Must read for India’s politicians & bureaucrats: Tim Schwab’s The Bill Gates Problem

Yesterday, I finished reading Tim Schwab’s book The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire. 

I have never trusted Bill Gates. I have always seen him as a tech-villain who peddles philanthropic activities for buying false prestige and political influence. I find his TV interviews annoying because he talks like a medieval mullah delivering fatwas and sermons to his flock. He seems convinced that he has the answer to mankind’s every problem.

Tim Schwab’s book confirms my negative opinion of Gates. Schwab accuses Gates of flooding money into the academic institutions, think tanks, media houses and advocacy groups to control their research, analysis and reporting, and their political and social activities. 

“Gates donates money from his private wealth to his private foundation. He then assembles a small group of consultants and experts at the foundation’s half-billion-dollar corporate headquarters to decide what problems are worth his time, attention, and money—and what solutions should be pursued. Then the Gates Foundation floods money into universities, think tanks, newsrooms, and advocacy groups, giving them both a check and checklist of things to do. Suddenly, Gates has created an echo chamber of advocates pushing the political discourse toward his ideas. And the results have been stunning.”

He also accuses Gates of using his wealth to buy influence in the mainstream media.

“Bill Gates is not plowing hundreds of millions of dollars into journalism because he believes in the democratic ideals of the free press or because he is a personal fan of watchdog reporting. His private foundation funds the media for the exact opposite reason—to defang his watchdogs and bring them to heel, to promote his agenda and embellish his brand, to create propaganda that builds his political power, and to control the narrative that guides public understanding of his work.”

The book turns the spotlight on the myriad misdeeds that Bill Gates and his so-called charity have committed in several nations. According to Schwab, instead of improving healthcare in Africa, Gates’s charity has led to a decline in the quality of healthcare services in several instances. 

Bill Gates has been trying to push his vision of education and healthcare reforms in India. If India accepts the Gates plan for education and healthcare, then the country is doomed. I hope the politicians, bureaucrats, academics and journalists in India will read Tim Schwab’s book, and they will stop listening to Bill Gates.