Bill Gates took a shot at tech billionaires trying to provide internet connections in developing countries in an interview in Financial Times Magazine, saying that they are missing the point because those aren't the essential stuff people need.

"Take this malaria vaccine, [this] weird thing that I’m thinking of," Gates told Richard Waters of FT. "Hmm, which is more important, connectivity or malaria vaccine? If you think connectivity is the key thing, that’s great. I don’t."

Could this be a shot at Mark Zuckerberg, who wrote that "connecting the world is one of the greatest challenges of our generation" back in August?

Gates makes a point. Connectivity isn't everything when you factor in the really necessary stuff people are missing out. The World Health Organization says that roughly 768 million people don't have access to safe drinking water and 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty.

Gates has been working to improve all these things since he launched the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1997. 

"I certainly love the IT thing," Gates said in the interview. "But when we want to improve lives, you’ve got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition."

This isn't the first time he's criticized the idea of connectivity over necessities.  When Google announced their "Project Loon" plan to use balloons to deliver internet access to remote areas, Gates criticized Google's efforts in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek:
"When you’re dying of malaria, I suppose you’ll look up and see that balloon, and I’m not sure how it’ll help you. When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there’s no website that relieves that. Certainly I’m a huge believer in the digital revolution. And connecting up primary-health-care centers, connecting up schools, those are good things. But no, those are not, for the really low-income countries, unless you directly say we’re going to do something about malaria."
Check out the full interview here.