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#564 - The Bill Gates Problem (w/ Tim Schwab) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-10-07 22:45:57
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2026-06
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Content

The new Netflix documentary WHAT'S NEXT: THE FUTURE WITH BILL GATES (2024) positions the Microsoft founder as "one of the good billionaires." But what are the limits to his brand of philanthropy? And how neutral and objective are these documentaries on the big streaming platforms? Luke welcomes Tim Schwab (author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire) to discuss why he declined to participate in the documentary, and what he uncovered about its making.

Buy The Bill Gates Problem by Tim Schwab - https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250291431/thebillgatesproblem

"Why I refused to participate in the Netflix docu-series on Bill Gates" by Tim Schwab - https://timschwab.substack.com/p/why-i-refused-to-participate-in-the

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Comments

Kainien Morel

I have a vivid memory from the mid-to-late 1990s, being about twelve or so, of being taken to a major bookstore in Taichung (my hometown and arguably "second city" of Taiwan) during a visit from Japan, and being taken the impressive English-language section, since by then I was effectively bilingual. It was what you'd imagine a wealthy, cosmopolitan bookstore would look like (maybe some 'You Got Mail' vibes here), and there were a few memorable English-language titles on display, including biographies on Mao; I mention him specifically because though I knew who Mao was (from school and possibly the video game Civilization II?) I didn't appreciate the fact, ten years earlier, those books probably wouldn't have been legal to distribute in Taiwan in any language. Some of them, probably including the one on Mao, were available both in English and Traditional Chinese. Another one of the books, I swear, was titled something to effect of 'BILL GATES AND THE PEOPLE WHO INTEND TO DESTROY HIM' (or 'BRING HIM DOWN' or something equally dramatic). By then, I also knew who Bill Gates was--in fact, almost all Taiwanese would've either heard of him, or the major products of the company he was still associated with, Microsoft; home computing came later to Taiwan than the United States or Japan (ironic, given the country's central role in microchip processing), even among bourgeois extended family's like mine, probably just because the country was still discernably poorer. That, combined with the Apple Corporation's weaker product support in the Sinophone world (still true today in comparative terms), meant that Windows (at the time still 3.1 in many cases, again because of the tech lag) already had a stranglehold on the first generation to "grow up" with home computers, because competitors like the Macintosh II didn't have a head start, the way they had in Japan (which was the first place I actually ever used an Apple computer). Going back to the bookstore, I remember finding the title and dust jacket art (it was some press photo of Gates in portrait, looking very plain the way he was always portrayed, not exactly matching the book's contents). I'm swear I remember the book describing, though probably not advocating, the need to "assassinate" him, and my twelve-year-old mind (which didn't have much of an impression of Gates, beyond 'I know he's rich, it'd be cool to be as rich as him') thought, for starters "Holy crap. These people are, like, serious." It's not like there was an abundance of books in the store commenting on the need to kill OTHER billionaires (assuming he was a billionaire at the time), I definitely got the impression Gates occupied a very specific status. To use the obvious comparison, put that next to when I first learned about that other tech mogul, Steve Jobs, whom a few years later (probably about the time the iMac belatedly arrived in Taiwan, colorfully missing the diskette drive), was being described in terms as "literally the 20th century's Leonard da Vinci"; it wouldn't be the last time either. I don't recall ever running into a book describing the need to topple, and as the case might be, "compromise Jobs to a permanent end" (as the Chapo boys would put it). They certainly could be out there, though I think during his lifetime, there probably wasn't the same kind of potential market for that sort of thing (and Jobs' long-enduring cult of personality, quite unlike any other tech moguls, even including the likes of Elon Musk, probably would not have taken it with a laugh). The other thing my twelve-year-old brain thought at the time was, though I didn't really know much else about Gates, I had to guess that anyone who has books written about their downfall and death...is probably going to be fairly paranoid and distrusting of people, if they aren't already. So, no surprises there. This should be a good episode, heh.

Curtis Bathurst

I’ve wondered about this. I was talking to my mom about the emergence of billionaires as the actual world government the other day. The nuance in this discussion helps me think about that better, though.

Jordan Yule

Excellent discussion. Luke I’ve heard you say “bespeckled” rather than “bespectacled” a couple of times now and it’s great. You’re doing great

ChapoFan inParis

"What's next" is a clear reference to The West Wing. Gates sees himself as a President Bartlett.

ChapoFan inParis

"Let's see Paul Allen's testimony about Gates"

ChapoFan inParis

I love Paul Allen calling Gates a "misanthrope". Allen owned the world's largest private yacht, a 278 million dollar, 126 meter long monstrosity named "The Octopus".

Michael and Us
>>151714796

Sorry, but this is a Barenstain Bears thing and the universe just invented a bunch more syllables in that word. - Luke

Oliver Elliott

“The future, Mr. Gittes! The future!” At a certain point of wealth, I’m not sure there’s anything we should call “philanthropy” anymore. It’s always exerting influence, buying status, etc. Is giving money away admirable if it doesn’t require any sacrifice and, if anything, actually aggrandizes you? Bill Gates could “give away” 99.9% of his wealth and it wouldn’t be admirable because he’d still have so much money that his grandchildren will never work a day in their lives.

cody

You and Will should do "Pirates of Silicon Valley"

Ekaterina Sedia

“Let no one believe, however, that the "cultivated" Englishman openly brags with his egotism. On the contrary, he conceals it under the vilest hypocrisy. What? The wealthy English fail to remember the poor? They who have founded philanthropic institutions, such as no other country can boast of! Philanthropic institutions forsooth! As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practising your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them! Charity which degrades him who gives more than him who takes; charity which treads the downtrodden still deeper in the dust, which demands that the degraded, the pariah cast out by society, shall first surrender the last that remains to him, his very claim to manhood, shall first beg for mercy before your mercy deigns to press, in the shape of an alms, the brand of degradation upon his brow.” - Engels in 1845