When Bill Gates says most tech investments fail, he’s not just being humble—he’s got the stats to prove it. In fact, the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder openly admits he expects around 90% of his tech ventures to tank. “Technology is a boom-or-bust business, but it’s mostly busts,” Gates wrote in a 2019 Wall Street Journal essay. “I’ve always assumed that 10% of my technology investments will succeed—and succeed wildly. The other 90% I expect to fail.”
Sure, it sounds dramatic, but Gates isn’t exactly losing sleep over the failures. Why? Because the 10% that do succeed can more than make up for the flops, often hitting jackpot-level success. Think unicorn startups or industry-shaping breakthroughs. Yet even Gates, who famously brought us Windows, acknowledges that picking winners is no easy game.
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“When I made the transition from my first career at Microsoft to my second career in philanthropy, I didn’t think that my success rate would change much,” Gates said. Initially, he thought vaccines and groundbreaking tech shared similar odds. “Discovering a new vaccine, I figured, would be just as hard as discovering the next tech unicorn,” he said. Turns out, “vaccines are much harder.”
Ironically, Gates found a surprising exception to his rule—not in flashy tech or even in groundbreaking medicine, but in something called “financing and delivery.” Unlike risky startup bets, Gates describes these investments—like the $10 billion he’s funneled into Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund; and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative—as consistently rewarding. Delivering medical supplies to war zones and remote villages isn’t exactly glamorous, but Gates calls these organizations “probably the best investments our foundation has ever made.”
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It’s no secret the tech industry has high failure rates. Around 90% of startups go bust, and according to AngelList, only about 2.5% ever reach the coveted $1 billion “unicorn” valuation. Challenges like funding, fierce competition, and shaky market demand mean the odds are stacked against most new ventures.
