60 Minutes (1968) s45e29 Episode Script

Tonight, for the first time, we have the story of the rescue of Jessica Buchanan.
It is the tale of a secret mission by SEAL Team Six that few people have heard about until now.
On a January night in 2012, members of SEAL Team Six jumped from a plane into the skies of Somalia.
Jessica Buchanan was being held hostage and the SEALs were descending just in time.
Buchanan was a humanitarian aid worker who had come to help children in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Hers was an ordeal that ended in a flash of violence.
but had begun 93 days earlier when her car was stopped by bandits in a place she calls hell.
Jessica Buchanan: We stopped, very abruptly like so abruptly that I felt like everybody just fall forward and then I started to hear all of this pounding on the windows and the windshield and shouting in Somali and there is a man standing there screaming with an AK-47 and he's shouting and pointing it at us and then he climbs into the car next to me and points an AK into my face and they're hyped up like they're on speed and all of the sudden we just take off.
The driver just takes off and we just start slamming down these camel tracks.
Scott Pelley: What did you think they were going to do? Jessica Buchanan: I figured they were going to rape me.
And then kill me.
And I just keep thinking, "This can't be the end.
This can't be the end of my life.
I'm only 32 years old.
I haven't had any children yet.
" I didn't get to say goodbye to Erik.
I didn't get to say goodbye to my dad.
Like, this can't be the end.
Jessica Buchanan was facing the end at the end of the Earth.
Somalia, on the farthest tip of Africa, is war torn and lawless.
[Scott Pelley: This is essentially No Man's Land.
.]
Militias battle over an unforgiving land as we saw while covering a famine there in 2011.
It was the same year that Buchanan was with a Danish charity teaching children how to avoid landmines.
On October 25th, her car was hijacked.
Jessica Buchanan: The driver is driving just like a madman, we are bouncing all over the place, my head keeps hitting the window, it keeps hitting the roof I'm holding on to the side, the handle on the Land Cruiser just trying to keep myself steady.
Scott Pelley: What happened next? Jessica Buchanan: It gets dark and we've changed vehicles a couple of times more people have come.
They're screaming.
And I hear from behind me a higher pitched voice going on and on in Somali.
And I think, "My god, they have a woman involved in this.
" And I turn around, and I see a small child in the back of the land cruiser with an AK-47 draped in ammunition.
And I think the irony of why I came to Africa in the first place.
Scott Pelley: Exactly the kid you were trying to save? Jessica Buchanan: Yeah.
Scott Pelley: A child soldier? Jessica Buchanan: Yeah.
Scott Pelley: What was he doing? Jessica Buchanan: Learning the trade.
She'd been kidnapped along with a coworker, Poul Thisted.
They drove into the night and then were ordered to march into the desert.
Jessica Buchanan: And they tell us to get down on to our knees and I think this is it and I'm bracing myself to be shot in the back of the head.
And I think that there's mercy in the fact that maybe they're not going to rape me first, but that it's just going to be quick.
And I'm waiting and I'm waiting, and then all of a sudden, somebody shouts from behind us, "Sleep.
" And I'm thinking, "Oh my god, I didn't hear that correctly, did I? He just said, 'Sleep'?" She collapsed, slept through the night and the next morning was met by the man who led the bandits.
Jessica Buchanan: And we ask him, "Are you going to kill us? Is that why we're here?" He says, "No, no, no.
Money.
We just want money.
" Scott Pelley: How much were they asking for? Jessica Buchanan: They started out at $45 million.
Scott Pelley: They thought you were pretty valuable.
Jessica Buchanan: I guess so.
The bandits used her cell phone to call her husband Erik Landemalm.
The two had married on an African beach two years before.
But his number and the numbers of Buchanan's family had all been disconnected.
It was part of the charity's emergency plan.
The one number that worked was her Nairobi office with a hostage negotiator standing by.
And so began months of talks.
Scott Pelley: Where did they keep you, day in, day out? Jessica Buchanan: Under trees.
And outside.
Scott Pelley: You were outdoors for 93 days? Jessica Buchanan: Yep.
And at the night, they forced us to sleep out in the open.
Scott Pelley: What were the nights like? Jessica Buchanan: Long and cold.
Then the rainy season hit, and it would rain all night long.
And you're already freezing.
So, then you're sitting there wet.
Scott Pelley: What were you eating? Jessica Buchanan: Tuna fish.
Maybe once a day.
We would get a small can of tuna fish and a piece of bread.
Scott Pelley: Did you feel like you were beginning to lose your humanity at any point? Jessica Buchanan: Yeah I mean they treated us like animals.
To be so sick that, you know, you're vomiting behind bushes.
And you can't walk straight, and you're laying in the fetal position on the ground under a tree.
And they don't even, they don't care.
Their duty was to keep me from dying because then I wasn't worth anything.
They were in the hands of men and boys chewing khat.
It has the same effect as amphetamines.
Jessica Buchanan: They were so hyped up on speed.
It was like drinking pot after pot of coffee.
And then, the crash would come.
And then, it brought a lot of belligerence, and a lot of anger.
And a lot of temper.
Scott Pelley: You and Poul came up with nicknames for a lot of the people who were keeping you.
It's one of the ways you kept yourself occupied-- Jessica Buchanan: We did.
Scott Pelley: The 10-year-old boy? Jessica Buchanan: Crack baby.
'Cause he was cracked out all the time.
He was chewing khat and he had two blacks holes for eyes.
There was nothing inside.
This is one of the camps where she was held.
The bandits hit her, pointed their guns at her and put a knife to her throat.
But it was exposure that took a toll.
She lost 25 pounds.
After three weeks the bandits made a video to prove that she was alive.
Scott Pelley: Have you seen the video? Jessica Buchanan: I have.
I can tell I'm starting to lose hope at that point.
But hope would have to last for two more months.
Scott Pelley: As the many weeks went by, did you think the American government is watching me? They know where I am and somebody's gonna get me outta here? Jessica Buchanan: No.
Scott Pelley: Why? Jessica Buchanan: Because I'm just an aid worker.
Scott Pelley: You didn't imagine that the president of the United States knew your name? Jessica Buchanan: Never.
Never in a million years.
After three months in the desert, Buchanan had a serious urinary tract infection and in a final call to the hostage negotiator she said this.
Jessica Buchanan: I'd become so ill that I couldn't stand up.
I couldn't walk.
I was in so much pain.
And I said, "I think I have a kidney infection.
" And I started to cry, and I said, "I think, I'm afraid I'm going to die out here.
When that call was received here in Nairobi it set off a chain of events that led all the way to the Oval Office.
The FBI and the military consulted doctors who said that if Jessica had a kidney infection, she might have just two weeks to live.
That was transmitted to the president, who was also informed that in just a few days there would be a new moon--perfect darkness for a SEAL team rescue.
Jessica Buchanan had chosen a star in the Somali sky to represent her mother who had passed away a year before.
She spoke to it every night and, with no moon, it was especially bright on January 25th.
Scott Pelley: What did you say that night? Jessica Buchanan: Please tell God that I need some help.
We need to get out of here.
Scott Pelley: You couldn't have known that that prayer would be answered that night? Jessica Buchanan: I had no idea.
She was on a mat, trying to sleep when she heard a faint scratching noise.
One of the bandits she nicknamed "Helper" heard it too.
Jessica Buchanan: And then I see this look of just sheer terror on Helper's face.
And then all of the sudden it's just this eruption of gunfire.
And I think, "OK, well this is it.
This really is truly the end.
" And I cover up with my blanket again, and I just start saying, "Oh god, oh god, oh god.
" And I just remember thinking, or maybe I'm saying out loud, like, "I cannot survive this.
" She thought she was being taken by a rival group, maybe al Shabaab the Islamic extremists who would surely kill her.
Jessica Buchanan: And then all of the sudden, I feel all these hands on me.
Roughly grabbing at me.
And I try to protect myself, and I pull the blanket closer on top of me.
And then I hear my name.
But it's not a Somali accent, it's an American accent.
And I can't compute.
Like I can't understand that somebody with an American accent knows my name.
And they say, "Jessica we're with the American military.
We're here to take you home, and you're safe.
" I pull the blanket down from my face and all I see is black.
Black masks, black sky and all I can say over and over is, "You're American? You're Americans? I don't understand, you're American.
" Thinking, how did you get here? And I'm still alive, and they ask me where my shoes are and I don't know.
And one of them picked me up and starts running.
He runs for several minutes and puts me down on the ground.
And I'm still asking who these Americans are? I don't understand who they are and I don't understand what they've done.
And then they identify themselves, and that they knew I was very sick.
And they have medicine and they have water, they have food.
And they've come to take me home.
At one point I think they thought they heard something.
I don't know this group of men who's risked their life for me already asks me to lie down on the ground because they're concerned that there might be someone out there.
And then they make a circle around me.
And then they lie down on top of me.
To protect me.
And we lay like that until the helicopters come in.
Scott Pelley: When all of those SEALs laid down on top of you, you were the most important thing in the world for them? Jessica Buchanan: It's really hard to comprehend.
Scott Pelley: They were gonna take a bullet for you? Jessica Buchanan: Uh huh (affirm).
And they are so kind and so gentle.
And they are trying to assist me to get the the helicopter, but I think I've been out here for months, I can run to this helicopter myself.
And so I just break away and I just take off running through the scrub, through the bush, and I throw myself onto that helicopter and push myself up against the wall.
And I don't start breathing until we actually lift up off the ground.
Jessica Buchanan: And they hand me an American flag that's folded.
Scott Pelley: What did you think of that? Jessica Buchanan: I just started to cry.
At that point in time I have never in my life been so proud and so very happy to be an American.
The SEALs left on other helicopters.
She didn't see their faces, didn't hear their names.
They appeared and they were gone.
The only thing left in the camp were nine dead bandits.
It all ended just hours before the State of the Union address.
As the president walked in he had a secret with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that almost no one understood until later.
[Obama: Good job, good job tonight.
.]
After the speech, President Obama called Buchanan's father.
Jessica met her husband Erik at a U.
S.
base in Italy.
Jessica Buchanan: I just couldn't believe he was standing there and that I was standing there.
And we had-- we had a second chance.
And then, later we flew to Portland, Oregon.
And I was reunited with my father and my brother and my sister and her husband.
Scott Pelley: What was the first thing you said to your father? Jessica Buchanan: "Daddy I'm, I'm so sorry that you had to go through this, but we made it.
" So did her Danish co-worker Poul Thisted who was also rescued by the SEALs.
He said later, that his lucky break was being captured with an American.
Jessica Buchanan has told her story in a new book "Impossible Odds" coming out this week.
You may recall that she said that her first thought when she was taken was that she was too young to die because she hadn't had children.
Well, she's taken care of that too.
She and her husband have a baby boy and they've moved back to the states from East Africa.
In January, Walmart pledged to hire any recent veteran who wanted a job - the company projects that could be 100,000 vets in the next five years.
That's a big commitment at a time when it's needed.
There are three million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and they face a host of problems when they come home.
It's not just unemployment, nearly half have a disability because of their service.
Most tragically, more soldiers killed themselves last year than died at the hands of the enemy.
One veteran turned business school professor has an innovative solution to help them succeed as civilians: give the vets a new mission -- business ownership.
Funded in part by Walmart, PepsiCo and other companies, he started a small business incubator, tailor-made to help disabled vets trade in their combat boots for business suits.
Vets like Staff Sergeant Brad Lang.
He learned his sharp shooting skills, courtesy of the U.
S.
Marine Corps.
For his deployments in Afghanistan, this young father and husband volunteered for the bomb squad unit.
Brad Lang: Every time an IED is rendered safe, you saved countless lives.
I joined the Marine Corps to serve.
And this is, in my opinion, the ultimate way to serve is to save your brothers' lives.
Sanjay Gupta: These are the things everyone wants to avoid.
And you guys are the guys that are actually going toward those things.
Brad Lang: Yes.
In July 2011, while under fire, Lang defused two IEDs, but as he was leaving the scene, he missed one and triggered it.
Brad Lang: I remember the cloud of dust, flying through the air upside down, landing on the ground.
I knew that I was in pretty rough shape.
Sanjay Gupta: When you surveyed your body, what did you see? Brad Lang: I noticed that my left leg was gone from the knee down.
My right leg was gone from halfway down my shin.
So my ankle, my foot that was all gone.
He was airlifted out and weeks later when he woke up at Walter Reed, the 27-year-old and his family faced their new reality.
Brad Lang: We got over the fact that I lost my legs very quickly.
Brad Lang: 'Cause no matter what, they're not coming back.
So every conversation that we had after that point was, "This is how you're going to recover.
This is how you're going to continue to move forward as a productive member of society.
" Sanjay Gupta: I think it would take me a long time to get to that point.
Brad Lang: Everything becomes trivial when you go through an experience like this.
Brad Lang was awarded a Purple Heart and underwent more than 20 operations.
During his months in the hospital, he reconnected with a Marine he had met during training, Johnny Morris, who had also lost a leg.
Knowing their job prospects were slim, they decided to start a business, building guns and also adapting them for the disabled.
Brad Lang: We both just love guns.
Johnny was a gunsmith before he came in the Marine Corps.
We just decided that that would be a great idea.
We plan to be a retail gun store selling factory guns, but with full gunsmithing capabilities.
Sanjay Gupta: You came up with a name.
Brad Lang: We were just kinda joking around and discussing, you know, "What are we going to call this place?" And my wife looked at me, and she goes, "Stumpie's, duh.
You only have one good leg between the two of you.
" But they didn't know how to make Stumpie's a reality and that's where the entrepreneurship bootcamp for veterans comes in.
[Mike Haynie in classroom: One thing I am going to ask of you this week is make the most of this opportunity.
.]
It's a crash course in business: everything from keeping the books, to understanding the competitive landscape, to getting financing.
Mike Haynie: As far as I'm concerned, who better to live the American dream of business ownership than these men and women who have put on a uniform to defend that dream.
Mike Haynie, an Air Force vet turned entrepreneurship professor, started the bootcamp for veterans in 2006.
It's a month-long online course, followed by a 10-day, all-expenses paid program, that's offered on eight campuses nationwide, including this one at Syracuse University.
Sanjay Gupta: You really treat them like-- I mean, business executives.
Take them out shopping for suits and ties.
They stay in hotels as opposed to dorms.
What's the significance of that? Mike Haynie: I want to begin to help them change who they-- who they perceive they are.
You also have to create a new-- that new narrative, that new vision for, you know, "I am an entrepreneur.
I am a business owner.
" Marine Lance Corporal Garrett Anderson wanted to start a production company when he applied.
While everyone in the class has a disability, Anderson's wounds are less visible.
He's one of the approximately 600,000 vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Garrett Anderson: During the day I could function.
During the day I could do my work.
But night would come.
And I'd just start drinking.
He was just 19 when he fought in Fallujah, one of the deadliest battles of the Iraq war.
It haunted him.
Garrett Anderson: One night, I got pretty intoxicated.
Later that night, I tried to hang myself.
And I failed at that.
And after I'd failed at that I realized in a real way like, "Hey, you-- you didn't come home OK.
You've got a problem and it's because of the war.
" More than 22 veterans kill themselves every day that's almost one an hour.
Mike Haynie: It's a crisis.
And everyone recognizes that it's a crisis.
Sanjay Gupta: Has someone or something failed? Mike Haynie: Yeah, no question.
I mean, it's-- how do we let that happen? Sanjay Gupta: Is that in part what-- what drives you? Mike Haynie: I feel-- an obligation to support the men and women who-- who have shouldered the burden of-- of a decade at war.
They stepped up.
They volunteered.
[Mike Haynie: How many of you in your military roles have had those people you work for.]
Nearly half of those returning are coming home with disabilities, which can make it difficult to hold traditional 9-t0-5 jobs.
Sanjay Gupta: Are veterans particularly good at being entrepreneurs? Mike Haynie: Absolutely.
You learn to become entrepreneurial in the context of serving in the military.
The boss comes up to you and says, "Here's what we need you to accomplish.
It's got to be done in two days.
Figure it out.
" Seventy percent of the vets who entered his program started a business within four years.
Nine grads are running multi-million dollar businesses, including a technology company that had revenues of more than $40 million.
Pam Randall didn't dare dream about that kind of success.
Pam Randall: I was shocked when I couldn't even get menial labor jobs.
She was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and retired in 2010 after years of hard landings left her with a laundry list of ailments.
Pam Randall: Damage to both shoulders, both wrists, both hips, both knees, upper and lower back, and I have nerve damage in my elbows.
Sanjay Gupta: That's a lot.
Pam Randall: Yeah.
Sanjay Gupta: Are you in pain? Pam Randall: Every day.
Though it was a challenge, she spent more than a year looking for work, any kind of work.
Sanjay Gupta: Years of military service, a lieutenant colonel, senior rank.
It seems like you would be the perfect candidate for so many jobs.
Pam Randall: You'd think that.
You would think that.
The military chapter's closed.
So now you do a new chapter.
Sanjay Gupta: What was your sentiment as you're going through that? A year of putting out applications and not being able to find anything.
Pam Randall: I was a little shocked.
I had to do something.
So now, you know, small business, here we come.
Randall wanted to turn her leatherworking hobby into a saddle and tack business.
She turned to the bootcamp for help.
Pam Randall: I've got the craft side.
It's that whole business world, all that business stuff, that I knew absolutely nothing about.
Randall, Lang, Anderson and two dozen other vets were in this year's class.
Early on in the program, most of them didn't see themselves as entrepreneurs.
Sanjay Gupta: Just by a show of hands, how many of you, before you joined the military, ever thought at some point in your life you'd start a business of your own? You thought you might? Efren: Yes, sir.
Sanjay Gupta: But you're the only one.
Is it scary? Alan Beaty: Very.
Pam Randall: Yeah.
Sanjay Gupta: What frightens you the most about this? Alan Beaty: Failure.
Garrett Anderson: Financial destitution.
I mean, you-- Pam Randall: Yeah.
Garrett Anderson: --you do this wrong, and you can mess up your whole life.
You know, it's-- Pam Randall: Yeah.
Garrett Anderson: If you go too far too quick, your credit's ruined.
You know, you got a family and what are you gonna do? [Ted Lachovitz lecture: Failure seldom stops you from being an entrepreneur.
What stops you is because you have the fear of failure.
.]
It's bootcamp, minus the mud - the challenges are mental, not physical and the vets lean on each other for support.
Pam Randall: You gel quickly when you're a vet.
You have a common ground that you just-- it's hard to explain what it is, but you just instantly will click.
Alan Beaty: I think it would be difficult.
I wouldn't want to do it unless it was a school of vets.
The final exam is a presentation of their business plan to a panel of executives and entrepreneurs.
[Judge: Your presentation, you just inspire confidence.
Pam Randall: Thank you.]
[Mike Haynie from graduation: I would like to introduce the 2012 Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with disabilities program here at Syracuse University.
.]
To date, only 600 veterans have gone through the program.
It's numbers like that that frustrate Mike Haynie.
Mike Haynie: Sometimes I go home at night and I think about-- "Man, there's 26 vets here.
" And there's 20,000 that will leave the military this month.
You know, it's spitting in the wind.
There's so much more we could do.
Sanjay Gupta: This is something that the nation should be taking on, the U.
S.
government should be taking on.
Mike Haynie: Agree, 100 percent.
Sanjay Gupta: There's a real sense of outrage, Mike, already that the government isn't doing enough for returning veterans.
Mike Haynie: If the agenda is empower vets through business ownership, why would you not go out to the people who are really good at helping individuals launch and grow businesses and say, "Become our partner?" That's slowly starting to happen - the government, which already provides veterans with small business loans, has asked Haynie to help design coursework for all returning troops.
One of the most important parts of the program is the long-term access to mentorship, contacts and a variety of free services.
In the nine months since graduation, a few have already launched businesses.
One opened a law firm.
Another, a cross fit gym.
Pam Randall started Lladnar's Leathercrafts and sold several horse halters.
Garrett Anderson, who started that production company, is finishing his first documentary and he got married.
Sanjay Gupta: You're taking a lot on this year, aren't you? Garrett Anderson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Sanjay Gupta: You feel good about it all? Garrett Anderson: Yeah, I feel great.
{Brad Lang in shed: Oh there's that piece I was looking for.]
Brad Lang and Johnny Morris launched their gun business out of a shed in the backyard.
[Johnny Morris: After eight shots, the magazine ejects from the top.
.]
They got their federal firearms license, are looking for investors and have already sold more than a hundred guns.
Sanjay Gupta: All right.
I think I'm gonna try this? Brad Lang: All right.
Let's do it.
The new proprietors of Stumpie's gave me a lesson at a shooting range using one of their custom made rifles Sanjay Gupta: Safety's off? Brad Lang: All right.
You're clear to fire-- Sanjay Gupta: I'm gonna give this a go? Brad Lang: You're clear to fire.
Sanjay Gupta: Here we go? (gunshot) How'd I do? Brad Lang: Looks like you hit.
Brad Lang: I just cashed or deposited the first Stumpie's check last week.
Sanjay Gupta: Excellent.
Brad Lang: Like, actual check that said Stumpie's Custom Guns on it.
So-- you know, it's neat.
Sanjay Gupta: Pretty rewarding? Brad Lang: Yeah.
And take pictures of that stuff.
You're like, "Yeah.
" You probably know Bill Gates as the founder of Microsoft, the hard-driving tech executive whose software fueled the personal computer revolution.
You might also know him as the longtime richest man in the world who left Microsoft five years ago so he could work fulltime, giving his money away.
We had the chance to witness "Bill Gates 2.
0" -- the man you don't know.
He is driven, as much as anyone we have ever met, to make the world a better place.
Gates told us why he thinks inventions are the key to success, and just what he intends to accomplish with his time, intellect and $67 billion fortune, starting with his plans to knock out some of the world's deadliest diseases.
Charlie Rose: You're going to spend the next disease, yes? Bill Gates: Yep.
Charlie Rose: That's your mission? Bill Gates: That'll be the majority of my time.
Charlie Rose: Starting with polio? Bill Gates: Get it done by 2018.
Charlie Rose: Tuberculosis? Bill Gates: Ah, That one would have to see how the tools go, the current tools are not good enough.
Bill Gates: But we'll need a few better tools that will take probably six or seven years.
Charlie Rose: Malaria? Bill Gates: Malaria's the one that the tools are being invented now.
Fifteen and perhaps even 20 years.
But start to really shrink that map.
These are the people Gates wants to help.
They are what he calls "the bottom two billion" - a third of the world's population that struggles on less than two dollars a day.
They are poor, hungry, lack electricity and clean water.
Gates' most urgent goal: help the millions of children under five who die every year, one every 20 seconds from preventable diseases.
Charlie Rose: No one alive that I know of has said, "My goal is to eradicate a disease and then another disease and then another disease.
" This is somebody that dreams high.
Bill Gates: Yeah, because I'm excited about that.
And it's doable.
Today, Gates spends most of his time here, at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.
He runs it with his father, Bill Sr.
, and his wife, Melinda, whom he credits with being a driving force behind the foundation.
There are over 1,100 employees to help them decide which programs to fund, but Gates still visits sites around the world to see what's working and what's not.
[Girl: I welcome Bill Gates to our school.
The government of Ghana and all school age children are grateful for your support.
Bill Gates: Very well done.
Great to be here.
.]
The grants here go towards school nutrition, improving agriculture and, most important to Gates, life-saving vaccines.
Bill Gates: Well, whenever you see a mother bringing a sick child into a facility, it's easy to relate to, "What if that was my child?" You realize, how crazy it is that with the world being rich enough to afford all sorts of frivolous things, that those basic things still aren't being provided.
But providing vaccines throughout the developing world is no simple task.
So Gates has set up his foundation to run like Microsoft.
He insists on strict accounting and, when a problem arises, he pulls in the best people to find solutions.
We saw a good example of that when it comes to vaccines.
To be effective, they need to be kept cold.
Bill Gates: So this is using electricity? But that's tough in hard to reach areas where refrigerators are rare and unreliable.
So back in Seattle, Gates turned to scientists at a company called Intellectual Ventures, where he is both an investor and an inventor.
They created a "super thermos" using the same technology that protects spacecraft from extreme heat.
Using only a single batch of ice, it can keep vaccines cold for 50 days.
Charlie Rose: So here is the thermos? Bill Gates: That's right.
This holds vaccines for over 200 children.
And it doesn't require any battery, any energy.
Its walls have been designed to be such a good thermos that even in very, very hot days, inside it will stay cold enough to make the vaccines work.
And when you want to take them out, you just go in here, and there's a whole tray of the vaccines-- Charlie Rose: Yeah.
Bill Gates: You take them out, it records everything you've done with it, the temperature.
So it's a replacement for all those refrigerators that have been so unreliable.
Bill Gates: I mean, just look at this thing.
When we take it out in the field, people go, "Oh, that's amazing.
You can't do that.
" Charlie Rose: No matter how perfect the vaccine, if you can't get it to the people who need it, it ain't doing no good.
Bill Gates: That's right.
And now, you know, we need to get it to every child in the world.
Gates is betting technology will solve other age old problems like sanitation.
Two and a half billion people around the world do not have adequate toilets.
That means streams and rivers get clogged with debris and human waste -- becoming breeding grounds for disease.
Bill Gates: The toilet is one of those things that's like a vaccine, where it really would change the situation.
So Gates launched a global competition: design a toilet that works without plumbing.
Bill Gates: We had over 20 entrants.
We gave four top prizes.
Some of them used burning.
Some of them used a laser approach.
There were quite a few novel ideas of how you reinvent the toilet.
And so this was one of the prototype designs of what a good-looking new toilet would look like.
It actually processes everything down in here, and then recycles water.
Over the next four or five years, we think we can have a toilet that's every bit as good as the flush toilet.
You can learn a lot about what motivates Bill Gates by visiting his private office.
He showed us why he draws inspiration from the Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci.
In 1994, Gates bought da Vinci's 500-year-old notebook.
Bill Gates: He had an understanding of science that was more advanced than anybody of the time.
The notebook we have here is one where he's thinking about water.
And he's looking at how it flows when it hits barriers, and it goes around, comes back together.
He's actually trying to understand turbulence.
How should you build a dam, how does it erode away? It cost $30 million at auction - making it the most valuable manuscript in the world.
For Gates, it is priceless.
Bill Gates: It's an inspiration that one person off on their own, with no positive feedback, nobody ever told him, you know, it was right or wrong.
That he kept pushing himself.
You know, found knowledge in itself to be a beautiful thing.
Gates scoffs at any comparison to the great Leonardo, but a look around his private office reveals a man equally obsessed with understanding his world.
Charlie Rose: Can I look at these? Bill Gates: Sure.
This is the weather one, "Meteorology.
" My very first course that I watched was this geology course.
Charlie Rose: This is a whole series on the joy of science? "Mathematics.
" "Philosophy in the Real World.
" Gates' collection of DVDs contains hundreds of hours of college lectures that this famous Harvard drop-out has watched.
Bill Gates: The more you learn, the more you have a framework that the knowledge fits into.
When he's on the road, Gates - who's a speed-reader -- lugs around what he calls his "reading bag.
" When he finishes a book, he posts his thoughts on his website, "Gates Notes.
" Bill Gates: What I'll do is, I'm reading these books.
Charlie Rose: Oh, look at that.
Bill Gates: I'll take notes.
Charlie Rose: Oh these are your notes already? Bill Gates: Right.
Charlie Rose: Look at this.
Bill Gates: I love to take notes on books.
So I just haven't written it up yet.
Charlie Rose: How long will it take to read all of this? Bill Gates: Oh, a long time.
Thank goodness for vacations.
I read a lot.
But Gates isn't just reading books for pleasure, he is determined to use his knowledge to back groundbreaking innovations.
Take this high-tech zapper.
It is a laser designed to shoot down malaria-infected mosquitoes in mid-flight.
And Gates showed us one of his boldest, and he says most important, ventures -- a new kind of nuclear reactor.
It would burn depleted uranium, making it cleaner, safer and cheaper than today's reactors.
Bill Gates: And your fuel will last for 60 years.
So during that entire time, you don't need to open it up, refuel it.
You don't need to buy more fuel.
So there's a certain simplicity that comes with this design.
Charlie Rose: And when could it come on stream? Bill Gates: Best case would be to have a prototype around 2022.
Bill Gates calls himself an "impatient optimist" - a description his wife Melinda says was accurate even when they met over 20 years ago.
Charlie Rose: Melinda, what did you like about him? Melinda Gates: Just his curiosity and his optimism about life and this belief that, you know, that you can change things.
I mean he believed that clearly in Microsoft.
He was changing the world with software and he knew it.
Charlie Rose: Is the curiosity a shared curiosity, or are there different curiosities? Melinda Gates: Well, we both have curiosity for lots of things.
Bill, at this stage in our life, also gets more time to read than I do, quite honestly, with three kids in the house.
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
Melinda Gates: But the great thing is Bill will go read an entire book about fertilizer.
And I can tell you even without three kids in the house, I'm not going to read a book about fertilizer.
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
Melinda Gates: But he loves to teach.
And so as long as--I have time, we'll spend time talking about that.
Charlie Rose: So what is it about a book about fertilizer? I mean seriously? Bill Gates: Well, fertilizers are very interesting.
Bill Gates: We couldn't feed-- a few peop-- billion people would have to die if we hadn't come up with fertilizer.
Charlie Rose: How do you find a balance in all this? Father, chairman of a major company, a foundation, and then all these other ventures? How does the balance come to you? Bill Gates: I don't mow the lawn.
Charlie Rose: You found somebody to do that? Bill Gates: Absolutely.
He has come a long way from that teenage prodigy obsessed with writing computer code.
Over nearly four decades we've watched Bill Gates help lead the digital revolution with what he now admits was a fanatic and relentless determination.
[Bill Gates from 1990s meeting: You guys never understood, you never understood the first thing about this.
I'm not using this thing.
.]
Charlie Rose: In the early years, there was a demanding guy, there was a driven guy, there was an obsessed guy.
There was, some say, an arrogant guy.
Have you changed? Bill Gates: I've certainly learned.
When I make a mistake, you know, and my thinking is sloppy, I like to be very hard on myself.
Like, that is so stupid.
How could you not see how those pieces fit together? And that way that you're, you know, very disciplined yourself, and careful about your thinking, you don't want it to extend out to when other people may not get something quite as quickly.
It's like, uh, how come you don't get this thing? Charlie Rose: Has he mellowed at all? Melinda Gates: I hope any of us in life mature, right? We all mature.
But look, I wouldn't have married Bill if there wasn't a huge heart.
With all of the adjectives you just used about how he drove his career, which was very successful for Microsoft, there was an enormous heart always there.
No question Gates has softened with age - just listen to how he reflected on his often tumultuous relationship with the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Bill Gates: He and I-- in a sense, grew up together.
We were within a year of the same age.
And, you know, we were kind of naively optimistic and built big companies.
We achieved all of it.
And most of it as rivals.
But we always retained-- a certain respect, communication, including even when he was sick.
I got to go down and spend time with him.
Charlie Rose: And talk about what? Bill Gates: Oh, about what we'd learned, about families, anything.
Today Gates says he gets advice on patience and generosity from his friend Warren Buffett - who seven years ago entrusted the majority of his fortune to the Gates Foundation.
And from his father Bill Sr.
, a lawyer who prodded his son into giving his money away.
Charlie Rose: You've said before, this is your hero.
Why? Bill Gates: Well, my dad has integrity, he's got a humble approach to things, he's calm and wise about things.
It's just a huge influence to always, you know, want to live up to a great example.
Charlie Rose: Someone said to me, "Your son may be the most influential person in the Bill Gates, Sr.
: I can only say yes.
Charlie Rose: He's determined, as he already has proven, that he can dramatically reduce the number of kids under five who die-- Bill Gates, Sr.
: That's right.
Charlie Rose: You can't do any better than that, can you-- Bill Gates, Sr.
: That's right.
That's right.
There's no way to be unimpressed about that.
Charlie Rose: You couldn't be more proud.
Bill Gates, Sr.
: I couldn't be more proud.
That is exactly true.