Bill Gates
gatesnotes.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2014
Bill Gates writes about global health, climate change, technology, and books he has read, including reviews and annual letters.
What HN saysHN links it mostly for his book recommendations and reviews, as well as his views on health and climate topics.
476HN people shared it
199linked it in comments
487stories submitted
21Kstory points
7 months agolast shared
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Most-shared posts
- 1The Deadliest Animal in the World12 people · 24 points · first shared 2014 · 1 comments on HN
- 2Climate change and the 75% problem10 people · 140 points · first shared 2018 · 158 comments on HN
- 3Ideas for Summer Reading9 people · 1 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 4Bill Gates: Books I loved in 20188 people · 21 points · first shared 2018 · 1 comments on HN
- 5What You Believe Affects What You Achieve7 people · 436 points · first shared 2015 · 148 comments on HN
- 6How to Respond to COVID-197 people · 150 points · first shared 2020 · 107 comments on HN
- 7Bill and Melinda Gates 2016 Annual Letter6 people · 255 points · first shared 2016 · 144 comments on HN
- 82018 Annual Letter from Bill and Melinda Gates6 people · 219 points · first shared 2018 · 109 comments on HN
- 9A Basic Guide for Curious Minds: Review of “Thing Explainer”6 people · 179 points · first shared 2015 · 70 comments on HN
- 10The year global health went local – Bill Gates6 people · 27 points · first shared 2021 · 4 comments on HN
- 11Bill Gates: What I’m Thinking about This New Year’s Eve6 people · 17 points · first shared 2019 · 2 comments on HN
- 12Why Inequality Matters6 people · 12 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 13Summer books and other things to do at home6 people · 6 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 14My new favorite book of all time5 people · 651 points · first shared 2018 · 396 comments on HN
- 15What I learned at work this year5 people · 278 points · first shared 2018 · 123 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
mooreds · 2025-09-02
Based on Bill Gate's recommendation[0], I read the Vital Question a few years ago.
It tries to answer the important question of how life evolves from chemistry. I remember him spending a long time on the chemistry and location questions, but not on the time it took. Probably hard to do from the fossil record.
0: https://www.gatesnotes.com/the-vital-question
ViktorRay · 2025-05-27
I haven’t read this book but I read another excellent book about the fall of GE. The book’s name was Lights Out.
Here is a positive review of that other book from Bill Gates:
https://www.gatesnotes.com/lights-out
langfo · 2024-08-14
Recommendations from people I follow on Twitter. Interviews from people on traditional TV promoting their book. Also, I can't count how many times from just strolling through the local library I've picked up a book which has caught my eye, borrowed it and thorougly enjoyed the book. Bill Gates book list -https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books
MilnerRoute · 2023-12-23
Bill Gates believes microbiome research could lead to a breakthrough in fighting malnutrition. Partners of his foundation are already in phase III clinical trials for a probiotic supplement.
"The results so far are amazing: Feeding infants this probiotic helps them move their microbiome into that positive state so they can grow up and achieve their full potential. This could be a tremendously helpful tool for preventing malnutrition."
https://www.gatesnotes.com/The-Year-Ahead-2024
akudha · 2022-08-21
feels the need to charge at all
lol. Bill Gates' book on climate change is selling for $14 (Kindle version) https://www.amazon.com/How-Avoid-Climate-Disaster-Breakthroughs-ebook/…
I can understand charging for hard copy, but why does someone worth 100B feel the need to charge for digital version of his book on the most important topic of today, climate change? Even if 100,000 people buy it, that is what, 1.4M? Bill must make more than that in the time it takes for him to drink his morning coffee?
That said, it is his book, he can do whatever he wants with it. He was kind enough to make the PDF available for free for college kids, for a while... https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/How-to-Avoid-a-Climate-Disaster-give…
dho · 2022-03-09
I often find interesting books on the book lists from Bill Gates (https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books) and Derek Sivers (https://sive.rs/book).
And of course there are many good recommendations here on HN in book-related threads.
jpmattia · 2021-11-09
Relevant: Bill Gates posted (back in June) a book review about GE:
Lights Out, What happened to GE?
The fall of one of America’s great companies.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Lights-Out
carapace · 2021-10-02
Here's a fascinating talk by Václav Smil at the Driva Climate Investment Meeting in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkj_91IJVBk
Bill Gates calls him "one of my favorite thinkers" and reviews his recent book "Growth":
> Vaclav Smil ... reaches the ... conclusion: Earth is fragile and “before it is too late, we should embark in earnest on the most fundamental existential [task] of making any future growth compatible with the long-term preservation of the only biosphere we have.”
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Growth
nobodyknowsyoda · 2021-08-02
What is the current price of carbon credits in the ETS? I am from the USA / am dumb, so don’t know how to find it
Also good read for everyone: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Introducing-the-Green-Premiums
marc__1 · 2021-04-15
in this case you should definitely read Vaclav Smil book Growth.
It covers how similar growth patterns can be identified, from cities, vegetation, motors and human life.
It is a long book, but recommended by none other than gates [1]
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Growth
nrao123 · 2021-03-08
This is a great idea.
You mention:
"We noticed that the people we admired used plain lists on their personal websites"
Any way to collect book reccomendations from public sources and preload it? I imagine this maybe some manual work but the utility will be great.
For e.g.:
Gates - https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Summer-Books-2020
Collision : https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf
Andreessen - https://www.goodbooks.io/people/marc-andreessen
Btw - I just noticed while googling that this may be what GoodBooks.io is attempting
binarynate · 2021-01-29
There's a really good story on the stock corner of Piggly Wiggly in "Business Adventures", a book that Bill Gates said is his favorite business book.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures
CharlesMerriam2 · 2020-12-16
Bill Gates has a podcast recently talking about this: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Podcast/Is-it-too-late-to-stop-climate-chan…
Also, the book "Ministry For The Future" is an SF take pulling together ideas people have on climate change. The actual prose may make you throw the book at the wall.
You can, if you wish, push information forward. For example, having free interfaces to solar panels, cheap sun following controls, software to control car charging for cheap times, software to use a car as a 'peak load' battery, data modelling to show Hawaii why tourism is better with only electrics, software to create micro cargo ships with solar power, cleaning up the automated kite power generators that were open sourced, and the like.
You have more power than you expect.
parkersweb · 2020-12-09
Or another book recommendation from Gates Notes ‘Where Good Ideas Come From” https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From which argues that some of the most innovative discoveries from history come from exaptation - the application of ideas from one discipline to an unrelated field.
throwaway080920 · 2020-08-10
Indeed, if you look at what he was saying at the end of February, there was no concern about the way the U.S. was handling the pandemic. Look at what he wrote on February 28th[1] - his recommendations for the current pandemic are for richer countries to assist poorer countries, and for a vaccine to be made.
If someone like Gates sounded the alarm on the poor way the U.S. was responding, it might have made a difference, but he did no such thing. Like most of the leadership in the U.S., he seemed to have a big blind spot with regards to how bad things could get in America. Some people were sounding the alarm early on (take a look at the last minute of this video[2] for an example), but were mostly ignored.
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8VImMUvz-A
killjoywashere · 2020-07-15
"it's in the very poorest places that you're going to have a tripling in population ... it's amazingly as children survive, parents feel like they'll have enough kids to support them in their old age. And so they choose to have less children."
https://www.gatesnotes.com/about-bill-gates/a-conversation-with-bill-g…
brayhite · 2020-04-14
isn't that the point the author is making? they're suggesting that a website that most average internet folks would say is terrible/ugly/bad/etc is actually nearly perfect when looking through the lens of "who does this website serve".
it feels a bit naive to shrug this off as "elite wealthy people getting their ego boosted". where are the articles praising Jeff Bezos' "expeditions" website[0], or Bill Gates' personal blog[1]?
[0] https://www.bezosexpeditions.com/
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/
NhanH · 2019-12-10
It seems like this is a list of popular books that most everyone has heard about, and just incidentally includes good ones. My biased opinion is that Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the Intelligent Investor won't be placed on the same list by anyone who has read both of them.
Since the author mentioned Gates, I do recommend just taking a look at books he actually read and reviewed as better recommendations: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books
Reedx · 2019-10-05
It's shocking to me that the best solution we have for climate change gets downvoted on a site that's generally pro-science. But it seems to happen with every discussion about nuclear energy.
Also surprising how even Bill Gates gets ignored on this issue. He's talked repeatedly about why nuclear[1][2][3], yet doesn't get a lot of traction.
1. https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2018
2. https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520
3. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
brownbat · 2019-07-12
Agreed, this echoes Rosling's points in videos and in Factfulness about how societies actually progress.
India will have a special challenge from mosquitoes and diseases like dengue and malaria, but maybe the best approach to malaria will be turning mosquito-borne diseases into diseases of the rich. We probably can't fully appreciate the solutions a wealthy India (or wealthy Nigeria) would develop, applying new resources, the latest science, and metis to deal with the world's deadliest animal.
[0] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Factfulness#
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Most-Lethal-Animal-Mosquito-Week
muterad_murilax · 2019-05-15
Doesn't work either.
Even if I go to https://www.gatesnotes.com/ and click the link on the frontpage I reach the "Oops!" page.
igor47 · 2019-03-17
why should everyone agree with this?
i respectfully disagree. first, project drawdown considers nuclear[1] a "regret" solution, because we have no story for dealing with nuclear waste. in the US specifically, until i see some movement on the yucca mountain [2] political clusterf*ck[3], i won't see nuclear as worth considering.
also, energy generation is only 25% of "our problems with co2"[4]. agriculture and transit make up the bulk of the other 75%, and i don't think we're going to have nuclear trucks or cows any time soon.
[1]: https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/electricity-generation/nuclear
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU
[4]: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting-climate-change
acidburnNSA · 2019-03-01
This contains a link to the actual discussion [1] which I highly recommend watching. Bill demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of energy systems, guided by one of his favorite authors (Vaclav Smil) who recently wrote the incredible and humbling book, Energy and Civilization [2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k
[2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Energy-and-Civilization
__s · 2019-02-25
There's two perspectives:
1. The world will become a place of suffering. The assumption here is either that childhood is a terrible experience, or that suicide is immoral. Your children can decide for themselves if they don't think it's worth being alive in the future
2. Overpopulation is the cause of this doomsday. In that case, we're asserting that having children today means less children will be born in the future. This implies we need to reduce birthrates to more efficiently invest the planet. Unfortunately this line of thought can quickly devolve into eugenics. There are better ways to stabilize population. Relevant: Does saving kids’ lives lead to overpopulation? https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=02_13_2018_02_A…
AngeloAnolin · 2019-02-21
I've read the book by Carreyrou - Bad Blood [1] and up until this time, I am left wondering if she really was insane, or on the firm belief that she can revolutionize something.
For her to be able to convince a lot of people - companies, investors, CEOs and perhaps a multitude of bright people to do what seems to conclude as a big fraud is still mind boggling to say the least.
You got the best engineers, doctors, laboratory technologists, medical techs, pharmacists, and just about everyone in science, and yet they continued for so long on this path of bizarre development of a product. Why did these people only realized when it was too late and that everything would crumble down at some point? They must have shared her vision with an intensity that has out shined their conscience and common sense.
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Bad-Blood
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 · 2018-12-25
Obama’s yearly book list (https://m.facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10156093753316749) usually has good gems, as does Bill Gates’ one (https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Best-Books-2018)
The book that made the most impact on me is Tara Westwood’s Educated: it is insane how different people’s worldview is.
gist · 2018-12-04
> Don't you think some of these are interesting?
Because there is so much that someone can read it is usually helpful to have additional information so you can decide if it's worth reading.
Now I am not a Bill Gates fan in any way, and I am not saying you should go into the depth that he does, but as an example look at what he does when he recommends a book. He doesn't just say 'this is something I find interesting'.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Educated
> 'Cause It's like a secret society where you have to figure it out over time or be clued in.
Hah well this thinking is similar to, say, Twitter which on purpose makes things difficult for the ordinary man and the beginner. Will note that Apple took a different attitude with the iphone in 2007 and we know how that ended up.
So sure why not be more welcoming to newcomers?
computerphage · 2018-08-08
The Grid.
I heard about it two years ago and recommend it often.
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Grid
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Best-Books-2016
mns06 · 2018-07-13
I'm 2/3 of the way through Enlightenment Now by Stephen Pinker, having seen Bill Gates describe it as his new favourite book of all time: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Enlightenment-Now.
With the daily news cycle full of violence, hatred and despair, the book is an rationally optimistic (possibilist!) argument that the human condition has been improving since the days of the Enlightenment - and that the improvement is driven by reason, science and humanism. Definitely recommended.
croo · 2018-06-27
I'd add that this question your answer is an excellent example of the fixed / growth mindset I read about in a Gates Notes[1].
'I'm not good at math it's not for me' vs 'I'm not good at it because I did not spent enough time with it'.
[1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-of-Success