Billionaire Nerd Saviour King: The Hidden Truth About Bill Gates and His Power to Shape the World by Anupreeta Das

Simon & Schuster, 2024

Why?

I'm always interested in what drives successful business people and politicians and this biography (if it can be called that) of Bill Gates by the Finance Editor of the New York Times promised a new perspective.

Enjoyment factor

The book is mostly a pontification on whether billionaires are "good" or "bad", if that can be a valid question.

Whilst offering lots of insight into tangential topics such as the origins of Gates' and Buffett's Giving Pledge and the workings of different types of family office, the book disappoints in that the "hidden truth" of the subtitle simply doesn't exist.

That people who have achieved power and can sometimes lose perspective and overstep that power may not be attractive, but it isn't newsworthy, and there's nothing new about Bill Gates in this book.

It left me thinking ...

Mostly, what was the point of the book. There's nothing to shock here and nothing we don't already know. The lengthy final chapter is titled "Why We Hate Billionaires" (do we?) but there's no clear conclusion, and certainly no suggested action point.

There seems to be a wave of thinking (see also: the BBC's podcast Good Bad Billionaire) which suggests that people who have made vast amounts of money should be judged as inherently "good" or "bad" - such arguments inevitably leaning towards the latter.

Aside from ignoring all kinds of nuance, the question is surely a moot point. What we should be asking is whether society has the right checks and balances in place to ensure that no individual exerts undue power.

But instead we seem to be applying the modus operandi our times - ignoring the wood for the trees, and going to great lengths to put individuals categorically into "good" and "evil" boxes. What this achieves is not clear, but one thing's for sure - it leaves a sour taste.