For more of the backstory, you should read the WSJ's piece, "Raising Bill," which details what it was like to raise the world's richest man when he was just a cocky, argumentative twelve-year-old who fought with his mother all the time. Or more simply, a prick. Bill tells Charlie Rose that the psychologist did help him change, though: "I was a little bit nicer." [Charlie Rose]

The future software mogul was a headstrong 12-year-old and was having a particularly nasty argument with his mother at the dinner table. Fed up, his father threw a glass of cold water in the boy's face.

"Thanks for the shower," the young Mr. Gates snapped.

Oh no you didn't! Now, where's that spitfire in the I'm a PC ads? Who doubts that a cold glass of H2O in "I'm a Mac's" face wouldn't sell a few more laptops to paid actors at conveniently well-lit Best Buys? Not me, that's for sure, not me.

But back on point, this Bill Gates Sr. fella has led a pretty substantial, and quiet, life thus far. The 6-ft. 6-in. 83-year-old philanthropist helped found the Gates Foundation, which he oversees today side-by-side with his son. His quiet demeanor meant he often played peacemaker between Bill Gates Jr. and his mother, whose heated arguments ultimately led to that glass of water to the face (it was one of Sr.'s rare outbursts).

Senior was also there to court Steve Ballmer, and later to serve as legal counsel for Microsoft (his law firm later became MS's biggest client).

His aforementioned role in philanthropy, however, is what impresses me most. The Gates Foundation, now a worldwide behemoth focused on global issues (remember those TED mosquitoes?), had humble beginnings:

In the early days, Mr. Gates Sr., who soon remarried, would scribble a few notes on the most-promising requests for donations. He would then put them in a cardboard wine box that he periodically sent to his son's house. The box would come back with Bill Jr.'s responses. Mr. Gates Sr. would then reply to all the grant seekers, sometimes including a $1 million check with little more than a single-page letter of congratulations.

Mac, PC, Linux, Speak-n-Spell or otherwise, you can't find fault in that. [WSJ]

Joel Johnson at CES 2005:

I didn't quite know what to think of it, but I wasn't going to turn it down. I would ask the hard questions: Does Ballmer really eat children? Can I swim in your Money Bin? I didn't quite muster the balls to ask those, though, and instead acted like I had real questions or something.

[CES 2005]

Blam at CES 2007:

I'd asked him about the mug shot [from his Albuquerque arrest] and at first he looked a bit apprehensive, but answered. Apparently, Bill loves fast cars. In 1978, he told us, he'd gotten 3 speeding tickets on his drive to move up to Seattle. Two from the same cop. It was a Porsche 911 from that era.

[CES 2007]

Wilson at CES 2008:

When it came to be my turn, I had the warnings and admonitions of Blam to guide me. And sure enough, he didn't look me in the eye at first, and though he was accommodating with my nervous stuttering, I could tell he was judging the substance of my questions. Mercifully, he little by little began looking more directly at me, and he lit up with answers, even letting his guard down enough to comment frankly about Windows, and the difference between Apple and Microsoft.

Here's the vid itself, plus various excerpts, shot and digitally mastered by our own Chris Mascari:

Excerpts:

Part 1 - On the difference between Microsoft and Apple



Part 2 - On his changing public image



Part 3 - What he worries about most



Part 4 - On Windows Vista maybe, just maybe, sucking

Be on the lookout for some loopy posts, some thought-provoking essays, some retro vids and galleries, plus some analysis of a Microsoft sans Bill. It's been a great run, Bill, and in the end we wish you well. So you'll forgive us if we roast you a bit during your final week on the job. [Bill Gates Retirement Party]

Mossberg asks what's the difference between your work here and at Microsoft?
Melinda says that there's a lot of crossover because of advances in tech that aren't available to the developing worlds. The skill set is very transferable.
Mossberg: What's the difference between your Foundation and others like it? More money?
Melinda Gates: We can take risks. There's a market failure for malaria vaccines, so no one's done anything on this in a while. (There's a traveler's market only.) But we can take on some of that risk and work with the pharmaceutical companies and then distribute through government. We can show them that there is a market.

Melinda says they could tap their entire budget by attempting to fix the problems in the education system alone. Their mission is more to help take on that risk that governments can't in fixing problems.

Mossberg: How do you work with countries with governments that are more part of the problem (corrupt, poor) than part of the solution?

Mossberg: Are you applying business principles? More organized than others?
Melinda Gates: We take a very economic and business approach, which doesn't mean we don't pay attention to the social issues.

(Bill and Melinda go through a list of diseases and evaluate where they can be most effective.)

Mossberg: Do people tell you how to spend the money?
Bill carried around a letter in his briefcase for a month about a kid who needed a new liver. It's hard, but we try to treat all lives with equal value. And the world does not do that. So with that in mind, it's easier to focus on that.

Melinda: Why does it take 25 years to put a vaccine's technology in Bangladesh compared to here, today?
There's no world fund for getting doses to the developing world. There's a lot of infrastructure problems. And we've been adding new vaccines like tetanus and hepatitis. Several million kids die from measles a year, and now it's less than 300k. (From the vaccines they've helped get out there.)

Bill and Melinda don't want to do the day-to-day stuff, but they've had a lot of help from people like Bill Gates Senior. She spends a lot of time setting strategy with Bill Junior.

Mossberg: Will having Bill around in 30 days full-time be annoying? (Jokingly.)
Melinda: I knew that Bill wouldn't wear a tool belt around the house when he retired. He'll take a sabbatical this summer, he'll spend a day on special projects at Microsoft that Ballmer wants him to work on and 2-3 days at the foundation a week. And some time being curious and learning about science, education, etc. We love working on the foundation together and not many days go by at home that we don't talk about this. Vacations are huge for talking about the foundation, too.

Re: education, the US loses a million or so as drop-outs. The foundation worked on data measurement. For example, that million only counts senior-year drop-outs, while it should be measured from freshman year. The other problem is that many graduates aren't ready for college.

Walt sends his kids to public school. It's fine, but maybe that's because of the affluent area.

Melinda: The top 10% of the kids do well in whatever school. The schools track them into their own curriculum. Those parents fight the change and ignore the remainder of the kids. There are parents who demand a better system, but they get no traction because the money is going in the wrong direction. One of the things they learned is that you can't just get a good urban school started without working with the city, district and state because the system will just pull it back down. (You can see how these successful people in tech have started applying similarly huge scale system thinking to the education and healthcare system problems —B.L.)

They are focusing in NY with Bloomberg and Joe Klein (who formerly led the case against Microsoft as a monopoly, I believe). Because they're willing to be bold and think of things in a business-minded way and shut down schools that don't work and rethink labor incentives. The best teachers are currently not treated well in the current school system.

They can't change the minds here and make it change long term. They focus on changing the system, so the negotiation can't happen at the labor level, but has to be at the district level.

Question from the crowd: What's the time frame?
Melinda: We take this lesson from Microsoft: a long-term approach. We're saving lives today, but we have a long horizon. Once we get an HIV vaccine, we'll try to distribute. Why not a 200-year perspective on helping the world? They believe that the wealth Bill and Melinda have will be gone in 50 years or so. And Warren Buffet stipulates in his will that 10 years after his death his money needs to be spent out. That's so that they can give back to people now.

We're working on banking for people who live on less than $2 a day. As tech goes cheaper, this stuff will make a huge difference in the world.

Question from the crowd: How do you deal with violence in schools going from students to teachers?
Melinda says that comes from facelessness in big schools. She's seen schools with three cop cars in front and two metal detectors. You can see the gangs going through schools and once the teachers recognize the kids, the kids act a lot better. Once the teachers know the kids' names, these things fall into place. She's seen schools that have fixed this in NY be able to lose their metal detectors, and graduation rates go up profoundly (up to 78%).

Done!
[All Things D]

• "Yes, we're a couple that has fun discussing fertilizer while we walk on the beach," says Bill, who says he's looking forward to haranguing pharmaceutical companies to do more for the developing world. "Nobody gives them a hard time. That job is natural for me to do."
• Melinda's a better runner than her husband and, as well as running the Seattle Marathon, has climbed 14,000-foot Mount Rainier.
• Would Warren Buffett have given the Gates Foundation his fortune if Melinda hadn't been in charge? "I'm not sure," he replies.
• She reveals how Bill asked her out on a date after they ran into each other in the parking lot at Microsoft: "We talked a while, and then he said, 'Will you go out with me two weeks from Friday night?' I said, 'Two weeks from Friday? That's not nearly spontaneous enough for me. I don't know. Call me up closer to the day.'"
• Chez Gates, Wednesday night is family swimming night, Friday night is family movie night.
• Bono describes Melinda as playing "the straight man to his [Bill's] dark humour." Catch the full profile over at Fortune. [Fortune]