Bill Gates’ 1995 book “The Road Ahead” forecast the way personal computing and the internet would change everything about life as we knew it. On Wednesday, the Microsoft co-founder was asked during a live Q & A on LinkedIn whether the coronavirus pandemic will forever change how we operate and deal with each other.
Coronavirus Live Updates: The latest COVID-19 developments in Seattle and the world of tech
In a “This is Working” chat with LinkedIn Editor in Chief Daniel Roth, Gates said we’ve all been forced, in an unnatural way, to push things into a digital form. And while his prediction is that some forms of work may never go back to “normal,” education is something that should take place in person.
“There are a few things, like business trips, that I doubt will ever go back. There will still be business trips, but less,” Gates said. “In the case of high school, I think the social activity — making friends, hanging out — that you get by being there physically, that’s totally irreplaceable.”
Gates said on a pure learning basis, if a family has a good device and internet connection and an engaged teacher, it is impressive how people are rising to the occasion and making things work for a subset of students who are learning remotely.
“I do think, certainly for K-12, we want to go back to having those kids together, learning how to socialize, spending time with their friends,” Gates said. “I’m optimistic … that we will get that back.”
Gates said companies now have “permission” to take more traditional gatherings to a virtual format, such as shareholder meetings. And innovation in software that facilitates such online interaction can in some ways be more efficient and better than what was there before — picture a virtual courtroom or legislature, he said.
Gates’ comments echo those made by Chris Reykdal, Washington state’s superintendent of public instruction, during a press briefing on Monday in which it was announced that the state’s students would not be returning to schools before the end of the current school year.
“We will never replace face-to-face learning; it is the best model for all its comprehensive supports,” Reykdal said. “But right now this is our moment to connect every family and see it as much as a right to be connected as clean water.”
Here are some other highlights from Gates’ LinkedIn Editors conversation, which you can watch in full in the link at the bottom of this story:
- Described as a famously optimistic person, Gates was asked, now that the U.S. is a few weeks into fighting COVID-19, how things are going. Are lockdowns working? Are we doing enough? “This scenario is the nightmare I worried about,” he said.
- Gates did say that by the end of April, communities that started early enough, if they’ve done a very good job, will see a plateau in numbers of infection and deaths. “But it will still be much too high a level to open back up and those communities will need another four weeks before the number of cases is so small that you’ll be able to watch and contain those.”
- Asked about lost jobs and economic damage and when we can get back to “normal,” Gates said after about 10 weeks of extreme lockdown and a period of opening up and an eventual “magic vaccine,” we will get back to normal. But demand will be altered for a longer period on industries like travel, tourism, and restaurants.
- Asked why some states have been slower than others to call for closures and order residents to self isolate, Gates said, “It’s a mistake not to have the entire country take these extreme measures.”
- During a video chat in which Zoom was mentioned at least once, Gates did manage to put in a plug for a Microsoft product. “I’m up in Seattle, mostly doing Teams meetings,” he said at the start of the conversation. “That product group has gotten a lot of feedback from me.”
