Bill Gates Discusses Human Welfare at the Heart of Climate Progress at Caltech

On Monday, November 3, 2025, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates addressed more than 1,000 Caltech students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, and staff at Beckman Auditorium speaking on his vision of climate resiliency that prioritizes human welfare.

“Tonight’s turnout and the Beckman buzz here are testaments to Bill Gates’s ability to capture the public imagination as an entrepreneur, as a businessman, an inventor grappling with implications of science and technology, and as a philanthropist concerned with human health and well-being across the globe,” said Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics, in his introductory remarks.

Gates’s presentation, which included a moderated discussion with Axios national energy correspondent Amy Harder and questions from students in the audience, was the capstone to a campus visit that included an in-depth look at sustainability research across campus. Among the topics covered in the presentations and lab visits included next-generation climate models, overcoming the traditional petroleum-based supply chain, solar fuels, and inorganic phototropic growth.