Bill Gates: “Over 30% of office days will be gone”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates predicted that half of business travel would occur in the post-pandemic world and that one-third of office hours would disappear, although he admitted he didn’t never thought that wearing a mask would become the subject of so much controversy.

“My prediction is that more than 50% of business trips and more than 30% of days in the office will disappear,” the mogul said at a conference hosted by The New York Times yesterday.

According to him, the rationale for business travel after the pandemic will be more complicated, after improving the viability of working from home during childbirth, although he has recognized that there will be companies more willing to telecommute. that others.

“We will continue to go to the office in a way, we will continue some business trips, but much less,” added Gates, who, through his foundation and that of his wife Melinda, promotes the development and distribution of the vaccine in developing economies.

Business travel accounted for about half of U.S. airlines’ revenue before the pandemic, and by far the most profitable travel.

A new paradigm of work could add more problems for an industry trying to overcome the sharp drop in income with the reduction in air traffic due to the pandemic, which could start to be addressed with the mass distribution of the vaccine from the second half of 2021.

Gates also acknowledged at today’s conference his limitations when it comes to predicting behavior and confessed, “I wouldn’t have thought wearing a mask was going to become so controversial” and neither that Donald Trump’s administration has supported such a “savage and extreme” in the face of the pandemic.

The mogul also said anti-mask sentiment is stronger in the United States than in other countries and admitted that it is not clear whether this is due to the stance taken by the Trump administration or the individualistic sentiment of Americans.

The pandemic is out of control in most of the United States and has already left more than 11 million people infected and nearly a quarter of a million dead, with many hospitals on the brink of collapse.