Know Bill Gates favourite books on the world’s biggest problems and build perspective on how technology can save the world #SumeruReads
Bill Gates is known as one of the world’s most influential people. His company Microsoft has changed how millions of people interact with computers since its inception in 1975.
Bill is also one of the biggest philanthropist in the world and has dedicated a considerable part of his life to create solutions for humanity’s biggest problems and impact millions of lives via Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In this blog here, we have handpicked a few books that are Bill’s favourite and can help us build a perspective on world’s biggest challenges and how could humans use technology for the greater good.
First one on the list is Abundance, which is a book by Dr. Peter Diamandis (Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation) and Steven Kotler (bestselling author and science journalist), published on February 21, 2012.
It reassures readers that our current resource problems will be solved by technological advancement and social innovation.
Here are 3 lessons from the book which will help you think abundantly in a world plagued by the scarcity complex:
Forget the news and your amygdala.
The world’s biggest problems will be solved simultaneously.
Think inside the right-sized box, not outside the box.
Are you ready for the future? After these lessons, you’ll definitely be!
Second up is Superfreakonomics, which is the follow-up book to the insanely popular Freakonomics, published in 2009, by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.
It reveals how you can find non-obvious solutions to tricky problems by focusing on raw, hard data and thinking like an economist, which will get you closer to the truth than everyone else.
Here are 3 lessons to help you see the world as clearly as possible:
Incentives rarely work out as planned and always come with side effects.
You can find simple solutions to tricky problems by zooming out.
There’s no such thing as too much data. Always collect as much as you can.
Third in the list is Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo is investigating some of the biggest challenges poor people face. This book provides the reader with an understanding of why there still is so much poverty in the world, and why many of the measures usually implemented do not help. Based on these insights, the authors offer a number of concrete suggestions to demonstrate how global poverty might be overcome.
Next we have is, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari, where author explains about how humans evolved to become the most dominant species and how technology will certainly play an enormous role in our future development. Yuval Noah Harari threads together the influences of religion, politics, and anthropological development into a unique theory that shows us why we’ve got to where we have, and pushes us to question where it is that we want humanity to be going.
Lastly, Energy and Civilization by Vaclav Smil highlights how our current demand for energy poses a serious threat to the environment. But what is energy, and how can we harness more sustainable energy resources? Vaclav Smil explains how energy is utilized by every life form and underpins all of existence.
Hope you end up picking atleast a couple of them. Do share your experience in the comments below if you have already read any of above books and how they have impacted the way you look at the big problems!
We at Sumeru Ventures invest in passionate and committed founders with the will to impact humanity positively through technology. To add further, we believe that impact is about sustainable development, which can only be driven by businesses having ethics and trust as its modus operandi.
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