So, you have a problem and you want to know how to solve it. I don’t really care what your problem is. We all have problems. Some are big problems, like climate change. The fact is that as I write this, Miami is sinking and one day alligators are going to be living in people’s second-story condos. Bill Gates likes to solve big problems like that (he wrote a whole book about it called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster). Some of us have ordinary problems, though. For example, my problems include not drinking enough water, having a lot of student loan debt (the government is only cool with bailing out Wall Street, not students, duh!), or trying not to lose my mind while my dog barks at the neighbors who are throwing out the trash for the tenth time this morning. My problems are stupid, I’m sorry. I know people are starving, facing eviction, dealing with trying to do spreadsheets while their Kindergartener does story time over Zoom, and sick from a global pandemic. I know.
Whatever your problem is, Bill Gates is really good at solving problems. He basically invented the personal computer. He’s also written a whole book about how to solve climate change called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster and if you want to know what I think about How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, you can read all that here. The thing that’s interesting about How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is that it gives you a glimpse into how Bill Gates solves problems. And that’s what I want to explore here.
How Bill Gates Solves Problems:
- Be Ambitious. Bill Gates sets incredibly ambitious goals. In How to Avoid a Climate Disaster he lays out a plan about how we can get our emissions down to zero. Of course, many of the innovations that are required for this haven’t been invented yet. I think his logic runs along the lines of “aim for the stars, and if you miss, you either end up on the space station, or with a broken ankle, but either way, it’s better than not aiming high enough.”
- Take the Time to Understand the Scope of the Problem. This can be really easy, sometimes, but it can also be really hard. Climate change is hard because there are so many ways that carbon gets into the atmosphere. Paying off debt can be hard because the cost of living is high, or you may not really know how you’re spending your money. For example, I need to stop buying so many books.
- The Things You Don’t Notice, Matter. Bill Gates likes David Foster Wallace. I like David Foster Wallace, too. David Foster Wallace once told a story about fish who were swimming and one day one of the fish asks the other fish how he likes the water and the other fish is all confused because he’s like, dude, what’s water? Either way, for years I didn’t notice that I never drank enough water. I drank a lot of coffee, though. When I lived in Canada, I was working long hours, drinking three cups of coffee a day, but no water. And one day, while waiting for my coffee in a Starbucks, I literally passed out. No joke. One second I was standing waiting for my latte, and the next second I woke up on the ground. The manager had to call an ambulance, and in the hospital, the doctors put me on an I.V. Over the course of three hours, the nurses put into my body as much water as there should be in a human body. It turns out I was really, really dehydrated. Sometimes it’s easy to miss important details. Either way, I hear there’s a motivational water bottle that might be able to solve this problem for me.
- Learn Things. The sign of wisdom is knowing what you do not know, or knowing that there is much you do not know. Bill Gates does a lot of research and talks to a lot of experts in How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. When trying to solve a problem, it helps to read up on the problem, or talk to other people. Bill Gates probably gets to talk to Michelle Obama. I wish I could talk to Michelle Obama. We can’t all talk to Michelle Obama, but we have friends or loved ones who might be willing to help us, (like my kind boyfriend who reminds me to drink water), or maybe there are people in our communities who are experts. Okay maybe they aren’t experts, but if they are kind, that counts too. We can call them or e-mail them and humbly ask for help, can’t we?
- Create a Plan. You’d think that after I passed out in a Starbucks, I’d drink more water. Unfortunately, when it comes to solving problems, knowing you have a problem and even knowing how to solve it doesn’t always result in the problem getting solved. I knew I needed to drink more water, but kept forgetting. So eventually I had to just buy myself a measuring cup and drink out of that. And these days, I have a very kind, patient boyfriend, who kindly reminds me to drink water in the morning. It helps. Also having big glasses of water lined up across my desk helps. And making juices. Juices are wonderful.
- Connect Everything Back to Big Goals. Bill Gates wants the world to stop putting any greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This means going from 51 billion tons to zero. Gates writes: “I prefer to connect everything back to the main goal…” I think we are all wise to do this. When I was working to finally finish my book of poetry, everything I did related to that project had to tie back to the main goal. So whether it was working on this blog (I hope you’ll notice that I have a beautiful picture of Relationship: A Book of Poetry, on every page of this website; and if you haven’t gotten yourself a copy, please do; it helps me keep doing this work, and the book is, to borrow from Dave Eggers, a really awesome, heartbreaking work of staggering genius or at least a book of sad relationship poems that might make you cry yourself to sleep), or when I was painting trees, or typing my poems on a typewriter, or sitting in nature writing sad poetry, it all tied back to getting that book done. There’s a point to all this. Basically, it comes down to creating systems of success.
- Try Lots of Things, and Remember That It’s Okay to Fail. Bill Gates knows that in order to end climate change, we’ll need to try all sorts of things. “We need to be exploring lots of ideas, even knowing that many of them will fail.” When it comes to solving problems, trying new things, and trying lots of things, and being okay with failing along the way, is really important.
This is how I think Bill Gates solves problems based on what I’ve read in How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Inc also says that Gates asks himself these two questions: “Who has dealt with this problem well? And what can we learn from them?” There are probably other things he does too. If Bill has anything to add, I’d be happy to hear it. And if he can tell me how Michelle Obama remembers to drink water, I’d like to hear that advice, too.
About the Writer
Janice Greenwood is a writer, surfer, and poet. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University.