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Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King

Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
From the finance editor of The New York Times, an insightful and illuminating examination of Bill Gates—one of the most powerful and provocative figures of the past four decades—and an exploration of our national fixation on billionaires.
Few billionaires have been in the public eye for as long, and in as many guises, as Bill Gates. At first hailed as a tech visionary, the Microsoft cofounder morphed into a ruthless capitalist, only to change yet again when he fashioned himself into a global do-gooder. Along the way, Gates influenced how we think about tech founders, as the products they make and the ideas they sell continue to dominate our lives. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he also set a new standard for high-profile, billionaire philanthropy. But there is more to Gates's story, and here, Das's revelatory reporting shows us that billionaires have secrets and philanthropy can have a dark side.

Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with current and former employees of the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, academics, nonprofits, and those with insight into the Gates universe, Das delves into Gates's relationships with Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Epstein, Melinda French Gates, and others, to uncover the truths behind the public persona. In telling Gates's story, Das also provides a new way to think about how billionaires wield their power, manipulate their image, and pursue philanthropy to become heroes, repair damaged reputations, and direct policy to achieve their preferred outcomes.

"A balanced, perceptive, and thought-provoking portrait of a man and his times" (Booklist) Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King is an important story of money and government, wealth and power, and media and image, and the ways in which the world's richest people hold us in their thrall.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 24, 2024
      The Microsoft founder and philanthropist is a protean figure and thus an ideal prism through which to study society’s relationship with the billionaire class, according to this ruminative debut. New York Times finance editor Das chronicles well-known criticisms of Gates, including that he’s a ruthless monopolist who built his company on other people’s ideas; he’s a cold, rude boss with no people skills; he made inappropriate advances toward female employees and cheated on his wife, Melinda; and he hung out with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The book’s centerpiece is Das’s investigation of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which dominates private charitable efforts aimed at global public health, vaccines, and agricultural development. She interviews hundreds of former employees of the foundation, who make juicy assertions like that Gates’s operation was very much fixated on winning him a Nobel Prize. She also cites scholars and critics who accuse the foundation of throwing its weight around recklessly and making missteps with massive repercussions, ranging from supporting ineffective initiatives on telemedicine and charter schools to “replicat the power dynamics of colonialism” in developing countries. While this exposé intrigues, Das’s sociological framing—which revolves around how billionaires are perceived by the public and Gates’s PR management—never quite coheres. Still, it’s a perceptive and vibrant character portrait.

    • Kirkus

      August 1, 2024
      Secrets of a billionaire. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and published reports, Das, finance editor at theNew York Times, focuses on technology titan Bill Gates' manipulation of money and power "to hide in the shadows or shine on the stage" as he pursues his goals in business, politics, policy, and philanthropy. Central to her investigation is the "ever-widening inequality" blighting American society along with the culture's persistent veneration of billionaires. "The American dream," Das writes, "loosely holds that in a land of liberty, boundless opportunity, and free enterprise, individual merit, hard work, and a sprinkling of luck are the keys that unlock fortune." As Das chronicles Gates' evolution from Microsoft's nerdy creator to beneficent philanthropist, she shows that his education at private schools, strong family ties, and more than a sprinkling of luck were factors in his success. As a businessman, he was notoriously arrogant. His divorce from Melinda French Gates disclosed lifelong womanizing. More than 2,000 people depend on the Gates fortune for their livelihoods, Das notes, including "a small army of communications professionals" who work "to shape the public persona of Gates in a way to elevates his stature to benefit his foundation's goals and burnish his individual brand." Their task became especially onerous when Gates was linked with Jeffrey Epstein, whom he continued to see even after allegations against Epstein became widely known. "Why Gates hung around with Epstein may remain a head scratcher forever," Das admits. But that failure of judgment, as well as ruthless business practices and marital betrayal, have been glossed over. Today, she finds, "the world has a completely refurbished image of Gates, the jagged edges of the monopolist softened by the halo of the philanthropist." A sharply incisive portrait.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      August 1, 2024
      Microsoft cofounder Gates is known as a tech wizard, uber-philanthropist, multibillionaire, and controversial influencer. Yet for all his acclaim, Gates remains poorly understood. Much of this is by design. He is notoriously private, his wealth cloaked behind impenetrable layers of financial holdings and the security around his many homes equal to that of a government black-ops installation. Yet Gates' carefully curated reputation has taken some hits of late. There was his bombshell divorce from his wife of 27 years, Melinda; allegations of workplace harassment; and his out-of-character relationship with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Das, the finance editor for the New York Times, widens the lens through which Gates' life and career is viewed. Each facet of his reputation is couched within a larger framework of capitalism, social justice, and entrepreneurship to question the outsized sway Gates and others of his rank hold over society writ large. Venturing deep into every aspect of Gates' professional and private spheres, Das offers a balanced, perceptive, and thought-provoking portrait of a man and his times.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      November 22, 2024

      Das, the finance editor of the New York Times, considers Bill Gates both as a technology leader and as a billionaire in an age obsessed with the rich. Not just a maker of products, Gates presented himself as a national thought leader, shaping political and social agendas. Prepub Alert.

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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