Before reading this book, a question we need to ask is whether or not the judgment of a corporate leader should stop at professional achievements. Does personal life matter or the associations that a person may have? If the person has achieved distinction by probably lobbying to get certain laws passed, is there anything amiss here? And last, if the person at some stage of career decides to give a large part of wealth for general welfare, even though there could be some business round-tripping, should it taint the image?
To digest the book written by Anupreeta Das, titled Billionaire, Nerd, Saviour, King, one needs to answer these questions. While there are several tech entrepreneurs who would qualify under this heading, this book is all about Bill Gates. The author has a sub-title which goes as ‘the hidden truth about Bill Gates and his power to shape our world’. This indicates that the author is going to be very critical of Bill Gates, and this is actually the train of thought that pervades the 320-odd pages. In the book, Gates comes across as a person who is a slave-driver employer and very demanding, even getting abusive if things do not go his way. Hence employees have to give their best, keeping aside things like a work-life balance. The book says Gates’ philanthropic work in terms of money given has been questioned based on motivations and the fact that the foundation funds may be finite can raise some questions on intent.
The first page of the introduction in the book talks of his association with Jeffrey Epstein, who was a convicted sex offender and a pariah who died in jail. The reader would evidently start reading the book with a bias that could turn to prejudice along the way when viewing Bill Gates. His achievements at Microsoft could get dimmed in this process.
Gates was a drop-out from Harvard in 1975 who co-founded Microsoft as a teenager. His early life is described as one of relentless coding through the night after promising a company ‘software that he hadn’t yet written’. The company went public 11 years later, and a year after that Gates became a billionaire at the age of 31.
His image got sullied due to legal issues that came up, as Microsoft allegedly misused monopoly power to the extent that anti-trust suits were filed. Microsoft’s refusal to allow Netscape access to Windows 95 sparked a long-running antitrust battle with the government, where it was accused of monopolising the web browser market. By 2001 Microsoft had been sued more than 200 times in the US because of monopolistic conduct highlighted by the justice department. Gates genuinely felt this was absurd as Microsoft generated myriads of jobs as well as added wealth to America, in a way reflecting his arrogance. In the hearings and question sessions, he openly stated that the government was only stifling innovation, which would hurt the country.
A major area that Das has written about is the philanthropic work of Gates through the foundation set up in 2008 at a time when he stepped out of Microsoft. The core of the critique here is that the money involved has given the foundation disproportionate power over how public issues and policy are framed. The focus on using technology fixes and absence of democratic accountability affected final outcomes. The book implies based on the sequence of events that getting into philanthropy was a way to change the image of a ruthless capitalist to a saviour of the underprivileged.
An interpretation of his actions has been that the charity has been used as a political tool, taking advantage of tax breaks, besides creating an image for the self. The author writes that in India, Gates has not been apolitical but aligned with the Modi government and some of his programmes did not quite work. Das has a gone a long way to show probably only the darker side of Gates to reveal how billionaires wield their power, manipulate their images, and use philanthropy as a tool to become heroes. In the course of these actions they help repair their damaged reputations while directing policy to derive their preferred outcomes.
The author has written this book after interviewing several people who have worked with Gates. These include both current employees of Microsoft as well as the former staff, besides those from the Gates Foundation. The author also spends several pages on his relationship with his wife as well as Warren Buffett, who was a contributor to the foundation.
Given the title of the book and the implicit bias that will strike the reader continuously in the first few pages, there is little praise for Gates’ achievements as the creator of Microsoft or the good that has come from the work of the foundation. Hence it is a very one-sided view that can only add to prejudice and not a fair evaluation of the persona. A more balanced approach would have been appropriate given that a lot of good has come from Gates. Therefore, the reader should keep this in mind when forming judgments because it does tend to present only the darker side. Some of the titles of the chapters bring out the unconcealed prejudice— ‘why we hate billionaires’ and ‘cancel bill’ or ‘rockstar to robber baron’. However, if one really dislikes billionaires anywhere in the world, then this is a book to pick up and read for reaffirmation!
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