Overview

A powerful investigation of Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation, showing how he uses philanthropy to exercise enormous political power without accountability Through his vaunted philanthropy, Bill Gates transformed himself from a tech villain into one of the most admired people on the planet. Even as divorce proceedings and allegations of misconduct have recently tarnished his public image, the beneficence of the Gates Foundation, celebrated for spending billions to save lives around the globe, is taken as a given. But as Tim Schwab shows in this fearless investigation, Gates is still exactly who he was at Microsoft: a bully and monopolist, convinced of his own righteousness and intent on imposing his ideas, his solutions, and his leadership on everyone else. At the core, he is not a selfless philanthropist but a power broker, a clever engineer who has innovated a way to turn extreme wealth into immense political influence--and who has made us believe we should applaud his acquisition of power, not challenge it. Piercing the blinding halo that has for too long shielded the world's most powerful (and most secretive) charitable organization from public scrutiny, The Bill Gates Problem shows how Gates's billions have purchased a stunning level of control over public policy, private markets, scientific research, and the news media. Whether he is pushing new educational standards in America, health reforms in India, global vaccine policy during the pandemic, or Western industrialized agriculture throughout Africa, Gates's heady social experimentation has shown itself to be not only undemocratic, but also ineffective. In many places, Bill Gates is hurting the very people he intends to help. No less than dark-money campaign contributions or big-business political lobbying, Bill Gates's philanthropic empire needs to be seen as a problem of money in politics. It is a dangerous model of unconstrained power that threatens democracy and demands our attention.

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9781250850096

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Reviews

"""Tim Schwab has written the definitive critique of Bill Gates as bully-philanthropist. Schwab uses the case of Gates to tell a compelling and carefully researched story that raises disturbing questions about the lack of accountability of power-philanthropy."" --Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor, The American Prospect ""This is not the story of one bad man, so much as a demonstration of the inability for anyone--no matter how smart or rich--to solve the world's problems from the top down with money and technology. As this well-argued and immensely engaging account of Bill Gates's forays into world-saving by fiat make clear, the problem with Big Philanthropy is the Big Hubris that comes along with it."" --Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Richest ""In this incisive and penetrating book, Schwab dares to confront a question society has long ignored: should a secretive, unaccountable billionaire dictate policy in public health, education, and science? Fearlessly rendered and much-needed."" --Sonia Shah, author of The Next Great Migration ""Tim Schwab follows the money to expose what happens when one man--however intelligent or well-intentioned--amasses so much wealth and so much power, he can literally dictate to governments around the world. With great skill--and given the range of Bill Gates's influence, considerable courage--Schwab pulls back the curtain to deliver a classic of muckraking journalism."" --D. D. Guttenplan, editor, The Nation"

"""This is not the story of one bad man, so much as a demonstration of the inability for anyone--no matter how smart or rich--to solve the world's problems from the top down with money and technology. As this well-argued and immensely engaging account of Bill Gates's forays into world-saving by fiat make clear, the problem with Big Philanthropy is the Big Hubris that comes along with it."" --Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Richest"

Author Information

Tim Schwab is an investigative journalist based in Washington, DC. His groundbreaking reporting on the Gates Foundation for The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, and The British Medical Journal has been honored with an Izzy Award and a Deadline Club Award. The Bill Gates Problem is his first book.

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