Charlie Rose with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates & Melinda Gates (June 26, 2006)

This program involves a discussion of the largest single charitable act in history, Warren Buffett's gift of thirty billion dollars to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Charlie Rose who is a friend of Buffett and has had Bill Gates on his show several times thanks at the end of the show the three 'benefactors' for having come to talk with him about the gift. The show is an especially interesting one because it not only gives an inside picture of super- wealthy people who have devoted themselves wisely to greater social good, but gives a real feeling for how the Foundation money they have contributed will be used in the future. It also shows the cordial relations between Buffett and the Gates, and also Rose. And it too shows Bill and Melinda Gates' as especially understanding, responsive and generous couple.
Buffett explains how he has loved going to work, loved making the money and will continue to do so. He says he always knew that it had to go back into the society and to help 'level the field' and give those 'who got the short stick' a chance.
The Gates' speak of the work their Foundation does .At one point Melinda Gates estimates that the vaccines that they have provided to children have saved ten million lives. This is so astonishing and it makes one feel a true admiration for these people. The Gates' too understood that having all that wealth was not an end in itself. They understood that it had to be wisely used for the good of others. And they too were wise in zeroing in on the global health problems of the world's poorest peoples. Melinda Gates is especially detailed in talking about the Foundation work. She talks about complications of the work, for instance in one case distributing smallpox vaccine when people have to wait in line on empty - stomachs for two hours a day , to receive it. In other words she sees that there are overall systems- problems involved, and that it is not just a matter of getting medicines to the people. She talks about the way the Gates foundation works with a whole variety of other institutions. One interesting point was that fourth- world diseases often have no proper medicines for them - because it does not pay drug companies to produce medicines for populations that cannot pay for them. This is one of the problems the Gates Foundation will address.
Bill Gates who intends to retire from Microsoft in June 2008 and devote his fulltime to the Foundation says that the Foundation devotes two- thirds of its resources to Global Health and will devote one- third to Education within the United States.
This was a warm and friendly conversation with much mutual laughter. Rose is again to be commended for doing his work in a most thorough and intelligent way- and providing the 'ordinary person' insight into the lives and way of thought of people we would otherwise not so well know.
Above all the program tells of an effort which will attack what is in one sense the major set of problems Mankind faces.
A blessing to these people for the goodness they have done, and will do.