A new book on Bill Gates challenges his reputation as a 'good' billionaire.The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning With The Myth Of The Good Billionaires, written by Tim Schwab, argues the Microsoft founder's supposed transformation from arrogant tech developer to global do-gooder fails under a closer look.Schwab, a Washington, DC journalist whose articles on Gates earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination, says the man who elbowed out colleagues and rivals alike to power Microsoft to dominance, now approaches global issues in a similarly “totally unaccountable, undemocratic and non-transparent manner.”Gates once pledged to give away 95% of his fortune, saying, “I have no use for money, this is God's work.” Yet, Gates is now worth $117 billion, twice as much as when the foundation began in 2000.The $67 billion endowment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t cost Gates as much as it might appear. By 2022, Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett had together donated $75 billion to the foundation, but saved $37 billion in taxes in doing so.The foundation provides more than 88% of donations that philanthropic foundations give the World Health Organization, with dollars earmarked for health, education and farming initiatives. In 2015, the foundation distributed more aid for global health than any government and 14 times as much as the UK.“[The Foundation is] a tool Bill Gates uses to advance his world view,' Schwab says. “He's not donating money as much as he's buying influence.”The author says Gates is convinced he knows what’s best for the world, recounting his comment that he “went to Harvard to learn from people smarter than him... and left disappointed.”Schwab finds it no coincidence the Gates Foundation wasn’t founded until a few months after facing charges from the US government that Microsoft had an “abusive monopoly.”The book says the foundation takes more credit than it deserves. Its claim to have saved 122 million children is based on the drop in child mortality rates since 1990, an accomplishment the organization thanks itself solely for.The book also says Gates’ drive to vaccinate every last person against polio has led to the neglect of more cost-effective measures to address other disease or health issues, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and diphtheria.In Pakistan, 25 million people need intervention against other tropical diseases and 28 million are undernourished. Yet, Gates convinced the Pakistani government into making polio its top priority at the expense of these other diseases, Schwab says.In some poor countries, medical clinic fridges were fully-stocked with unneeded polio vaccines and left no room for potentially life-saving shots for measles.In 2009, seven school-age girls died in India during a Gates-funded trial of a vaccine against human papillomavirus. Public health experts accused the foundation of using Indians as “guinea pigs” for not practicing informed consent.The Indian government stated the vaccine didn’t kill the girls, but “questions continued to surface when it was reported that no autopsies were conducted,” Schwab wrote.The “alleged ethical missteps in the Gates-funded study unleashed a major backlash” and prompted an Indian parliamentary study that concluded the vaccine trial was a “blatant violation… of all regulatory and ethical norms,” Schwab explained.The Gates Foundation deemed these findings as “misinformation” while the organization that conducted the trial with Gates money said such accusations were “inaccurate in many details.”Meanwhile, Gates has repeatedly supported patent protection held by multinationals including Pfizer and Merck, even though this would keep the price of drugs and vaccines too high for many of the world’s poorest people.“Bill Gates hasn't been a champion for the poor as much as of himself,” writes Schwab.Schwab says charities refrain from criticizing Gates so they don’t suffer “Bill Chill” and get frozen out of Gates Foundation money. The media also understates Gates’ failings because Gates has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to media organizations, including The Guardian, BBC and Financial Times, to write on subjects related to the foundation's work.“The target of your investigation, generally speaking, cannot also be your funder,” Schwab writes.By contrast, the Daily Mail did carry an article on Schwab’s book. A spokesman for Gates told the Mail, “The claims in the book are based on flawed and misguided interpretations of Bill's work. Bill is committed to solving the world's toughest challenges.“Through his foundation, Bill has committed to donating the majority of his wealth to society and devotes his resources to projects that have the greatest potential to improve and save lives.”
A new book on Bill Gates challenges his reputation as a 'good' billionaire.The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning With The Myth Of The Good Billionaires, written by Tim Schwab, argues the Microsoft founder's supposed transformation from arrogant tech developer to global do-gooder fails under a closer look.Schwab, a Washington, DC journalist whose articles on Gates earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination, says the man who elbowed out colleagues and rivals alike to power Microsoft to dominance, now approaches global issues in a similarly “totally unaccountable, undemocratic and non-transparent manner.”Gates once pledged to give away 95% of his fortune, saying, “I have no use for money, this is God's work.” Yet, Gates is now worth $117 billion, twice as much as when the foundation began in 2000.The $67 billion endowment of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t cost Gates as much as it might appear. By 2022, Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett had together donated $75 billion to the foundation, but saved $37 billion in taxes in doing so.The foundation provides more than 88% of donations that philanthropic foundations give the World Health Organization, with dollars earmarked for health, education and farming initiatives. In 2015, the foundation distributed more aid for global health than any government and 14 times as much as the UK.“[The Foundation is] a tool Bill Gates uses to advance his world view,' Schwab says. “He's not donating money as much as he's buying influence.”The author says Gates is convinced he knows what’s best for the world, recounting his comment that he “went to Harvard to learn from people smarter than him... and left disappointed.”Schwab finds it no coincidence the Gates Foundation wasn’t founded until a few months after facing charges from the US government that Microsoft had an “abusive monopoly.”The book says the foundation takes more credit than it deserves. Its claim to have saved 122 million children is based on the drop in child mortality rates since 1990, an accomplishment the organization thanks itself solely for.The book also says Gates’ drive to vaccinate every last person against polio has led to the neglect of more cost-effective measures to address other disease or health issues, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and diphtheria.In Pakistan, 25 million people need intervention against other tropical diseases and 28 million are undernourished. Yet, Gates convinced the Pakistani government into making polio its top priority at the expense of these other diseases, Schwab says.In some poor countries, medical clinic fridges were fully-stocked with unneeded polio vaccines and left no room for potentially life-saving shots for measles.In 2009, seven school-age girls died in India during a Gates-funded trial of a vaccine against human papillomavirus. Public health experts accused the foundation of using Indians as “guinea pigs” for not practicing informed consent.The Indian government stated the vaccine didn’t kill the girls, but “questions continued to surface when it was reported that no autopsies were conducted,” Schwab wrote.The “alleged ethical missteps in the Gates-funded study unleashed a major backlash” and prompted an Indian parliamentary study that concluded the vaccine trial was a “blatant violation… of all regulatory and ethical norms,” Schwab explained.The Gates Foundation deemed these findings as “misinformation” while the organization that conducted the trial with Gates money said such accusations were “inaccurate in many details.”Meanwhile, Gates has repeatedly supported patent protection held by multinationals including Pfizer and Merck, even though this would keep the price of drugs and vaccines too high for many of the world’s poorest people.“Bill Gates hasn't been a champion for the poor as much as of himself,” writes Schwab.Schwab says charities refrain from criticizing Gates so they don’t suffer “Bill Chill” and get frozen out of Gates Foundation money. The media also understates Gates’ failings because Gates has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to media organizations, including The Guardian, BBC and Financial Times, to write on subjects related to the foundation's work.“The target of your investigation, generally speaking, cannot also be your funder,” Schwab writes.By contrast, the Daily Mail did carry an article on Schwab’s book. A spokesman for Gates told the Mail, “The claims in the book are based on flawed and misguided interpretations of Bill's work. Bill is committed to solving the world's toughest challenges.“Through his foundation, Bill has committed to donating the majority of his wealth to society and devotes his resources to projects that have the greatest potential to improve and save lives.”
