Every January, U.S. billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates releases his annual letter, a must-read for global development observers, professionals and officials. Here are 7 things you may not know about Gates’ annual letters.

1. 7 things you
may not know
about Bill
Gates’
annual letters

2. Every January, U.S. billionaire
philanthropist Bill Gates
releases his annual letter, a
must-read for global
development observers,
professionals and officials.
Here are 7 things you may not
know about Gates’ annual
letters.

3. Bill Gates started issuing an annual letter in 2009 as per the suggestion of U.S. businessman and fellow billionaire
philanthropist Warren Buffett, who pledged in 2006 most of his wealth to the foundation and four charities formed
by his family. Buffett, a trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, also issues an annual letter addressed to
Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.
“I won’t be quoting Mae West or trying to match his [Buffett’s] humor, but I will try to be equally candid.”
- Bill Gates, 2009

4. Bill Gates’ annual letter should not be mistaken for the
Gates Foundation’s annual report, which mainly talks
about where it spent its money and how in the past
year. The annual letter serves as more of an advocacy
tool, especially to argue the importance of foreign aid in
saving lives, improving agriculture and, overall,
eradicating poverty.
“The public may not prioritize keeping foreign aid at
high levels because so many of them have not heard
how effective it is. Some formed their image of foreign
aid during the Cold War, when money was sent to buy
the allegiance of a dictator with very little control to
make sure it was well spent. We need to get the
successes to be far more visible than they are today.”
- Bill Gates, 2010

5. Aside from foreign aid, innovation is a dominant theme of Gates’ annual
letters. He argues that technological advances, and therefore funding them, is
essential to improving lives in the developing world. That’s not surprising
given his background as one of the world’s modern technology pioneers.
“Advances in science have played a huge role in improving the living
conditions in the rich world over the past century. Technology is also a
personal passion of Melinda’s and mine. So we try to point scientific
research toward the problems of the poor, like agriculture. This is why we
tend not to fund other important things like building health clinics or roads,
which are better left to governments.”
- Bill Gates, 2009

6. Through infographics and easy-to-understand graphs, Bill Gates’ annual letters do a good job in presenting and
explaining progress in global health or impact of foreign aid investment. (And sometimes he gives a dash of humor
when presenting them.)
“Over the past 50 years childhood deaths have dropped dramatically. Take a look at Chart 1, which is one of my
favorites. (I hope you didn’t think you were going to get through this letter without some figures being thrown at
you.)”
- Bill Gates, 2009

7. Gates’ annual letters typically talk about the different
focus areas of his foundation. But in 2014, he focused
his letter on debunking myths about foreign aid, and
called on everyone “to help get the word out on all
these myths,” namely that the poor are deemed to
stay poor, foreign aid is a big waste, and saving lives
leads to overpopulation.
“Melinda and I are struck by how many people think
the world is getting worse. The belief that the world
can’t solve extreme poverty and disease isn’t just
mistaken. It is harmful. That’s why in this year’s
letter we take apart some of the myths that slow
down the work. The next time you hear these myths,
we hope you will do the same.”
- Bill Gates, 2014

8. Gates makes predictions about global development. In 2010, he
said he foresees at least one scalable innovation in energy
(particularly one that is cheaper than coal and emits zero
greenhouse gases) will surface over the next two decades and
be installed widely in two decades thereafter; in 2014, he said
he believes that by 2035, “there will be almost no poor
countries left in the world,” based on current definition of
poverty, and that all countries will have child mortality rates as
low as those in the United States and United Kingdom in 1980
(or about 15 per 1,000 deaths).
“I have believed for a long time that disparities in health are
some of the worst inequities in the world — that it is unjust
and unacceptable that millions of children die every year from
causes that we can prevent or treat. I don’t think a child’s fate
should be left to what Warren Buffett calls the ‘ovarian
lottery.’ If we hit this goal of convergence, the ovarian lottery
for health outcomes will be closed for good.”
- Bill Gates, 2014

9. The annual letters indicate what Bill and Melinda Gates
will do for the rest of the year, such as the plan in 2009
to increase the percentage of their foundation’s
spending to 7 percent ($3.8 billion) from slightly above 5
percent ($3.3 billion) previously and the launching in
2012 of www.thegatesnotes.com, a website featuring
Bill Gates’ thoughts about his trips and meetings with
“someone interesting” as well as commentaries from
other global development innovators.
“Unfortunately, many people believe the opposite [on
foreign aid] — that money spent on development is
wasted, or that it doesn’t get lasting results. Melinda
and I will spend a lot of time in the coming year
explaining why they’re mistaken. The relatively small
amount of money invested in development has
changed the future prospects of billions of people —
and it can do the same for billions more if we make the
choice to continue investing in innovation. We will
repeat that message over and over in our speeches and
interviews, and on gatesfoundation.org and
gatesnotes.com, because we are convinced that when
people hear stories of the lives they’ve helped to
improve, they want to do more, not less.”
- Bill Gates, 2012

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