#17 PRESS NOTES FROM BILL

Bill Gates has officially started the press tour for his upcoming memoir. 

A few usual whispers have been floating through CommsLand for a while, so I'm going to read the book. In the meantime, he gave the Wall Street Journal a full Saturday of content (definitely not trying to get on anyone’s reviews pages..). 

As it turns out, the poor guy got upstaged by DeepSeek. But it’s a really “good” interview, and it reminds me how good Gates has gotten at press over the years.

By “good” I mean it’s boring to watch, actually. I’ll link to it below. But he’s got some press skillz on display that are easy to see and worth learning.

First, a few things about the content:

1. The brief (which I haven't seen) obviously says he wants to talk about neurodivergence, specifically Autism.

We’re in a moment where this is culturally popular (I mean, you're kind of a loser now if you don't have ADHD, which a lot of us losers who've had it for 30 years do notice). He keeps a reflective tone about it in the excerpt:

"my social side would be slow to develop, as would my awareness of the impact I can have on other people. But that has come with age, with experience, with children, and I’m better for it. I wish it had come sooner, even if I wouldn’t trade the brain I was given for anything."

Its true the primary regret of an aging autist is all the times you realize you super-offended some people. (Trust me.) But notice he’s not apologizing.

I suspect ole Bill has seen a few things in 70 years, and it’s probably clear the current vogue of identifying by your own neurodivergence has a backlash coming. 

Look at it from a comms perspective:

One of the problems with people who want to communicate that they're special is the easiest way to do it persuasively is argue that everyone is special. Which has a mathematically foregone conclusion. (No one is when everyone is.)

In that scenario, the only way to stay special is to increasingly specialize, especially yourself. Which, for lack of a better adjective, can make you fucking insufferable.  

This is the needle that Bill threads: engaging a pop topic whose vogue he knows even he will outlive.

You may not notice it, but this scenario applies to almost all of your press opportunities. That’s because journalists only want to talk to you in and about moments. Journalists work and live in moments. That’s their job.

Moments are very useful for communication, but it’s deceptively easy to overweight them, aka, get caught up in the moment. Exhibit A: literally any news source right now.

The danger is communicating by moments when you are planning and building the future.

Watch Bill’s tone, as if it's not special he would be autistic, merely a quirk of circumstance. He has objective thoughts about it, positive and/or negative.

In a word: Emotionless. 

For all the talk I hear of sounding inspirational, I think many C-somethings forget how powerful it is to speak calmly and objectively. To project utter clarity of reason and vision. (Especially when you speak like this to someone who’s trying to get you flustered or buttered, aka journalists.)

There’s a saying about fish not having a word for water. But let’s say you’re a fish, and you are the first fish to have a word for water.

Now, let’s say you could describe water in reasonable and simple terms that make you easy to trust. And all the other fish in the sea learn about water from you. And they like water so much that all those fish start buying it from you.

If that happened, you would be so successful they’d call you the Bill Gates of fish.

2. He still had to have talking points on Trump. 

One problem with politics is everything is politics. Eventually, every C-something has to have an opinion, on everything. No matter who is demanding or showing fealty, it’ll continue as long as anyone is discussing it in your daily scroll. It's that simple. 

That’s how moments work.

So I don't expect this trend to diminish any time soon, or with any specific leader. Instead, in the coming years it will become increasingly unpopular to keep your political opinions to yourself. 

As a helper, I find this funny and weird. Because I have a job where my personal opinion very specifically does not matter. 

I've disagreed with clients aplenty and still made them their fortune by getting everyone else to agree with them. E.g., getting all the fish to know what water is, even when I think half those fish are frogs.

My advice: Don’t ever hire someone to help you with arguments if they cannot articulate the best arguments against themselves and you. 

That could be a book, but it also works as a sentence, so let’s leave it.

The reason it matters more in an era when we filter our colleagues by politics is there’s a strong chance you sandbag yourself.

In Gate's case, he seems to have been prepped beautifully. I suspect there was some price to pay for so much real estate in the Journal before a big book, and that price is WSJ wasn’t gonna fluff him.

He was ready for questions on Trump, RFK, Elon, and Epstein. Lightning rods are distractions. In every instance, he deftly blocks or bridges and consistently repeats his core message: he’s focused on global health. 

In fact, that’s the only thing you remember after 11 minutes. That’s what makes it a successful interview!

I've said it before, and I’ll say it again: repeat yourself.  Here’s how you do that with journalists.

So you’re watching TV. Or a podcast with some host, and some politician. You've seen this more than you think, watch:

Interviewer: "Wow, we're so glad to have you on the show. You've done a ton of amazing things, we've heard a lot from you on a variety of topics, especially education. I know you have a lot of big plans, but one topic we have not heard a position from you on is healthcare. While we have you here, tell me, what is your vision for HEALTHCARE?" 

Politician: "You know, Joe, I'm SO glad you asked me that question. Because I think when we talk about healthcare in the US, it's a big problem and it matters to a lot of people. And I think, when we get down to it, when we talk about healthcare, and how to fix it, what we're really talking about is EDUCATION. So let me tell you my three-point plan on education."  

That's what I was taught to call A BRIDGE. And it's as simple as it looks. It's also that transparent—which you would think keeps it from working ALL THE TIME. Nope. Works every time. Can't beat a good bridge. Build them.

Like any actual bridge, it's pretty important to know what's on either side of it. 

The far end is the only one up to you. That's your talking point. Your idea. It’s you, repeating yourself. Constantly. Spend a lot of time now clarifying that point, and then get good at bridge-building on the fly.

Because the near side of the bridge is always unknown. It could be a question about healthcare, or it could be a half-question that you hardly understand and aren't even sure the journalist does. In either scenario, you don't address the question, you build a bridge from it.

Watch for Gates doing this (nearly every question), because he does it with a subtlety worth practicing.

The other technique in Bill’s little masterclass is THE BLOCK.

In the video, he has a good one right around 4:44, blocking a question about RFK. Gates spends no more than 15 seconds on a single-sentence. It’s dismissive of both the topic and the question itself, yet makes no attack on RFK, the reporter, or her question.

Gates isn’t selling a book or himself. He’s showing us what water is.

He does it again around the 8-minute mark on questions about Epstein, which required two blocks, the second using to humor to dismiss the question as a waste of time. Elegant.  

The final skill is just knowing when to use either. Like Gates in that vid, you're always going to use bridges the most. Blocks work only if you use them sparingly, about 1-2% of the time.  

One other quirk of how these work is the more trillion dollar companies you've built, the more blocks you get to use. I'm still at none, but let's talk about something else.  

Dumplins all day,
Jesse

PS: You can find the WSJ video with Gates here.  If you end up reading the book, let me know what you think. I’m always curious to hear how those things land in real life. I think it launches Feb 4.

Also on my February pre-orders list is this one, that I’m actually anticipating much more than ole Billy G’s. I got to work with Namita in tech long ago, and her second career as a writer has been been joyful to follow.

Also, speaking of Elon and good journalism, the other day I was reminded of this award-worthy piece we've all forgotten since 2017. Enjoy.

PSS: Share button! If someone on your team “needs media training” but they’re smart and their time is valuable, just send them this issue.