What does the world’s richest man (and largest philanthropist) have in common with the world’s biggest rock star (and most effective social activist)? A capitalist’s outlook on solving global poverty
Forbes: While you two are an odd pairing on paper, I have a theory that there are more similarities than you might think.
Bono: Tallness!
Forbes: You both played chess growing up. You both started college—neither of you finished it. You both built global businesses. You both were affected deeply by your first trips to Africa—Bono after Live Aid, and Bill before your honeymoon with Melinda on safari—and you both consider Nelson Mandela one of your top heroes. So given this, Bill, true or false: The first time you had a chance to meet Bono you didn’t really want to because you thought it would be a waste of time?
Bill Gates: Yeah, we have a mutual friend, Paul Allen, and Paul said to me several times, “You know, Bono is really serious about poverty and the stuff you’re working on; you should talk to him.” And I have to admit, I did not make it a priority. And then there was a Davos [meeting] that was in New York after 9/11, so Bono, Bill Clinton and I met, and I was kind of amazed that he actually knew what he was talking about and had a real commitment to making things happen. It was phenomenal. Ever since then we’ve been big partners in crime.
Forbes: Bono, you’ve said that you’ve learned a lot from Bill. What has he taught you, and why did you seek him out?
Bono: Before I tell you what I learned from Bill, I’ll tell you what I taught him. It’s an interesting story about not judging your friends. I said to Paul Allen, “Would you help me get to Bill Gates? Because we really need to professionalise our operation, and we need funding, and I know that he’s interested in the same things that we are, and Melinda, too.” Paul’s a kind of shy guy, but he usually answers my emails, and he stopped answering them. Actually, I got a little cross with Paul, and I said, “Well, that’s not very nice.” This is the one thing I’ve ever asked him to do.
I had no idea, of course, that he’d been asking Bill, but Bill was actually like, “No, I don’t want to meet him! It’s Sonny Bono, or whatever.”
I went up to see Bill and Melinda, and I said, “Look, we have an organisation, and we’ve got very, very smart people. Brilliant people. But we need to professionalise.” President Bush had taken over the White House. Our rather relaxed attire going into Bill Clinton’s White House we felt was no longer appropriate, and we really needed to be more formal. So we got a million dollars from Bill [Gates]. And then he later told the New York Times or somebody that that was the best million dollars he ever spent. That’s a great compliment, coming from Bill Gates, and it makes funding a lot easier.
But what was shocking for me as an activist was to learn how important the role of commerce was in ending extreme poverty and the role that entrepreneurial capitalism has played in taking people out of extreme poverty. Right now capitalism is in the dark. It’s on trial. There’s a sense of the “us” and “them”, the 99 percent, the 1 percent, those who’ve gamed the situation, those who’ve been screwed by the situation. Some of these accusations, of course, are ridiculously far-fetched. But some of them are not. It’s critical that [entrepreneurial philanthropy] somehow coheres in the 21st century into a new sort of shape and form. What I learned from Bill and Melinda is that it wasn’t just going to be their cash that would be put to work but that the most important thing that they would contribute would be their brainpower.
Forbes: Bono, I believe you have called yourself an “adventure capitalist”. Maybe talk a little about RED and where you’re taking your advocacy.
Bono: I remember going to see Bob Rubin just after he left being Treasury Secretary. We asked him his advice on tackling HIV/AIDS. And he said, “You know, if you want to move the dial on this, you’ve got to go about it like Nike almost. You’ve got to explain to, say, America, the scale of the problem and how the problem can be solved. And you’ll probably have to spend $50 million doing that, the same way Nike spent marketing their ideas.” I said, “Bob, where do we get $50 million?” He said, “That’s your problem!”
We formed RED. And now RED, with the help of the Gates Foundation—by the way, I couldn’t do anything I do without the Gates Foundation—was an attempt to sort of piggyback the great companies like Apple or Microsoft, Armani, the fashion company, Starbucks. At the French Open all the great tennis players came out with their red tennis racquets, because the Head company has gone RED. So we use RED not just to raise the ... I think it’s $207 million we have raised so far to buy AIDS drugs for those people who can’t afford them—but to create heat and excitement around the issue of solving the problem. When lawmakers met in Congress in difficult times they would feel heat. We used to get this thing up on the Hill here in the US, and [they weren’t] feeling that one, that AIDS emergency. So we wanted to be in shopping malls, where they would feel it. When they walked down the street and saw a Gap T-shirt, they’d feel it. When it comes to appropriations—and this year was a struggle to get funding for the Global Fund [which provides money to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria]—the heat is very important.
That’s what RED does. It creates heat, so that when the other organisation, ONE, can actually go in Berlin, in France, in Paris, in London, we go after the big government budgets and tackle it that way.
Forbes: Bono is the activist who’s become a capitalist. Bill, you’re one of the alltime capitalists and philanthropists who’s now had to increase how much you work with governments. Can entrepreneurial philanthropy and activism be practiced purely, or do they inherently need to be merged?
Bono: Applying transparency to development, actually, was a big lesson for us. It’s strange, but the two parties most important in the transaction that we call development assistance are the two sides of the equation who know the least about it. The taxpayer and the child who’s been vaccinated or the student who sits in a class. That has got to change. And I think it will be wonderful when it does.
(This story appears in the 13 December, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)