Entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates discussed his new autobiography on his upbringing and early career at Lisner Auditorium on Wednesday.
Gates — who talked about Source Code, his book released last week that chronicles his early years before he founded Microsoft in 1975 — spoke about his childhood, the early years of Microsoft and his reaction to the Trump administration’s recent actions to freeze foreign aid. Gates and NBC News Today host Savannah Guthrie spoke before a sold-out auditorium for an event, which was interrupted by climate protesters for at least two-and-a-half minutes, co-sponsored by the University and local bookstore Politics and Prose.
Guthrie began the conversation by showing a video compilation of Gates’ television interviews dating back to when he was a young entrepreneur. As the video ended and the duo began talking about his “nerdy” younger years, nine protesters walked through the auditorium and sat on the edge of the stage in front of Gates and Guthrie.
The protesters held up a sign that read “Billionaires are a Climate Disaster” and yelled as the crowd booed and called for them to be removed.
“Bill Gates is not a climate hero,” one protester said.
GW Police Department officers approached and appeared to speak with the protesters as they chanted over the crowd’s calls of disapproval.
“Tax the rich, tax the motherf*cking rich,” the protesters chanted.
After over two-and-a-half minutes, Bradley Graham, the owner of Politics and Prose, walked up to a microphone on stage and asked the protesters to leave, asserting that GWPD would escort them out if they refused. Chanting continued and GWPD escorted the protesters out of the auditorium, prompting cheers from the crowd. As the last protester exited the room, Guthrie chalked the interruption up to the nature of “college campuses” and redirected the conversation to Gates’ book.
Gates said although he is normally focused on the future and rarely reminisces about the past, he is nearing 70 years old, which has caused him to “look back” and share the story of his early life.
“I really wanted to show how amazing my parents were, how amazing my education was, how the luck when I was born, the things I got exposed to really put me in an incredible position,” Gates said.
Gates said he was fascinated by computers since he was first introduced to the technology at school when he was 13 years old. He said he and his friends used to sift through dumpsters outside computer labs to find discarded documents that could help them understand how the computers functioned.
“We were mystified about, ‘Okay, what was the code there?’ And at first we didn’t know much, but slowly but surely, we learned a lot,” Gates said. “And part of it was that we had taken the source code listings out of those garbage cans and sort of figured out, ‘Okay, it’s actually how does the system work.”
Gates said just hours before the event, he had met with Trump and White House Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles at the White House, in which he advocated for the continuation of the U.S. Agency for International Development, after Trump recently froze its funding. He said throughout this presidential “transition,” what the Trump administration will keep and what they will attempt to end is “kind of up in the air.”
Gates said he spoke to Trump and Wiles about progress that could be made in fighting HIV, polio and “American energy.” When asked whether the president and chief of staff were receptive to his suggestions, Gates said he hoped so.
“So there’ll be some push and tug right now in terms of USAID,” Gates said. “He’s getting different inputs from different people.”
Guthrie asked Gates about Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, who Gates said the Senate will likely confirm. Gates said Kennedy has said “different things” about vaccines, referring to Kennedy’s statement that he supports vaccines while having previously worked advocating against them.
Gates, who has worked for years through The Gates Foundation to help slow the spread of diseases like polio and measles, said he hopes to have a good working relationship with Kennedy’s team — although he expressed skepticism, citing that Kennedy wrote a book claiming Gates “killed millions of children,” with the COVID vaccine.
Pulling from an audience-provided question, Guthrie asked Gates how he stays optimistic in the face of global threats. Gates said people have a habit of paying attention to the problems and things they think are “going backwards,” and that although there have been some issues, the world is still moving forward toward a more educated and equal society.
“It’s more up than down,” Gates said. “And so this is the greatest time to be alive.”
