English Speech Bill Gates I do have one big regret with Big Subtitles

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to

say this dad I always told you I’d come

back and get my degree

I want to thank Harvard for this honor

I’ll be changing my job next year and it

will be nice to finally have a college

degree on my resume I applaud the

graduates for taking a much more direct

route to your degrees from our my part

I’m just happy that the Crimson called

me Harvard’s most successful dropout I

guess that makes me valedictorian of my

own special class I did the best of

everyone who failed but I also want to

be recognized as the guy who got Steve

Ballmer to drop out of business school

I’m a bad influence that’s why I was

invited to speak at your graduation if

I’d spoken at your orientation fewer of

you might be here today

[Applause]

Harvard was a phenomenal experience for

me

academic life was fascinating I used to

sit in on lots of classes that I hadn’t

even signed up for and dorm life was

terrific I lived up at Radcliffe in

career house

there were always a lot of people in my

dorm room late at night discussing

things because everyone knew that I

didn’t worry about getting up in the

morning that’s how I came to be the

leader of the antisocial group we clung

to each other as a way of validating our

rejection of all those social people

Radcliffe was a great place to live

there were more women up there and most

of the guys were math science types the

combination offered me the best odds if

you know what I mean that’s where I

learned the sad lesson that improving

your odds doesn’t guarantee success one

of my biggest memories of Harvard came

in January 1975 when I made a call from

courier house to a company in

Albuquerque New Mexico that had begun

making the world’s first personal

computer I offered to sell them software

I worried they would realize I was just

a student in a dorm and hang up on me

instead they said we’re not quite ready

come see us in a month which was a good

thing because we hadn’t written the

software yet

from that moment I worked day and night

on the extra-credit project that marked

the end of my college education and the

beginning of a remarkable journey with

Microsoft what I remember above all

about Harvard was being in the midst of

so much energy and intelligence

it could be exhilarating intimidating

sometimes even discouraging but always

challenging it was an amazing privilege

and though I left early I was

transformed by my years at Harvard the

friendships I made and the ideas I

worked on but taking a serious look back

I do have one big regret I left Harvard

with no real awareness

of the awful inequities in the world the

appalling disparities of health and

wealth an opportunity that condemned

millions of people the lives of despair

I learned a lot here at Harvard about

new ideas in economics and politics

I got great exposure to the advances

being made in the sciences but

humanity’s greatest advances are not in

its discoveries but in how those

discoveries are applied to reduce

inequity

whether through democracy strong public

education quality healthcare abroad

Economic Opportunity

reducing inequity is the highest human

achievement

I left campus knowing little about the

millions of young people cheated out of

educational opportunities here in this

country and I knew nothing about the

millions of people living in unspeakable

poverty and disease in developing

countries

it took me decades to find out you

graduates came to Harvard at a different

time you know more about the world’s

inequities than the classes that came

before in your years here I hope you’ve

had a chance to think about how in this

age of accelerating technology we can

finally take on these inequities and we

can solve them imagine just for the sake

of discussion that you had a few hours a

week and a few dollars a month to donate

to a cause and you wanted to spend that

time and money where it would have the

greatest impact in saving and improving

lives where would you spend it for

Melinda and I the challenge is the same

how can we do the most good for the

greatest number with the resources we

have during our discussions on this

question

Melinda and I read an article about the

millions of children were dying every

year in poor countries from diseases

that we had long ago made harmless in

this country measles malaria pneumonia

hepatitis B yellow fever one disease

that I had never heard of rotavirus was

killing half a million children each

year none of them in the United States

we were shocked we had assumed that if

millions of children were dying and they

could be saved the world would make it a

priority to discover and deliver

the medicines to save them but it did

not for under a dollar

there were interventions that could save

lives - just weren’t being delivered if

you believe that every life has equal

value it’s revolting to learn that some

lives are seen as worth saving and

others are not we said to ourselves this

can’t be true

but if it is true it deserves to be the

priority of our giving so we began to

begin our work in the same way anyone

here would begin it we asked how could

the world let these children buy the

answer is simple and harsh the market

did not reward saving the lives of these

children and governments did not

subsidize it so the children died

because their mothers and fathers had no

power in the market and no voice in the

system

but you and I have both we can make

market forces work better for the poor

if we can develop a more creative

capitalism if we can stretch the reach

of market forces so that more people can

make a profit our least earn a living

serving people who are suffering from

the great inequities we can also press

governments around the world to spend

taxpayer money in ways that better

reflect the values of the people who pay

the taxes if we can find approaches that

meet the needs of the poor in ways that

generate profits for business and votes

for politicians we will have found a

sustainable way to reduce inequity in

the world now this task is open-ended it

can never be finished but a conscious

effort to answer this challenge can

change the world I am optimistic that we

can do this but I talk to skeptics

who claimed there is no hope they say

inequity is been with us since the

beginning and will be with us until the

end because people just don’t care I

completely disagree I believe we have

more caring than we know what to do with

all of us here in this yard at one time

or another have seen human tragedies

that broke our heart and yet we did

nothing not because we didn’t care but

because we didn’t know what to do

if we had known how to help we would

have acted the bereted change is not too

little caring it is too much complexity

to turn caring into action we need to

see a problem see a solution and see the

impact but complexity blocks all three

steps even with the advent of the

internet and 24-hour news it is still a

complex enterprise to get people to

truly see the problems when an airplane

crashes officials immediately call a

press conference

they promise to investigate determine

the cause and prevent similar crashes in

the futures but if the officials were

brutally honest they would say of all

the people in the world who died today

from preventable causes 1/2 of 1% or on

this plane we’re determined to do

everything possible to solve the problem

that took the lives of the 1/2 of 1% the

problem is not just the plane crash but

the millions of preventable deaths we

don’t read much about these deaths the

media covers what’s new and millions of

people dying is nothing new so it stays

in the background where it’s easy to

ignore

but even when we do see it or read about

it it’s difficult to keep our eye eyes

on the problem it’s difficult to look at

suffering if the situation is so complex

that we don’t know how to help and so we

look away if we can really see a problem

which is the first step we come to the

second step

cutting through the complexity to find a

solution finding solutions is essential

if we want to make the most of our

caring if we have clear improvement

answers anytime an organization or

individual asks how can I help then we

can get action and we can make sure that

none of the caring in the world is

wasted

but complexity makes it hard to mark a

path of action for everyone who cares

and makes it hard for their caring to

matter

cutting through complexity to find

solutions runs through four predictable

stages determine a goal find the highest

impact approach deliver the technology

ideal for that approach and in the

meantime use the best application of

technology you already have whether it’s

something sophisticated like a new drug

or something simple like the bed net the

AIDS epidemic offers an example the

broad goal of course is to end the

disease the highest leverage approach is

prevention the ideal technology would be

a vaccine that gives lifelong immunity

with a single dose so governments drug

companies and foundations are funding

vaccine research but their work is

likely to take more than a decade so in

the meantime we have to work with what

we have in hand and the best prevention

approach we have now is getting people

to avoid risky behavior pursuing that

goal starts the poor step cycle

again this is the pattern the crucial

thing is to never stop thinking and

working and never do what we did with

malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th

century which is to surrender to

complexity and quit the final step after

seeing the problem and finding an

approach is to measure the impact of the

work and to share that success or

failure so that others can learn from

the efforts you have to have the

statistics of course you have to be able

to show for example that a program is

vaccinating million more millions more

children you have to be able to show for

example a decline in the number of

children dying from the diseases this is

essential not just to improve the

program but also to help draw more

investment from business and government

but if you want to inspire people to

participate you have to show more than

numbers you have to convey the human

impact of the work so people can feel

what saving a life means to the families

affected I remember going to the World

Economic Forum some years back and

sitting on a global health panel that

was discussing ways to save millions of

lives millions think of the thrill if

you could save just one person’s life

then multiply that by millions yet this

was the most boring panel I’ve ever been

on ever so boring even I couldn’t stand

it

what made that experience especially

striking was that I had just come from

an event where we were introducing

version 13 of some piece of software and

we had people jumping and shouting with

excitement I loved getting people

excited about software but why can’t we

generate even more excitement for saving

lives you can’t get people excited

unless you can help them see and feel

the impact

the way to do that is another complex

question still I’m optimistic yes and

equity has been with us forever but the

new tools we have to cut through

complexity have not been with us forever

they are new they can help us make the

most of our caring and that’s why the

future can be different from the past

the defining and ongoing innovations of

this age biotechnology the personal

computer and the Internet give us a

chance we’ve never had before to end

extreme poverty and end death from

preventable disease 60 years ago

George Marshall came to this

commencement and he announced a plan to

assist the nations of post-war Europe he

said I quote I think one difficulty is

that the problem is one of such enormous

complexity that the very mass of facts

presented to the public by press and

radio make it exceedingly difficult for

the man in the street to reach a clear

appraisement of the situation it is

virtually impossible at this distance to

grasp at all the real significance of

the situation thirty years after

Marshall made his address which was 30

years ago as my class graduated without

me technology was emerging that would

make the world smaller more open more

visible less distant the emergence of

low-cost personal computers gave rise to

a powerful network that has transformed

opportunities for learning and

communicating the magical thing about

this network is not just that it

collapses distance

and makes everyone your neighbor it also

dramatically increases the number of

brilliant minds we can bring in to work

together on the same problem and it

scales up the rate of potential

innovation to a staggering degree at the

same time for every person who has

access to this technology five people

don’t that means many creative minds are

left out of this discussion smart people

with practical intelligence and relevant

experience who don’t have the technology

to hone their talents or contribute

their ideas to the world we need as many

people as possible to gain access to

this technology because these advances

are triggering a revolution in human in

what human beings can do for one another

they are making it possible not just for

national governments but for

universities corporations small

organizations and even individuals to

see problems see approaches and measure

the impact of their efforts to address

the hunger poverty and desperation

George Marshall spoke up 60 years ago

members of the Harvard family here in

the yard is one of the great collections

of intellectual talent in the world

for what purpose there is no question

that the faculty the Alumni the students

and the benefactors of Harvard have used

their power to improve the lives of

people here and around the world but can

we do more can Harvard dedicate its

intellect to improving the lives of

people we’ll never even hear its name

let me make a request of the deans and

the professors the intellectual leaders

here at Harvard as you hire new faculty

award tenure

review curriculum and determine degree

requirements please ask yourself should

our best minds be more dedicated to

solving our biggest problems should

Harvard encourage its faculty to take on

the world’s worst inequity

should Harvard students know about the

depth of global poverty the prevalence

of world hunger the scarcity of clean

water the girls kept out of school the

children who died from diseases we can

cure should the world’s most privileged

learn about the lives of the world’s

least privileged these are not

rhetorical questions

you will answer with your policies my

mother who is filled with pride the day

I was admitted here never stopped

pressing me to do more for others a few

days before I was married she hosted a

bridal event at which she read aloud a

letter about marriage that she had

written to Melinda my mother was very

ill with cancer at the time but she saw

one more opportunity to deliver her

message and at the close of the letter

she said from those to whom much is

given much is expected

when you consider that those of us here

in this yard have been given in talent

privilege and opportunity there is

almost no limit to what the world has a

right to expect from us in line with the

promise of this age

I want to exhort each of the graduates

here to take on an issue a complex

problem a deep inequity and become a

specialist on it if you make it the

focus of your career that would be

phenomenal but you don’t have to do that

to make an impact for a few hours every

week you can use the growing power of

the Internet to get informed find others

with the same interests see the barriers

and find ways to cut through them don’t

let complexity stop you be akkad

activists take on big inequities I feel

sure it will be one of the great

experiences of your lives you graduates

are coming of age in an amazing time as

you leave Harvard you have technology

that members of my class never had you

have awareness of global inequity which

we did not have and with that awareness

you likely also have an informed

conscience that will torment you if you

abandon these people whose lives you

could change with modest effort you have

more than we had you must start sooner

and carry on longer and I hope you will

come back here to Harvard 30 years from

now and reflect on what you’ve done with

your talent and your energy I hope you

will judge yourselves not on your

professional accomplishments alone but

also on how well you have addressed the

world’s deepest inequities on how well

you treated people a world away we have

nothing in common with you but their

humanity

good luck

you

you