CLAMAN: Do you use a tablet now, Warren?
BUFFETT: No, but I do find the computer very useful.
CLAMAN: Finally.
BUFFETT: No, no, I’ve been doing it a long time, actually. Once Bill got me playing bridge on it, then I found all these other things — search and things — and it changed my life for the better, in a huge way.
CLAMAN: Well, I just, I ask about the PC because, you know, Larry Flynt of “Hustler” said that the magazine “Hustler” won’t exist in two years because of just the way things are going. He’s very unsentimental about it even though it’s what made him hundreds of millions of dollars. He looks at that landscape and says that’s just the way it is.
And yet, I keep hearing say —
BUFFETT: Bill has to be the expert on “Hustler”.
GATES: I think that Liz is more up-to-date
CLAMAN: Having just been there interviewing “Penthouse” and “Hustler”, yes, we were doing the business of vice investing. Can’t believe you missed that.
BUFFETT: I hope we’re not part of that series
CLAMAN: Well, speaking of sex and vice actually —
BUFFETT: Good.
CLAMAN: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has just put it out there to create a better condom. You know, you guys are into transformative industries and things like that. Have you had any good suggestions yet?
GATES: That challenge just went out. But when we’ve done that in the past, asking for a better toilet, a better way to get vaccines out to poor people, better seeds, it’s been amazing the scientists that have come up with ideas.
Because they often don’t know what the challenges for the poorest are, and yet they’d like to help out with those things, so we’ve been able to facilitate a lot more IQ coming into these hard problems
CLAMAN: A better condom, Warren. What do you think about that?
BUFFETT: It’s too late.
(LAUGHTER)
CLAMAN: I want to get to hacking because we have this opportunity to talk to somebody who would know about that. You know, this has become a very discuss issue. Are you writing any insurance policies now for companies that want to protect themselves against hacking?
BUFFETT: I don’t think so we are. It’s conceivable that sort of policy could be developed, but I think it’d be a little hard to define and figuring damages and all that. But I don’t know of any policy that anybody’s writing on that, but I may not be up-to-date on that
CLAMAN: Bill, this is serious. Has Microsoft been asked by the government to try and help solve this problem? You guys are among the smartest in the room.
GATES: Well, the security issue in technology has been a big deal for a number of years. One of my memos when I was still full-time was about the security need. And it’s great that everybody’s paying so much attention to this because all of your information is there digitally and so you have to organize your network in a very careful fashion.
CLAMAN: We have Georgetown University business school, McDonough Business School, student standing by. They have a question for you, Bill. Georgetown, go ahead with your question. You’re with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
STEPHANIE CHEN, MCDONOUGH BUSINESS SCHOOL: Good morning, Mr. Gates. My name is Stephanie Chen (ph) and I’m a student at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. My question for you is what is the greatest global challenge in the next ten years and what can this generation of young business leaders do to solve that problem?
GATES: Well, my advice is that the poorest 2 billion in the world out of the 7 billion have not shared in the riches and innovation that we all kind of take for granted. And so I think it’s critical, whether it’s getting them new vaccines or better seeds for agriculture, that we a little bit put more energy
