The Bill Gates Problem

A tale of frustration and even rage at the culture of secrecy and often incompetence inside Gates’s philanthropic world, it is also strangely heartening. * New Statesman * [An] excellent exposé of hyper-billionaire ‘myths’ * Nature * 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 * 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 * 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. * Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Richest * An extraordinary and detailed work of investigative journalism into an underexplored nexus of influence in global affairs. * The Telegraph * 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 * Read it and learn the brutal truth: there is nothing altruistic about the world’s favorite billionaire. * Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas * Investigative journalism with a fierce polemical edge … Nobody who comes away from reading The Bill Gates Problem will look at him in the same way. * The Times *