Bill Gates strides into the boardroom of Bafta in central London, pumps my hand and the clock starts ticking. It’s been noted before that, despite being the richest person in the world for a good chunk of the past 30 years, the one commodity he can’t buy more of is time. Gates has the same 24 hours in a day as the 7.9 billion rest of us. Today, I have him for 45 minutes, though in actual fact it will end up being just shy of 41. Those four minutes are, at least for the 66-year-old co-founder of Microsoft and the planet’s deepest-pocketed philanthropist, potentially huge.
Chit-chat bounces off him. Good flight? Gates, who is dressed in shades of blue from head to suede slip-ons, cracks open a Diet Coke, pops in a Halls extra-strong menthol lozenge. “Yes.” Did he come from Seattle? “I came in from New York last night.” Is he happy to be travelling again, and not doing these things over Zoom, or sorry, Teams? “I don’t think I’ll travel quite as much in the future. But some things still you want to be in person.” You don’t, I’m learning, almost eradicate polio with small talk.
