January 12, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
At first glance, there would seem to be little ground for mutual admiration between Bono, the flamboyant rock superstar and global activist, and Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the world’s wealthiest foundation, who largely shun the public spotlight. Yet Time magazine not only names the three as its “Persons of the Year,” but also describes the close friendship they have forged in their common pursuit of assisting the world’s poorest people (December 26, 2005/January 2, 2006).
Bill Gates thought their first meeting in 2002 would be “a waste of time,” according to the magazine. The Gateses rely upon hard facts to guide their giving, particularly in the often-complex realm of global public health, where the majority of their grants have gone.
At their meeting, however, Bono wasted little time before he began “hurling metrics across the table as fast as they could keep up,” the magazine says. That was the beginning of an alliance of like-minded souls, one that is “unlikely, unsentimental, hard-nosed, clear-eyed, and dead set on driving poverty into history,” Time writes.
In his campaign to mitigate AIDS and provide debt relief in African nations, the charismatic Bono has won fans as disparate as Pat Robertson and Susan Sarandon. Meanwhile, Bill and Melinda Gates have “been shrewd about doing good,” insisting on cost efficiency while contributing billions of dollars both to find large-scale solutions to global health problems and to combat malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases that can be fought with low-cost, low-tech methods.
Referring to Bill Gates’s groundbreaking work in the computer revolution, Time quotes Bono as saying, “He’s changing the world twice. And the second act for Bill Gates may be the one that history regards more.”
The year-end issue — which includes stories on Bono, the Gateses, and the “improbable friendship” shared by the former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in their joint work in disaster relief — is available online at http://www.time.com.
