Q&A: Bill Gates talks energy, philanthropy and management style

Throughout the Microsoft experience, I got down the learning curve because Microsoft was in a position to hire incredible people. I got to see how they did things.

So in my 20s I was almost just a developer and a fanatic; in my 30s, I got exposure to management, although I was still writing some of the code; then in my 40s, the majority of what I was doing was large-organization management and picking some strategies, but I didn't write any code that shipped in products.

Now, in my 50s, I'm in a role that's kind of like that. I like that my relationship to some of these development teams is like a smaller Microsoft, because for better or for worse, when you have all the TB experts in the world in the room, the room is not very full. That's about 10 or 12 people that you're sitting and talking to about the TB vaccine.