Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates yearns to return to college.
He fulfilled that dream on Monday by speaking — not studying — at Stanford University, offering opinions on topics ranging from career paths to child rearing.
As chairman of the world's largest foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he implored students to apply the same energy to tackle challenges like improving education and boosting international health.
"I'd like to go back to college, so I'm doing that a day at a time," appealing to students to think big. "We need the brightest minds working on the most important problems."
Gates, who is touring across the country at various universities since shifting full time to his charitable foundation, also spoke at UC Berkeley on Monday.
Relaxed and engaging, he noted that a lot of today's young talent devote energy to entertainment, financial markets, sports and lifestyle pharmaceuticals, like baldness drugs, fields "that don't address the worlds' most important problems.
"I love movies. I know people who could benefit from baldness drugs. But we need to shift those talents to bigger problems," he said. "If we do that, we might delay the next security derivatives design. Or the next baldness cure. But what we can do in return is a good