And what about Steve Jobs in those days?
What was your relationship with him in the early days,
and how did it change?
Well, we were both there at the very beginning
The Apple One was a kick computer that Steve Wozniak
designed, and he worked with Steve
And they came and offered it at various of these
computer club meetings
And we went to lots of computer club meetings
So we were sort of colleagues in pitching the gospel of
personal computing, we were kind of competitors
The time we work together most intensely
Was after the IBM PC came out
Steve had a group actually a small group at Apple
that was doing the Macintosh
And he came to us early on and asked us if
we'd commit resource
So we actually put more people on the project
than Apple did
And did the early application software that used
that Mouse, graphics interface
And so it was a huge win both for Microsoft and for Apple,
when the Macintosh became so successful
When your mother first said I'd like you to come and have dinner with me and Warren Buffett will be here
You should meet him, you didn't seem that interested,
why was that?
Well Warren, I thought it was somebody who bought and
sold securities, which is a very zero-sum thing
That's not curing disease or a cool piece of software
And the idea of looking at volume curves, and
it doesn't invent anything
And so I thought my way of looking at the world
What I wanted to figure out dd and what he looked at, that
there wouldn't be much intersection
And that's why it was so shocking when I met him
He was the first person to really ask me about software,
and software pricing
And why wasn't IBM with all of their strengths
able to overwhelm Microsoft
And what was going to happen in terms of how software
would change the world
And you know he let me ask him about OK why do you
invest in certain industries
And why are some banks more proper than others
And he was clearly a broad systems thinker
And so it started a conversation that has
been fun and enriching
And you know an incredible friendship, that was
completely unexpected
And he taught you how to play bridge, or did
you already know?
I know how to play bridge, but I had done it just our family had done it
And then because Warren it was a chance to
spend time with Warren
I renewed my bridge skill, at first very poorly
But both golf and bridge were things that we did
In our hour hours that we got to goof off together
You've given up on golf?
Well, Warren gave up on golf a few years ago, and so my
primary excuse to play golf has gone away
So I'm golfing not much now
Tennis has become my my primary sport
Warren Buffett called you one day and said by the way
I'm going to give you most of my money
Were you surprised when he said he wanted to give you
all this money from his wealth to your foundation?
That was a complete surprise because Warren is the best
investor, and he's built this unbelievable company
And he was giving me advice about all the things I was
doing I was learning so much from him
But his wealth was devoted to a foundation that
his wife was in charge of
And so tragically she passed away
And so then he had to think that his initial plan
wouldn't make sense
And and much to my surprise he decided that
a part of the wealth
A little over 80% of it would come to our foundation
So it was a huge honor, a huge responsibility
An incredible thing because it let us raise
our level of ambition
Even beyond what we would have done without that..
By most definitions the most generous gift of all time
And you started with Warren and Melinda The Giving
Pledge, what is that about and how does it work?
Well, Warren was brainstorming with us about how did
philanthropists figure out what to do
And what how could they kind of help share with each
other without giving up the diversity what they did
And so he got us to do some dinners with people who
are already doing amazing philanthropy
And talk about how they built staff and picked causes
And not that they would give to the same things
But how early people get engaged would be enhanced
By the people getting together and making
a public commitment
To give the majority of their wealth away, and so that's
become the Giving Pledge group
