People have been left shocked after they found out that Bill Gates may have predicted the pandemic all the way back in 2015.
Keep scrolling for the video in question...
The news comes after the business mogul also made a series of predictions for 2021.
And it is looking bittersweet, that's for sure.
Keep scrolling to have a look at all the evidence for yourselves.
Now, as you will all be aware, Bill Gates is one successful guy.
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But how? Well, he doesn't have the shabbiest of resumes; he is the co-founder of Microsoft, and is now one of the richest men in the world, with his net worth coming in at around $116 billion dollars.Microsoft has grown to become one of the largest and most successful tech companies in the world.
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The company wrote and developed one of the most-used computer software in the world. According to Forbes, Microsoft is the third biggest company in the world, with an estimated worth of $947 billion dollars.Not bad for a college dropout, right?
Yep, Bill Gates never actually graduated. He initially left Seattle and enrolled at Harvard University in the fall of 1973, aiming for a career in law after pressure from his parents. However, Gates would spend more time in the computer lab than he would in class, and he rarely studied for his exams.He dropped out of college in 1975...
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Because college life really isn't for everyone! A mere 2 years after enrolling, Gates left Harvard and re-joined his partner, Paul Allen, whom he had started a small computer company with when he was just fifteen.Cue the birth of Microsoft.
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Fast forward a couple of years and the pair had created their company, Microsoft. The name Microsoft came from a blend of the words "micro-computer" and "software," and was officially launched in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1976.Microsoft went from strength to strength.
After nearly ten years of writing and developing the Microsoft operating systems, the company released its crowning achievement in 1985: Microsoft Windows.Windows became the staple computer operating system.
All you '80s and '90s kids will certainly remember that iconic Windows logo. The software, which was a multitasking environment for IBM computers, would come to dominate the world's personal computers (PCs), and made Bill a billionaire by the age of thirty-one.And he didn't stop there.
Gates, who became Microsoft's standing CEO, took the company to new heights and continued to release ground-breaking software and operational systems for computers.
For the next few decades, Microsoft continued to do astonishing things.
Their first gaming console being one of them.
Though the initial 2001 version of the Xbox was met with fierce competition from Sony, their re-release of the updated Xbox 360 in 2005 was a major success, and brought joy and delight to gamers across the globe.
So, as you can see, Gates' net worth is somewhat deserved...
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And he is incredibly generous with his wealth! It is estimated that he has given away around $45 billion over the years to his and his wife's charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which primarily works to combat global poverty. Their work has saved millions of lives.But as well as being one of the richest people on the planet...
Gates is also known for being insanely intelligent.Obviously, you have to be pretty smart to create one of the world's leading software!
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But it seems that Gates also has some pretty smart ideas for the year of 2021.
Gates had previously been discussing his thoughts on what had been a "devastating year" in a post on his blog, GatesNotes...
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But he promised that there would be "good news" coming in 2021.
The billionaire warned that we are "not out of the woods quite yet."
He then explained how computer models suggest the pandemic could get "even worse over the next month or so" and that we need to learn about the new variant[s] of the virus - which appears to spread faster but not to be more deadly.
But he also predicted some positive news that we can cling onto in 2021, writing:
"There are 2 main reasons to be hopeful. One is that masks, social distancing, and other interventions can slow the spread of the virus and save lives while vaccines are being rolled out."
The vaccine, of course, will take time to have a global effect.
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"The other reason to be hopeful is that in the spring of 2021, the vaccines and treatments you've been reading about in the news will start reaching the scale where they'll have a global impact. Although there will still need to be some restrictions (on big public gatherings, for example), the number of cases and deaths will start to go down a lot at least in wealthy countries-and life will be much closer to normal than it is now."Gates is clearly very passionate about combatting the pandemic...
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And he and his wife donated more than $125 million toward developing the life-saving vaccine earlier this year.But while things are looking hopeful, we need to also remember how we got here in the first place.
Back in 2015, the business mogul made a prediction warning everyone about the inevitable pandemic during a TED Talk and the re-surfacing of this clip has left everyone speechless.
Keep scrolling for the video.
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However, the clip has also divided the internet into 2 groups...
The conspiracy theorists...
In a 2015 TED Talk, Gates said this:
"If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war. Not missiles, but microbes."
He continued:
"Failure to prepare could allow the next epidemic to be dramatically more devastating than Ebola. Ebola does not spread through the air, and by the time you're contagious, most people are so sick that they're bedridden.
"You can have a virus where people feel well enough while they're infectious that they get on a plane, or they go to a market."
"This is a serious problem. We should be concerned."
Here's the video.
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