Early in my conversation with Bill Gates, in a small, windowless room at the Peninsula hotel in London, the lights went out. There was an initial surprised silence before Hannah Cockburn-Logie, Gates’s consigliere and a former Foreign Office mandarin, stood up and attempted to reactivate the lighting by swaying slightly and waving her arms in a kind of restrained English parody of the Trump dance craze sweeping social media. As my recording device on the table before us glowed in the darkness, and as Hannah searched without luck for a light switch, and though we could scarcely see each other, Gates and I simply continued our conversation, his jaunty voice emerging as if from the void.

This would happen several times over the next 45 minutes. The effect of the interruptions was to darken the room but lighten the mood. Gates relaxed. We shared a few jokes. He opened up, although he would not discuss the forthcoming US election (we met before the vote but as Elon Musk had declared his support for Donald Trump – “Musk is quite unique. I mean he’s very involved in politics, I read today,” Gates said, smiling.)

New Statesman