"Bill Foege is one of my heroes. Among his many accomplishments, he was instrumental in ridding the world of smallpox, which is still the only human disease ever eradicated. This book gives you a great view from the front lines of that battle. Bill was a mentor to Melinda and me in the early days of our philanthropy, and he continues to give us great advice today. I also recommend his deeply moving Gates Notes article about fighting river blindness. It’s a fantastic story that gives you real insight into how he thinks about his work."

"The Twilight Zone. I had never watched it before, and it is so scary and so fantastic. My first advice would be to just go watch it (without) researching it, because the thrill of it is not knowing anything about the show, and then just watching it. It’s basically an anthology series where there’s a bunch of these weird stories, (in which) the world is just a little bit off. And it’s all these different, weird, crazy 30 minute episodes giving you portraits of the world in this science fiction scenario. At the same time, there’s always some crazy, fun twist."