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Editorial: Bill Gates

Out to change the world, again

Bill Gates, a man who already has changed the world twice, is looking for a threepeat.

First, he led Microsoft for more than three decades, shaping and commandeering the world personal computer market. Today, one billion PCs are in use worldwide, with Microsoft Windows the champion operating system.

Next, in the mid-1990s, stung by criticism of his philanthropic record, he created first the William H. Gates Foundation, and then the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which since 2000 has given more than $29 billion to causes ranging from AIDS and malaria to minority scholarships.

The Gateses created a novel kind of philanthropy: transparent; globally oriented yet locally active; engaged in both gifting and empowerment. Gates and co-giver Warren Buffett have pledged that, instead of a self-sustaining bureaucracy, the foundation will spend itself out of existence within 50 years of the founders' demise.

Last month, Gates moved from full-time head exec at Microsoft to a part-time advisory role. He says he will now spend all of his time on philanthropy, a world he and wife Melinda have changed for good (in all senses of the word).

Once upon a time, super-wealthy donors made bequests that, while generous, reflected self-interest or personal experience. But thanks in large part to the Gateses' example, mega-givers increasingly are donating astounding amounts to global causes. In 1998, media giant Ted Turner created and pledged $1 billion to the United Nations Foundation. Buffett, in genial competition with Gates for the title of World's Biggest Philanthropist, said in 2006 he would give his fortune (more than $62 billion) to charity, 83 percent going to the Gates Foundation.

Closer to home, Penn announced on June 3 that Jerome and Anne Fisher had donated $50 million to support a biomedical research center. The aim? "Translational medicine," new techniques to speed lab discoveries to the market as useful drugs. And yesterday, Princeton University announced a $100 million gift from venture capitalist Gerhard Andlinger, to power research on sustainable energy and the environment. These gifts are great credits to the donors and to their models, including Bill Gates.

That's two. What's the third?

For a couple of years now, Gates has been challenging the nature of capitalism itself. In a speech Jan. 25 at the Davos Economic Summit, Gates called for "creative capitalism." Businesses must "find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well . . . making profits and also improving lives for those who don't fully benefit from market forces."

Now for that threepeat: In light of what he's done so far, one has to hope Gates has as much success in reshaping capitalism to address the needs of the poor as he's had getting rich while changing the communications world.