Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King

Book excerpt: From the finance editor of The New York Times, an examination of Bill Gates—one of the most powerful, fascinating, and contradictory figures of the past four decades—and an eye-opening exploration of our national fixation on billionaires. Few billionaires have been in the public eye for as long, and in as many guises, as Bill Gates. At first heralded as a tech visionary, the Microsoft cofounder next morphed into a ruthless capitalist, only to change yet again when he fashioned himself into a global do-gooder. Along the way, Gates forever influenced how we think about tech founders, as the products they make and the ideas they sell continue to dominate our lives. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he also set a new standard for high-profile, billionaire philanthropy. But there is more to Gates’s story, and here, Das’s revelatory reporting shows us that billionaires have secrets and philanthropy can have a dark side. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with current and former employees of the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, academics, nonprofits, and those with insight into the Gates universe, Das delves into Gates’s relationships with Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Epstein, Melinda French Gates, and others, to uncover the truths behind the public persona. In telling Gates’s story, Das also provides a new way to think about how billionaires wield their power, manipulate their image, and pursue philanthropy to become heroes, repair damaged reputations, and direct policy to achieve their preferred outcomes. Insightful, illuminating, and timely, Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King is an important story of money and government, wealth and power, and media and image, and the ways in which the world’s richest people hold us in their thrall.