"Is that what we have in mind: to delay Armageddon for three years?" -- Bill Gates
Credit: Brad Swonetz/Redux
The cofounder of Microsoft talks energy.
When Bill Gates is interested in something new, his organizing, capacious intelligence learns everything about it, and he imagines ways it could be better. Now the cofounder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is interested in energy. At his offices in Kirkland, WA, he spoke to Jason Pontin, Technology Review's editor in chief. Gates called for energy "miracles" and a more rational energy policy, and he explained how being a software "fanatic" prepared him to invest in new ideas.
TR: The Gates Foundation has invested in solutions to big problems like infectious diseases in poor countries. Providing clean energy for the nine billion people the planet will hold in 2050 is a problem that's civilizational in scale. What can philanthropy contribute to energy research?
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