The Bill Gates Problem

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

You know him as the founder of Microsoft; the philanthropic, kind-hearted billionaire who has donated endless funds to good causes around the world. But there's another side to Bill Gates.

We might like to think of the Gates Foundation as an innocent charity giving away money, collaborating with stakeholders, and listening to the desires of the populations it hopes to help, but that's simply not how it works in practice. The charity internally sets a policy agenda for how to fix the world - based on one man's worldview - then imposes this vision onto the developing world by funding groups that align with it.

Combining rich storytelling and ground-breaking reporting, The Good Billionaire offers readers a provocative and timely counter-narrative about one of the world's most widely recognized individuals - a true global celebrity with a truly global audience. But more than that, this book speaks to a vital political question around economic inequality and the erosion of democratic institutions - why should the super-rich be able to transform their wealth into political power, and just how far can they go?

©2023 Tim Schwab (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • 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

  • 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. As this well-argued and immensely engaging account of Bill Gates’s forays into world-saving by fiat make clear, the problem with Big Philanthropy is the Big Hubris that comes along with it.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. As this well-argued and immensely engaging account of Bill Gates’s forays into world-saving by fiat make clear, the problem with Big Philanthropy is the Big Hubris that comes along with it.

    Douglas Rushkoff, author of Survival of the Richest

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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”… An eye-opening look at the use of tax-subsidized money by private philanthropy

    Kirkus

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