Bill Gates Says The World Went 'Backwards' — But Next 5 Years Could Decide If We Slide Toward a 'New Dark Age'
Bill Gates has spent most of his life betting on progress. But this year, the Microsoft co-founder admits it's getting harder to see the bright side.In his annual letter posted earlier this month on GatesNotes, the billionaire philanthropist reflected on what he calls "a key metric of progress" going in reverse: for the first time this century, the number of deaths of children under five years old increased. "The thing I am most upset about," he wrote, "is the fact that the world went backwards last year... from 4.6 million in 2024 to 4.8 million in 2025."Gates blames shrinking global aid budgets—especially from wealthy nations—for stalling what had been a decades-long streak of historic improvement. He warned that "this trend will continue unless we make progress in restoring aid budgets," and cautioned, "the next five years will be difficult as we try to get back on track and work to scale up new lifesaving tools."Don't Miss:The AI Marketing Platform Backed by Insiders from Google, Meta, and Amazon — Invest at $0.85/ShareSam Altman Says AI Will Transform the Economy — This Platform Lets Investors Back Private Tech EarlyStill, he's not ready to declare the end of global progress. "As hard as last year was, I don't believe we will slide back into the Dark Ages," he wrote. "I believe that, within the next decade, we will not only get the world back on track but enter a new era of unprecedented progress."Gates credits that outlook to one word: innovation.Breakthroughs Don't Vanish—But Budgets CanUsing HIV as his example, Gates pointed to one of the most dramatic public health reversals in modern memory. "An HIV diagnosis used to be a death sentence," he wrote. "Today... a person with HIV can expect to live almost as long as someone without the virus." He added that new preventatives can reduce the ...Full story available on Benzinga.com
