Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape the World

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[ing] 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. (Aug.)