The Bill Gates Problem

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

Tim Schwab is a freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. His 2019 investigation into the Gates Foundation won multiple awards, including an Izzy from the Park Center for Independent Media and a Deadline Club Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and was nominated for a Pulitzer prize by The Nation newspaper. His reporting on Gates has appeared in The Nation, the Columbia Journalism Review and the British Medical Journal, and represents some of the only investigative journalism ever published on Gates. Earlier in his career, Tim worked as a journalist for two daily newspapers and as a researcher for the watchdog group Food & Water Watch.