The Bill Gates Problem

September 18, 2023
The Microsoft mogul’s vaunted charity has done more harm than good, according to this heated polemic. Journalist Schwab debuts with an exploration of the allegedly counterproductive machinations of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—“one of the most feared organizations on earth,” Schwab writes, because its vast funding resources give it dominion over the global nonprofit sector. Much of his criticism targets Gates’s work on vaccines: the Gates Foundation both dominated and botched the World Health Organization’s COVAX program to procure Covid vaccines, Schwab argues, resulting in a tragic scarcity of vaccines in Africa and other poor regions. He also tags Gates with pushing America toward the Common Core program of educational standards, which failed to improve student performance, and prodding African farmers to use genetically modified crops that failed to improve yields. Along the way Schwab probes Gates’s egomania and rages, his harvesting of tax breaks, his chumminess with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and vague intimations of racism at the Gates Foundation. Much of Schwab’s case against Gates is simply that he is a billionaire and therefore a defender of inequality and “a canker on democracy.” Still, Schwab’s critique hits home when he details how Gates Foundation initiatives have misfired with little benefit from billions spent. Gates’s detractors will find useful ammunition here. Photos.

September 15, 2023
Money may not buy happiness, but when you're one of the world's wealthiest men, it can buy great PR, and that can feel like practically the same thing. Gates, the nerdy Microsoft founder, has been portrayed publicly as the ultimate good guy, a philanthropist extraordinaire, distributing his largesse through his eponymous Foundation. Whether seen as a medical savior dispensing vaccines to Third World countries, an ecowarrior funding cutting-edge climate change technology, or an advocate for educational reform, Gates' reputation in the world of altruistic acts is unparalleled. But is it deserved? Gates' charitable works come with hefty price tags but often show paltry results, an outcome Gates endeavors to quash with his carrot-and-stick approach to awarding grants and enforcing punitive NDAs. Schwab, an investigative journalist who has been probing the Gates Foundation for years, pokes copious holes in the philanthropic cloak that billionaires such as Gates can hide behind to shield personal gains in corporate profits, tax breaks, and other sweetheart deals. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Gates wields his inordinate power to move markets, influence politicians, shape cultures, and control narratives, most notably his own. Schwab's deep reporting offers a convincing and informative alternative to the established image of the Gates Foundation.

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October 1, 2023
How the Gates Foundation acts "a great deal more like Microsoft than Mother Theresa" and why that matters. As investigative journalist Schwab demonstrates in his debut book, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates has been mythologized as the ultimate good guy, albeit often by the very media and political outlets he has funded through his philanthropic ventures. However, the author argues convincingly that "the Gates Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-privileged charity that is acting like a private equity investor, venture capital fund, or a pharmaceutical company." For example, the foundation "has positioned itself to see the confidential business information of competing companies" and asks charitable partners to give it licensing claims to their technology. Furthermore, Schwab notes, Gates poured his greatest sums into the foundation during two periods when he most needed positive publicity: during the investigations into Microsoft as a possible monopoly, and a spell when Gates' personal life was in the spotlight. The author is most troubled by the lack of transparency in the U.S. involving not just Gates, but also the increasing number of billionaires with private foundations. These organizations are not held to the same transparency standards as public companies, government agencies, or political actors. This is true even though tax breaks mean that some 50% of every dollar spent by foundations like Gates' is "public money." Schwab sends a clear message to legislators that they must begin regulating the foundations they have left comparatively unexamined since the 1960s. "Our democracy is only as strong as we allow it to be and only as accountable as we force it to be," he writes. Though the author extends his reach beyond Gates, he always returns to him, as "it would be difficult to name a more powerful, less scrutinized political actor than the Gates Foundation." An eye-opening look at the use of tax-subsidized money by private philanthropy.

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