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The Gates Foundation's new headquarters - a sneak preview

The Gates family and epidemiologist Dr. William Foege at a preview of the new headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.
Tom Paulson
/
KPLU
The Gates family and epidemiologist Dr. William Foege at a preview of the new headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.

I got a sneak preview of the new Seattle headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Wednesday evening, courtesy of Bill Foege, one of several Bills there.

Foege’s title at the Gates Foundation is “seniorfellow.” But that doesn’t really tell you much, except to imply he’s old. It certainly doesn’t tell you how tall he is. He’s a very tall senior fellow.

More importantly than what I think, Foege appears to have been one of the key inspirations for Bill and Melinda Gates’ philanthropic mission. That’s basically what Melinda Gates said yesterday to the philanthropy’s staff after introducing those attending to their new home.

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The host of the Humanosphere community is Tom Paulson, who spent 22 years reporting on science and medicine at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Tom was one of the first daily news reporters to cover the topic of “global health” (a much-debated label which he discusses the merits of on the Humanosphere website).