美国政府针对微软的反垄断诉讼让我精疲力尽，也让我失去了工作的乐趣。 2000 年初辞去 CEO 职务后，我希望更多地专注于构建软件产品，这始终是我工作中最好的部分。
此外，我的世界观也更加开阔。梅琳达和我都感受到我们年轻的基金会及其在美国教育以及贫困国家疾病药物和疫苗开发方面的工作受到越来越大的推动。在我的成年生活中，我第一次给自己留出了阅读非微软书籍的空间，吸收了有关免疫系统、疟疾和瘟疫历史的书籍，就像我曾经浏览过《计算机编程的艺术》一样。
随着我们对慈善事业的承诺不断增长，梅琳达和我将价值 200 亿美元的微软股票转移到我们的基金会，使其成为世界上最大的此类基金会。一年之内，我为该基金会进行了第一次海外旅行，前往印度，在那里我将脊髓灰质炎疫苗滴入婴儿的嘴里。梅琳达前往泰国和印度，研究这些国家如何应对艾滋病。
我们的好朋友沃伦·巴菲特对我们即将踏上的这段新旅程感到好奇。因此，2001 年秋天，他邀请我去西弗吉尼亚州的一个度假胜地，并请我向一群商界领袖讲述我和梅琳达所学到的知识。
我不是一个天生的公众演讲者。但在微软，年复一年，一次又一次的演讲，我学会了走上舞台，为我们的客户、合作伙伴和媒体描绘技术愿景。人们想了解白热化的软件行业，这很有帮助。我渐渐喜欢上了它。
我觉得我正在从我们的基金会开始。在世界经济论坛等大型全球会议上，人们蜂拥而至，想听我详细介绍一些很酷的软件，但当那天晚些时候我宣布一项为数百万儿童提供疫苗的创新计划时，人群和精力就会消失。
当时，我遇到的许多人都认为低收入国家的健康问题非常严重且棘手，无论花多少钱都无法产生任何重大影响。我明白为什么。人们很容易忽视远方发生的死亡和疾病。我们在有关全球健康的新闻中读到的大部分内容都集中在厄运和悲观情绪上。这让我很沮丧。这些问题是真实存在的，但人类寻找解决方案的聪明才智的力量也是如此。梅琳达和我感受到了强烈的乐观情绪，但我们没有在这些故事中看到这一点。
就在沃伦邀请我发表演讲的时候，梅琳达和我正在努力思考如何利用我们的声音来提高全球健康的知名度。有人愿意听吗？
我对沃伦朋友们的演讲是一次练习的机会。如果我能激起他们的兴趣，这将是说服那些有能力做出最大改变的人的一步：立法者和国家元首决定有多少资金流入对外援助和全球卫生。
前往沃伦团队聚集的会议室时，我有点紧张，但更重要的是，我感到筋疲力尽。当时我们正在就反垄断案件进行谈判，我一直在和律师通电话至深夜。我没有时间写完整的演讲稿。我只是在通话之间记下笔记，试图将我们学到的所有知识简化成尽可能清晰的故事。
我开始说话，一开始是结结巴巴的。我解释说，我们的重大启示是在 20 世纪 90 年代中期，当时梅琳达和我意识到贫穷国家有多少苦难是由健康问题造成的，而富裕国家已经不再试图解决这些问题，因为我们不再受到这些问题的影响。这激怒了我们。我说，当时这种不平等的代价是每年有三百万儿童死亡。
我们意识到，这些死亡并不是由一系列失控的疾病造成的，而是由少数基本上可以治愈的疾病造成的。仅腹泻和肺炎就造成儿童死亡的一半
名词其中许多儿童可以通过现有的药物和疫苗得到拯救。所缺乏的只是将这些拯救生命的技术提供给需要它们的人和地方的激励措施和系统，以及一些加速变革的新发明。
我解释说，我们的慈善事业遵循与微软相同的理念：坚持不懈的创新。正确的疫苗可以消灭地球上的致命病毒。更好的厕所可以帮助预防腹泻病。对科学技术的投资可以帮助数百万人度过童年并过上健康、富有成效的生活——这可能是有史以来研发支出的最大回报。
当我说话时，前一天晚上困扰我的法律纠纷消失了。我充满了活力。当想法激发我时，我会摇摆、摇摆、踱步——我的身体就变成了大脑的节拍器。第一次，所有的事实和数据、轶事和分析都凝聚成一个令人振奋的故事——甚至对我来说也是如此。我能够阐明我们捐赠的逻辑，以及为什么我如此乐观地认为金钱、技术、科学突破和政治意愿的结合可以比很多人想象的更快地建立一个更加公平的世界。
从点头、大笑和提问的水平上我可以看出，这个小组明白了。随后，沃伦满脸笑容地走了过来。“这太棒了，比尔，”他说。“你说的太棒了，你在这项工作上的精力也太棒了。”我对他笑了笑。三个“惊人”——第一次。
那天我找到的信心鼓励我在全球健康问题上发挥更多的公共作用。在接下来的一年里，我在活动和采访中完善了我的信息。我花了更多时间与政府领导人谈论健康问题。 （现在这是我工作的重要组成部分。）
但还发生了其他事情。这次演讲帮助我更清楚地看到了离开微软后的自己的生活，重点是我和梅琳达开始的工作。多年来，软件仍然是我关注的焦点，我将永远认为它是最能塑造我的东西。但我感到精力充沛，能够在我们正在走的这条新道路上走得更远，了解更多，并致力于克服障碍，让更多的人过上更好的生活。最终，我比原计划提前了近十年从微软退休。 2001 年的演讲是朝着这一决定迈出的一步，是一个私人时刻。
现在，我每天都专注于努力实现我大约二十年前在会议室中概述的愿景。现在的世界比以前更加公平。但我们还有很长的路要走。通过让 Netflix 的摄像机进来，我希望您能看到我从工作中获得的快乐，以及为什么我如此乐观，相信凭借聪明才智、想象力和决心，我们可以在实现这一目标方面取得更大进展。
The day I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life
https://www.gatesnotes.com/The-day-I-knew-what-I-wanted-to-do-for-the-rest-of-my-life
How giving a speech helped me decide to focus on philanthropy.
Part 1 of the Netflix documentary series Inside Bill’s Brain tells the story of the Gates Foundation’s quest to rethink sanitation for the world’s poorest. First step: reinvent the toilet! This belief in the power of innovation has been a constant in my life, starting from the time I fell in love with software in high school to my work today at our foundation. What follows is the story of a moment of clarity for me on that path and the influence of someone who’s been a critical guide along the way.
If you’d have asked me in my twenties if I’d ever retire early from Microsoft, I’d have told you that you were crazy. I loved the magic of software, and the ever-rising learning curve that Microsoft provided. It was hard for me to imagine anything else I’d rather do.
By my mid-forties my perspective was changing. The U.S. government’s antitrust suit against Microsoft had drained me, sucking some of the joy out of my work. Stepping down as CEO in early 2000, I hoped to focus more on building software products, always the best part of my job.
Also, my world view was broadening. Both Melinda and I were feeling a strengthening pull toward our young foundation and its work in U.S. education and the development of drugs and vaccines for diseases in poor countries. For the first time in my adult life I allowed myself space for non-Microsoft reading, soaking up books on the immune system, malaria and the history of plagues just as I had once scoured The Art of Computer Programming.
With our commitment to philanthropy growing, Melinda and I transferred $20 billion of Microsoft stock to our foundation, making it the largest of its kind in the world. Within a year I’d taken my first overseas trip for the foundation, to India, where I squeezed drops of polio vaccine into babies’ mouths. Melinda traveled to Thailand and India to study how those countries were handling AIDS.
Our good friend Warren Buffett was curious about this new journey we were on. So in the fall of 2001, he invited me to a resort in West Virginia and asked me to speak to a group of business leaders about what Melinda and I were learning.
I’m not a natural public speaker. But at Microsoft, speech after speech, year after year, I learned to step out on a stage and paint a vision of technology for our customers, partners and the media. It helped that people wanted to hear about the white-hot software industry. I grew to enjoy it.
I felt like I was starting over with our foundation. At big global meetings, like the World Economic Forum, people flocked to hear me detail some cool piece of software, but the crowd and the energy would be gone when later that day I’d announce an innovative plan to get vaccines to millions of children.
At the time, many people I met thought health problems in low-income countries were so big and intractable that no amount of money could make any significant difference. I could see why. It was easy to ignore death and disease happening so far away. And so much of what we read in the news about global health focused on doom and gloom. This frustrated me. The problems were real enough, but so is the power of human ingenuity to find solutions. Melinda and I felt a strong sense of optimism, but we didn’t see that reflected in these stories.
Right around the time Warren asked me to give the talk, Melinda and I were trying to figure out how we might use our voices to raise the visibility of global health. Would anyone listen?
My speech to Warren’s friends was a chance to practice. If I could stir them, it would be a step towards persuading the people with the power to make the biggest difference: the legislators and heads of countries who decide how much money flows into foreign aid and global health.
I was a little nervous heading to the conference room where Warren’s group was gathered—but more than that, I was exhausted. We were in the midst of negotiations over the antitrust case, and I’d been on the phone with lawyers deep into the night. I hadn’t had time to write a full speech. I’d just jotted notes between calls, trying to simplify all we had learned into the clearest possible story.
I started talking, haltingly at first. Our big revelation, I explained, had come in the mid-1990s when Melinda and I realized how much misery in poor countries is caused by health problems that the rich world had stopped trying to solve because we’re no longer affected by them. That incensed us. The cost of that inequity at the time was three million children dying ever year, I said.
Those deaths, we realized, weren’t caused by a bunch of runaway diseases, but by a handful of illnesses that are largely treatable. Diarrhea and pneumonia alone were responsible for half of the deaths among children. Many of those children could be saved with medicines and vaccines that already existed. All that was lacking were incentives and systems to get those life-saving technologies to the people and places where they were needed—and some new inventions to speed the change.
Our philanthropy, I explained, followed the same philosophy that guided Microsoft: relentless innovation. The right vaccine can wipe a deadly virus off the planet. A better toilet can help stop diarrheal disease. Investments in science and technology can help millions to survive their childhood and lead healthy productive lives—potentially the greatest return in R&D spending ever.
As I spoke, the legal tangles that had consumed me the night before vanished. I was energized. When ideas excite me, I rock, I sway, I pace—my body turns into a metronome for my brain. For the first time, all the facts and figures, anecdotes and analyses cohered into a story that was uplifting—even for me. I was able to make clear the logic of our giving and why I was so optimistic that a combination of money, technology, scientific breakthroughs, and political will could make a more equitable world faster than a lot of people thought.
I could tell from the nods and laughs and caliber of questions that the group got it. Afterward, Warren came over with a big smile. “That was amazing, Bill,” he said. “What you said was amazing, and your energy around this work is amazing.” I grinned back at him. Three ‘amazings’—a first.
The confidence I found that day encouraged me to take a more public role on global health issues. Over the next year, I refined my message at events and in interviews. I spent more time talking about health with government leaders. (That’s now a big part of my job.)
But something else had happened, too. The speech helped me see more clearly a life for myself after Microsoft, centered on the work that Melinda and I had started. Software would remain my focus for years and I will always consider it the thing that most shaped who I am. But I felt energized to get further along this new path we were traveling, to learn more and to apply myself to the obstacles in the way of more people living better lives. Eventually, I would retire from Microsoft almost a decade earlier that I had planned. The 2001 speech was a step, a private moment, on the way to that decision.
Now I get to focus every day on trying to deliver the vision I outlined in that conference room almost two decades ago. The world is more equitable now than it was then. But we’ve still got a long way to go. By letting Netflix’s cameras in, I hope you can see the joy I get from my work and why I am so optimistic that with ingenuity, imagination, and determination, we can make even more progress towards that goal.
