Enrique Cerna Interviews Bill Gates, Sr.

Enrique Cerna Interviews Bill Gates, Sr.

This is a transcript of an interview with Bill Gates, Sr. on Conversations at KCTS 9 which aired on October 12, 2009.

Enrique Cerna: Bill Gates Sr., thank you for showing up for Conversations. We appreciate it very much.

Bill Gates Sr. : It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

EC:The decision to write a book – were you hesitant at all?

BG Sr. : Actually, I was. Because the history actually is that I was just doing the memoir, like so many of us do, just wanting to have something for my family, looking ahead, to know something about what this particular generation was doing. And I had some help with it from Mary Ann Macken, who was on the cover as helping author, and she encouraged me as the memoir was developing to do something more “with it.” And I said “I will, fine, let’s see what we can do.” And so, here we are.

EC: Showing up, that whole concept, that whole idea, in reading the book it’s clear that your parents, they started that whole thing with you, by example. Did they ever talk about it, giving back and participating in a community, or was it all by action?

BG Sr. : It was pretty much implicit by what they said was so loud and vivid that they didn’t – what they did was so loud and vivid that they didn’t need to say anything to build around it. It was just a matter of that was what Mom and Dad did and sort of taken for granted that what we would do, and obviously we’ve got another generation in the same mode.

EC: You grew up in Bremerton.

BG Sr. : Grew up in Bremerton.

EC: Tell me about that and your life in Bremerton, and talk a little about your father and what he did.

BG Sr. : I enjoyed very much being a kid in Bremerton – a small place at the time – eleven-twelve thousand people, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard over there which was all the industry there was but it certainly was a very solid, stable economic base. A small town so we were – there was much more freedom, much more ease of moving around, going places on your bike and that kind of thing. So I consider it a very positive experience. And, you know, I went to the schools in town, of which there weren’t a great many. Only one highschool. And got a good education.

And my dad was the partner in a furniture store, retail furniture store, just a couple blocks from where we lived. And he was a very hard worker, very conscientious. Actually, one of the elements of our life was the big depression in the, you know, 29, 30, 31, and it was so pervasive and so deep that it affected everyone, and particularly, of course, people who were making a living, trying to raise a family and that kind of thing. So my dad, along with, I think, most middle-aged men at that time developed a sense of apprehension about what was going to happen to them or their friends and that sort of thing. So he was hugely conscientious about paying attention to the business, getting to work, staying at the store as long as long as there was anybody wanted to come in and look at a davenport.

EC: And you talk about him walking home and finding coal...

BG Sr. : Picked up chunks of coal in the alley where the coal truck had been that day, brought them home and put them in the coal bucket.

EC: So nothing was going to go to waste.

BG Sr. : Nothing was going to – precisely.

EC: So when you remember those kinds of experiences, I take it that sticks with you as you go through the years.

BG Sr. : Well, let me tell you that I never leave a room empty without turning the lights off. (laughter)

EC: I do the same, by the way. My mother used to always say, “Hey! Turn off the light!” Your mother – tell me about her, and her influences. Was your father more strict, and your mother a bit more flexible?

BG Sr. : Well, I think the better comparison is that she was much more involved, she was home. You know, this was before the days when women worked. She was a housewife. So she was somebody I had a lot more contact than with my dad who went to work early, came home late. But more than that, she was a lot more articulate about things. So she had in some ways, a larger role in terms of the fact that she and I talked about things. I didn’t have a lot of conversations with my dad.

EC: Really?

BG Sr. : Yeah.

EC: Now I understand that your father also didn’t believe women should drive.

BG Sr. : That’s correct. He was of the old school. And my older sister, seven years older than I, a wonderful woman...

EC: Meridi?

BG Sr. : Meridi. Thank you. He didn’t have any thought that she was going to get a car or drive as long as she was around the house. And what’s more, and perhaps, worst, there was no thought that she would go to college. Which was unfortunate.

EC: But yet, when you became of driving age, she bought you a car.

BG Sr. : That’s right. That’s a real high point in my life. It was just such a wonderful thing – surprised me completely. She went and bought this little Ford Model A coup with a rumble seat. (laughs)

EC: I understand your dad wasn’t all that happy about it.

BG Sr. : No. As a matter of fact he was not a party to it – but I will say this, that kind of typical of dad, he was very conscientious, that after Meridi got me the car we went and she showed me “here’s your car, Bill,” he had a look at it and he insisted and he took it to a friend of his who did car repairs, and spent I think probably twice as much as Meridi paid for it to get it in shape for, he thought, felt more comfortable about my driving.

EC: So that you’d be safe.

BG Sr. : So he didn’t totally disapprove, is the bottom line.

EC: What did you get out of this though, because you do talk about it, you got some lessons out of that generosity from your sister...

BG Sr. : Precisely. That was so generous of her to do that. She had a job as a medical – was she a – dental assistant. And you know, she wasn’t making any real money. And this is a kind of a very significant thing for her. We had a definite brother and sister fondness. And she just wanted to do this, and it made a huge impression on me.

EC: Was there an expectation that you would go on and you would go to college?

BG Sr. : Yes. Yeah, that was just assumed. It wasn’t a “maybe yes, maybe no” kind of thing. Bill would go to college.

EC: And was it was assumed too that you would become a lawyer, or was that your decision?

BG Sr. : No, that wasn’t that – there wasn’t any cookie cutter here that was set on what that shape would be. There was a decision to be made about what my interests would be at college and what I might end up doing. And you know, the kind of things that lead you to think about being a lawyer – argumentative, for example. (laughs)

EC: Runs in the family, I hear.

BG Sr. : There is a little inheritance there, yes.

So anyway, I went to law school just because it seemed like something that fit my personality.

EC: You parents – when we talk about these stores, and I think everybody has these stories from their parents that they have these things that they remember, but how did that – what did that do for you? How did that help mold you about how you might be as a parent and other parts of life?

BG Sr. : Well, I have this view that it’s pretty hard to assess what is causation for who you turn out to be. I mean, I wouldn’t deny for a moment that parents are a huge element of that, but you’ve got school teachers, friends, parents of friends. There are just so many influences that it’s hard to pick out any one. Now, having talked about the community activity thing, sure, they were an example of that, and I’m sure that had – was a critical element in having that inclination.

EC: An impression upon you.

BG Sr. : Right. And you know I feel clearly like I learned from my dad that you have to work hard to get along in this world, and he was a huge example of that principle. So, you know, there were very important things which I learned from them, no question about it.

EC: The title of the book, “showing up for life,” where did that come from?

BG Sr. : Well actually, I stole that from Woody Allen (laughs)

EC: [laughs] Did you tell him?

BG Sr. : Well, as a matter of fact, I called him, talked to his agent, and got clearance. And I can show you a letter in my file in which he says he’s perfectly happy to have me use those words in the title of the book.

EC: That’s great. We’ll photograph that later, maybe. In talking about showing up for life, you were married to a – was her name Mary Maxwell?

BG Sr. : Yes. Mary Maxwell.

EC: You were married for forty-two years. Would you have been able to show up in life, and particularly in your own community activities, as much as you have, if it hadn’t been for her, too?

BG Sr. : Well, no I didn’t -- clearly it was an element. Because she was very much headed in that same direction, and it just came so natural for the two of us. And there wasn’t anything either of us would have said or done to discourage the other one because we were very appositive about that part of your life. So, clearly, again, she was a factor to make all that possible and comfortable.

EC: Did you talk about – that you married well?

BG Sr. : That’s – I’ve suggested that should be on my tombstone, because now having been married twice… I particularly would underscore “he married well.”

EC: And your wife is Mimi Gates, who was long-time head of the Seattle Art Museum, so you’ve been busy – busy with working in all parts of the community as well as with her.

BG Sr. : Yes. The business of art and the museum was a, you know, a new aspect and one that’s been just very enjoyable over the fifteen years she and I have been married. Just quite wonderful.

EC: I was watching some video earlier today of a celebration that the Seattle rotary had marking its tenure over so many years, and you introduced your son there, and he was the keynote speaker, and in the introduction you said “well, I used to be somebody in this town.” And obviously you have raised a son that people know around the world. And they know the name, and they know what he’s done, and all of the work and things like that, not only with Microsoft, but also with the foundation. Take a lot of pride in that? How do you feel when you’re able to introduce him at something?

BG Sr. : There are no words to describe it. How much pride can you have? Whatever the highest number is, that’s where I am.

EC: When he was a young boy, you talk in the book that he was a very curious kid.

BG Sr. : Very curious.

EC: He was a reader.

BG Sr. : That’s right. A prodigious reader. Curious.

EC: What did you want for him? What were you hoping he would be?

BG Sr. : It was pretty ordinary, when you get right down to it. I certainly didn’t “want” him to be a business mogul or whatever he is that he’s turned out to be. That all was over and above anything we would have had our eye on. Like any other parent we wanted him to grow up to have a good life, have a family and be a responsible citizen.

EC: Who was the good cop and the bad cop in the relationship with your wife?

BG Sr. : I’m sorry you put it just that way. (laughs) Let me respond by saying she had a stricter view of parenthood than, by a margin, some margin, than did I.

EC: Were you the enforcer on rules, or...

BG Sr. : Well, we actually, Meri and I, this is something we collaborated about, we made a very great effort to both be on the same wavelength at all times in dealing with the children. So it was very much a shared responsibility in terms of enforcement, as you say.

EC: He was in junior high when he, and you write about the fact that he would sneak out of the house, and you didn’t even know he was doing this, to work on a computer program or some type of computer project with Paul Allen. And they were working on a project, I think it was called the Traf-O-Data. But as he was doing...

BG Sr. : That was actually high school. It wasn’t quite junior high...

EC: But as you saw him develop and doing all these things, what were you thinking about where he was going with all of this?

HT: Well, again, we didn’t have any thought about what has actually occurred. We were certainly encouraged because this is clearly constructive. I mean, he wasn’t off doing the other things a teenage kid might be doing. So it was good stuff. And we certainly were encouraging him. He didn’t need any encouragement, to be honest with you. But we thought it was great.

EC: So you were supportive of the whole thing that what it was...

BG Sr. : Very much so. Now, I wasn’t supportive of his getting up at night and going to the university district to work on that computer. That’s something I didn’t know anything about until many years later, to be honest with you.

EC: And when you found out?

BG Sr. : How did we find out? I guess he finally told us about it. But we both were completely in the dark. And incidentally, his sisters did know, but they were (zips his lips). No.

EC: They held a confidence about that. You know there’s so much focus on your son, obviously, but let’s talk about his sisters. Because I’m curious -- what you’ve learned from them as you’ve seen them grow and become mothers and professional people on their own.

BG Sr. : They’re very confident, skilled, successful women. It’s one of the joys of my life that I’m able to say that. And I don’t intend to take a lot of credit for it; I think sometimes things coming out well in terms of child management, there’s a certain amount of luck in it. But anyway, his older sister Christie lives over in Spokane. She’s very, very active in the community there, has a wonderful family, two children, one in college. Then Libby, who lives here in Seattle is likewise, she just finished a term as chairmen of the board of trustees at the school where she went, Lakeside School, has three children, a lovely husband. A very happy situation.

EC: And they’re showing up.

BG Sr. : Very well said. They are showing up.

EC: Because they’re active in the community, all of those things. What did you learn about being a father , and about fatherhood?

BG Sr. : Well, you know, I, as I sort of tried to say a minute ago, I don’t think I really learned a formula. Frankly, in addition to this inquiry, all my – the last many years, people come up to me and say “how do raise a boy like that?” And my responses tended to be “I don’t really know.” There’s no formula, I can tell you that for sure.

EC: Has it been surprising to you – the way it all transpired?

BG Sr. : Hugely surprising. I mean, come on. It’s totally remarkable. A complete joy to me.

EC: Let’s talk about the work of the Gates Foundation. You’re 83? Most people at 83 would be in retirement and kind of enjoying life at this time. But the fact is, you probably are as busy now as you were during your days as a lawyer.

BG Sr. : It would be pretty close, yes. I don’t spend a lot of Saturday mornings at the office, I will say that. But I’m busy, and I like it.

EC: Has this surprised you, the way it has developed? Because when you were first asked to work with your son in the foundation, was that pretty much just to help, to get it off the ground?

BG Sr. : It started that I had offered Bill and Melinda some help with their charitable activities, because they were kind of overburdened with that kind of thing, and that really was the start of it. And they said, “gee that’s great dad, why don’t you do that,” and we’d get together once a month and talk about whatever letters they received and things they might or might not do. And that’s how it got started. But almost before it got started he decided that they would go ahead and organize a foundation and give it some principal funding because he’d had a lot of professional advice that would be a smart thing for him to do. And he had resisted it because he didn’t feel like he had time in his life for another entity.

And that may seem a little strange, but actually it’s a very sophisticated approach. And he was exactly right because if he’d started and owned and operated – tried to operate a foundation it would have been a huge interference with the time he wanted to give to the company. But when I – this business of my volunteering to come along and helping out in that area, then he said, “well, you know you can – we’ll start a foundation and you can run it.” So, that’s how it got started.

EC: And it was pretty small in the very beginning, right?

BG Sr. : Well, it’s pretty small in terms of its size now, but it was just short of $100 million dollars, the kick-off funding.

EC: But with the people involved, there weren’t that many people…

BG Sr. : No, no. There certainly weren’t. There were just me and the lady up the street who came down and helped out with some of the clerical work.

EC: Well ,I have an office here at KCTS and I look out the window ever day and I see this construction that is happening on what will be the new Gates foundation facilities, and it’s going to be huge. And it’s gone from I guess you and the lady up the street to -- what is it? Over 700 people now? And soon it will be even more than that?

BG Sr. : Yes, we’re getting pretty close to 800, I think, today.

EC: It just snowballed.

BG Sr. : Yes.

EC: To see this happen, to be a part of all of this, is it overwhelming at times? Particularly with the responsibilities?

BG Sr. : Well I’m in awe of it, maybe a little short of overwhelming, but I’m definitely in awe. And that succession of things really there’s a central event there where Bill and Melinda were reading and they became acquainted with the egregious disparity in health care around the world and all these, literally, millions of people dying of things that have long since been forgotten about in our country. And that struck them as being – needing some attention. And they said, “dad, maybe we can do something about this.” And as we got into that, of course, the size of it and the challenges are just so huge and they decided to get very serious about funding that activity, so they put a gigantic amount of money into the foundation when it occurred to them that there was something they could really do in that area.

EC: Would do you see so far as, I guess, the success -- is there anything in particular that you’re very, very proud of -- particularly at the global level?

BG Sr. : Well there are so many things. I think one of the things that stands out is the fact that very early we got into the effort to vaccinate children in the poor world, a movement that got started with the World Health Organization and had sort of tailed out. We got a hold of some of the people who had been involved in that and thought of what we might do. And slowly but surely, with significant contributions from Bill and Melinda, the vaccination effort got reborn and enhanced. And, you know, we’ve vaccinated literally millions of children for common diseases and common health problems. We’re very proud of that. Because there are who knows how many who won’t get the diseases against which they’ve been vaccinated and will live a long healthy life.

EC: What do you think has been not so successful that you wish would have been?

BG Sr. : Well, I think one kind of major example is we started out working to bring about some reform in the American public education system and focused on the size of high-schools which was reasonable in many ways., because it certainly is true that if you could wave your hand and have all highschool kids in 500 kids schools instead of 2000 kid schools, it would make a marvelous difference.

EC: But what occurred to us as we were working this route was that there were other fundamental things that needed to be attended to which were not covered by this particular goal. And it wasn’t at all clear, in fact, if anything it was clear that this was not going to go to scale and we weren’t going to change the size of high schools everywhere in this country. That was just not a reasonable expectation. So we sort of backed away from that. There’s a lot of that still going on because there are wonderful things happening in smaller high schools, more kids go to college and that kind of thing. But we focused on some more fundamental things.

BG Sr. : So that’s something where we started down a path, and learned, and changed our strategy.

EC: As you’ve been involved with all of this, what’s it given to you, this opportunity to be a part of this foundation -- to travel around the world, to see that yes there can be some tremendous impact, but also have an impact here in your own backyard?

BG Sr. : Well it’s exhilarating, it’s exhilarating. Part of it is that among this 800 or so people who work here, this wonderful group of people with just a great long list of wonderful personal experiences, people who’ve spent a major part of their lives in Africa working in agriculture, and things of that kind… that’s… sitting here now I think of last week where I was in England visiting at Cambridge university where we have 250 young people, graduate students at Cambridge university ,on our ticket ,and spending time with those young people. So exhilarating. Really gratifying to see the intelligence and conscientiousness of those people from all over the world. Yes… I’m exalted about what I’m involved in.

EC: It’s been a gift?

BG Sr. : It’s a gift.

EC: I understand that you’re going to be receiving an award sometime soon, the William O’ Douglas justice award. And I imagine as a lawyer that that is something that is important to you particularly since you’ve been passionate about all these things.

BG Sr. : That’s right. It is important to me. The whole business that lawyers have taken on some responsibility for making access to justice a fact in this country where people who can’t afford a lawyer can still get somebody to help them -- get a lawyer who’s working in the legal services office, or whatever -- in order for people to have the benefit of the laws designed to protect them.

EC: How much longer do you see yourself involved with the foundation going at the pace you’re going?

BG Sr. : Well, a factor in that is that Mimi Gates, who’s the Director of the Seattle Art Museum, will not be the director of the Seattle Art beginning just in a few weeks on the first of July, and – so we have a new life-style obviously to begin to adapt to. And I can see ahead that the level of my activity at the foundation will diminish.

EC: But is it your passion – going in there every day, being a part of all that?

BG Sr. : Yes.

EC: And how so? I mean, in what I way? I mean, just that yes… (laughs)

BG Sr. : I guess it’s just so obvious to me, anyway. You know, the things that we’re doing are gratifying and we feel good about it and it’s a joy to be a part of it.

EC: Bill Gates Senior, thank you for showing up.

BG Sr. : Thank you for asking me.

EC: In your book you devote a chapter to early learning, and it’s obviously something you have a passion and concern about. Where do you feel that fits into helping our children?

BG Sr. : Well, it fits in as an absolute fundamental. Other people who are insightful about this sort of thing noted that we had a huge disparity in the skills with which kids are – possess when they start Kindergarten. And you know, you don’t have to think about that very long to realize that that’s a fundamental problem. You know, a kid shows up to kindergarten on that first day and somebody beside him is writing and somebody else is reading and somebody else is telling time, and he can’t do any of that stuff. He leaves that first day of Kindergarten with a complete sense of deficiency, a complete sense of being inadequate. And it’s not hard to imagine that having a fundamental impact on what happens in the next twelve years of the educational process.

So the early learning thing says that we have to provide enough experience, some kind of, you know, learning to read and also some sense of social skills to deal with the classroom situation, that kind of thing. To have every child, including those whose parents aren’t sophisticated about such things go into the thing at the same level as your children or mine. And it’s really fundamental and obvious when you get right down to it.

And the fact of the matter is that it’s a movement which has caught on in this country just over the last five or six years in a very big way. In part, incidentally, as an example of what our sophisticated educators have seen in places like Finland and places in England where there is this early learning activity long established. And where the, the outcomes of the kids are clearly different.

As a matter of fact, there are some very interesting occasions in our own country, particularly a thing called the Perry Preschool Study where there were some people in the Midwest who did very careful and thorough job about early learning. Getting at children before they went to Kindergarten. And they did the scientific thing: they had a control group and they had the group of kids who had this experience, and they followed their progress over a period of thirty years and, you know, kept track of what was going on. And the differences were dramatic. The early learning thing worked.

EC: Recently we here at KCTS produced a program called Ready, Set, Grow. You appeared on that program with us, and we thank you very much.

BG Sr. : No, thank you.

EC: Well, tell me, what did you think of our effort to cover that subject and its importance?

BG Sr. : I think they were wonderful. And the fact of the matter is that it’s the kind of thing which people respond to very, very quickly. You don’t have to have an encyclopedia, or a 400-page book or a long movie to explain the issue to people. It comes across very quickly because it’s sort of common sense. And so, you know, that sort of thing that you did at KCTS was a wonderful contribution to the effort.

EC: As you saw the show, hopefully you saw it, and your participation in it – do you feel like this is an important ongoing thing that we should be covering, and you hope we will be covering?

BG Sr. : No question about it. No question. While there is momentum around the movement, we have a long way to go, and you know, one of the obvious things here is that for it to be implemented at a really general level around the state, there needs to be funding to make it happen. So we need some public will behind it.

EC: And do you think we brought that out, at least touching on those issues?

BG Sr. : No – absolutely no question about it. Television is – you know, there’s no better way of brining about a – education, a change in attitudes and the acceptance of new idea.

EC: Great. Thank you very much.

BG Sr. : Thank you.