Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: What are the words you think of when you hear
Speaker 2: the name Bill Gates, tech, visionary, innovator, philanthropist. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe some people would think vaccine, microchip implants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, truly, supporter of nuclear energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one too few. It's a phrase. Yeah. How
Speaker 2: about billionaire nerd savior and king also works. That's the
Speaker 2: title of a new book by Ada Das, South Asia,
Speaker 2: correspondent for The New York Times. It focuses on the
Speaker 2: life of what many would consider a pretty complicated and
Speaker 2: extremely accomplished individual.
Speaker 3: Got it nailed? Joins us now from New York.
Speaker 4: The full title of our book, by the way, is
Speaker 4: as you just said, Billionaire Nerd Savior, King, Bill Gates
Speaker 4: and his Quest to Shape Our World.
Speaker 3: It is out today. Prita.
Speaker 4: It is so nice to have you here on Blueberg
Speaker 4: Business Week. I always think about a book like this,
Speaker 4: someone very well known. We talk about Bill Gates a
Speaker 4: lot here at Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Why did you write this book?
Speaker 4: What was it about Gates beyond being one of the
Speaker 4: world's richest and most recognizable. Was there one specific event or.
Speaker 3: Just why did you do it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Thanks Carrol. Two stories.
Speaker 6: One is that when in twenty fourteen, when I was
Speaker 6: at the Wall Street Journal, I came across Bill Gates's
Speaker 6: fortune and the investment firm that manages it. Now very
Speaker 6: few people knew about it. It's called Cascade, and the
Speaker 6: way his money was invested, from the Four Seasons hotel
Speaker 6: to farmland to all kinds of assets made it really
Speaker 6: interesting because it was like an investment firm but belonging
Speaker 6: to one man. And so in twenty twenty one, move
Speaker 6: to The Times, and then I got pulled into the
Speaker 6: reporting when the divorce of Bill and Melinda happened, because
Speaker 6: I had this context for their fortune, and so that
Speaker 6: then got me thinking about who is this man? You know,
Speaker 6: we'd always thought, as you said, you know, we'd always
Speaker 6: thought of him in all these different ways, but you know,
Speaker 6: who is he behind all of these kind of images.
Speaker 6: So in twenty twenty one that was my ahamament. I
Speaker 6: thought it's worth investigating the persona and the man.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot to unpack here because it's four
Speaker 2: decades in public life and He's done a lot, not
Speaker 2: just when it comes to building Microsoft, but also of
Speaker 2: course philanthropy. I loved the excerpt of the book in
Speaker 2: the New York Times just a few days ago about
Speaker 2: his evolving relationship with Warren Buffett. Can you talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about that and how you reported not just
Speaker 2: that part of the book, but also who you spoke
Speaker 2: to to paint this portrait of this complicated person.
Speaker 5: I mean, I can't divulge my sources.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 3: You can. You can if you want. You know, Warren,
Speaker 3: did Warren talk to you?
Speaker 6: Warren spoke on the record. You know he is in fact,
Speaker 6: you know, I used to cover Again, a lot of
Speaker 6: this goes back to the Journal when I was a reporter.
Speaker 6: You know, I used to write about Warren Buffett and
Speaker 6: Berkshire Hathaway. So the relationship of the two men was
Speaker 6: also equally interesting. The first time I saw them at
Speaker 6: the Berkshire Hathway meeting, just kind of walking around, you know,
Speaker 6: talking to shareholders, and it just struck me as kind
Speaker 6: of a you know, a very casual but very intimate friendship.
Speaker 6: And then I began looking at it and seeing that
Speaker 6: you know, they've talked about each has talked about the
Speaker 6: other and sort of the magic of their friendship over
Speaker 6: the decades, and you know, Bill Gates definitely has kind
Speaker 6: of advertised that piece of it.
Speaker 5: It's almost like part of his brand. Every year, nearly
Speaker 5: every on.
Speaker 6: Gates notes his blog, he posts something like a goofy
Speaker 6: video or post dedicated to Buffett, and so that was
Speaker 6: really interesting to me. But in recent years, I think
Speaker 6: once Buffett decided that he wasn't he had always said
Speaker 6: that he wasn't going to give his money to anyone.
Speaker 6: He hadn't decided who he was going to give his
Speaker 6: money to after his death, but there was always like
Speaker 6: an assumption that the Gates Foundation stood to get all
Speaker 6: of the money. And when he eventually decided who was
Speaker 6: going to get that money after he died, it was
Speaker 6: not going to be the Gates Foundation, And so I
Speaker 6: think there was a little bit of tension there that
Speaker 6: I tried to capture in that piece that The Times ran,
Speaker 6: and it was you know, I think they have very
Speaker 6: different lifestyles. Buffett, as I'm sure you guys know, is
Speaker 6: a kind of more folksy, simple sort of person, very Midwestern,
Speaker 6: and then Gates has more of the traditional trap things
Speaker 6: of a billionaire, So it was interesting to see their
Speaker 6: divergent paths but also examine the basis of their friendship.
Speaker 4: You know, you said earlier about you know, you wanted
Speaker 4: to kind of dig into the persona and the man.
Speaker 3: Are they that different?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's a really interesting question.
Speaker 6: I think that plays into a lot of what we
Speaker 6: in the media, how we and what we write and
Speaker 6: what we choose to write feeds into the image of
Speaker 6: a person who's in the in you know, the public eye,
Speaker 6: in the sense that you interact with someone, you see
Speaker 6: him or her in a closed setting, you get more
Speaker 6: of a sense of who they are based on interactions,
Speaker 6: based on your sources. You start creating this image of
Speaker 6: a person in the media. So it's true the persona
Speaker 6: is based on many fundamental elements of who the person is,
Speaker 6: but then it also takes on its own life. And
Speaker 6: then if you're a billionaire or you have like a
Speaker 6: lot of resources that you can dedicate to that, then
Speaker 6: I think you're basically sustaining, nurturing, minimizing, you know, enhancing
Speaker 6: certain aspects of that image to really.
Speaker 5: Suit your needs and ends. And this isn't.
Speaker 6: Necessarily nefarious, but it's just what image making can do.
Speaker 6: And so I think there are elements of a person's
Speaker 6: internal personality or like in close settings, and then how
Speaker 6: that gets, how that feeds into a persona and how
Speaker 6: then people kind of keep manufacturing and finessing it, which
Speaker 6: to me was really interesting.
Speaker 4: Budgates, did you like him as you did this process?
Speaker 6: Well, he didn't grant me an interview, so that you know,
Speaker 6: I couldn't tell.
Speaker 5: You any more than that.
Speaker 4: But but you talk to a lot of people about him,
Speaker 4: and we can get for a picture of someone maybe
Speaker 4: clearer than the narrative that's out there publicly.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: I think what was most interesting to me is that
Speaker 6: the essential person has not changed. Right.
Speaker 5: He's mellowed obviously over the decades.
Speaker 6: We all do, but his essential personality the way he's
Speaker 6: obviously supremely smart, but he can sometimes be abrasive, he
Speaker 6: can be impatient with employees. He enjoys, you know, working
Speaker 6: in a combative culture. And that was the case of Microsoft,
Speaker 6: and that is also the case of the Gates Foundation,
Speaker 6: except that what happens is that Microsoft rewarded that sort
Speaker 6: of competitive, you know culture, whereas the Gates Foundation. I
Speaker 6: think people come from very different backgrounds, So it sat
Speaker 6: uncomfortably inside the Gates Foundation. But it struck me as
Speaker 6: really interesting that he was essentially the same person, but
Speaker 6: he had also changed his image over the decades, you know,
Speaker 6: to find that continuity, the consistency in so many ways,
Speaker 6: but to then place it against how we looked at
Speaker 6: him as a nerd, sort of ruthless monopolist.
Speaker 5: This is, you know, philanthropist.
Speaker 3: Rockefeller, like Robert Baron kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Because you write about its absolutely.
Speaker 2: What was the anti trust? Was the anti trust issue
Speaker 2: at Microsoft? Was that a pivotal turning point for him
Speaker 2: or when do you think this metamorphosis or transformation began?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it did.
Speaker 6: I think he had always said that he was going
Speaker 6: to give the bulk of his fortune to philanthropy. I
Speaker 6: think the time hadn't been decided. And you have to
Speaker 6: remember that in the nineteen nineties there was only Microsoft.
Speaker 6: Now we think about Google and Amazon and Facebook and
Speaker 6: a lot of companies that are facing similar antitrust scrutiny.
Speaker 6: But in the nineteen nineties, the late the second half
Speaker 6: of the nineties, Microsoft was it. It was the company.
Speaker 6: It captured everyone's imagination. But also, and as a result
Speaker 6: of that. I think Gates' performance, even though we didn't
Speaker 6: have social media then and we didn't have viral moments,
Speaker 6: Gates's performance riveted and people realized that this was a
Speaker 6: man who just who would become a distraction for Microsoft.
Speaker 6: So I think it made sense for him to then
Speaker 6: step step down from the CEO role in two thousand
Speaker 6: and Also, he was tired.
Speaker 5: I think he just he said a.
Speaker 6: Source of mind told me that he was tired, didn't
Speaker 6: nowhere else to go, and he just also felt that
Speaker 6: Microsoft was a shiny example of American innovation and why
Speaker 6: was the government going against him? And so I think
Speaker 6: there was there was a lot of confusion and a
Speaker 6: lot of pain. And then he turned to philanthropy because
Speaker 6: it was there. It was something he had always intended
Speaker 6: to do, and he found that he really liked it.
Speaker 6: And then it was go big or go home, because
Speaker 6: that's that's what Gates, that's who Gates is. He started Microsoft,
Speaker 6: changed the personal computing world, and now he's changed philanthropy
Speaker 6: with this Mammoth Foundation.
Speaker 2: Hey, you mentioned anti trust. There's a headline crossing the
Speaker 2: Bloomberg terminal right now. Kind of perfect timing on your part,
Speaker 2: I should say US anti trust enforcers are reviewing Google
Speaker 2: remedy options and a rare bid to break up Alphabet's
Speaker 2: Google is one of the options being considered by the
Speaker 2: Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the
Speaker 2: company monopolized the online search market. According to people with
Speaker 2: knowledge of the deliberations, do.
Speaker 3: You want to point out?
Speaker 4: Shares of Alphabet or down about one point three percent
Speaker 4: in the aftermarket. The move would be Washington's first push
Speaker 4: to dismantle a company for illegal monopolization since own sex
Speaker 4: unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft.
Speaker 3: We were just talking about that. That was, of course,
Speaker 3: two decades ago. Less of your.
Speaker 4: Options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors
Speaker 4: and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage
Speaker 4: in AI products. This is according to the people who
Speaker 4: asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. Again, Shares
Speaker 4: of Alphabet down about one point five percent in the aftermarket.
Speaker 4: I want to get back to We're talking with Anna
Speaker 4: Prita Das. She is a South Asia correspondent for The
Speaker 4: New York Times. Her new book, as we said, is
Speaker 4: about Bill Gates in Your Nerd Savior, King Bill Gates
Speaker 4: and his quest to shape our world.
Speaker 3: Just get about a.
Speaker 4: Minute and a half and then we'll come back and
Speaker 4: talk some more. Did you find a lot of surprises
Speaker 4: in this process in terms of new things you learned
Speaker 4: about Bill Gates?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things, Carol
Speaker 6: is we didn't really understand and I think that I
Speaker 6: think the entire world aid doesn't quite understand why he
Speaker 6: met with Jeffrey Epstein so many times. And the question
Speaker 6: for me that's been the most interesting to explore is
Speaker 6: that if your gates are if you're a billionaire, you
Speaker 6: have armies of people whose job it is to sustain
Speaker 6: and polish and nurture your image.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: Building Bill's brand is something I examined in the book,
Speaker 6: and yet you have despite having all these people, even
Speaker 6: a basic Google search right would reveal that Epstein by
Speaker 6: was a convicted sex offender and someone who perhaps wasn't
Speaker 6: the best kind of person from an optics standpoint for
Speaker 6: a billionaire with what Gates was trying to do to interact.
Speaker 6: So that was surprising to me. It was a failure
Speaker 6: lapse of judgment that I wouldn't expect. But it also
Speaker 6: ties back to the personality that.
Speaker 4: Gates is We'll continue on this because I do agree
Speaker 4: that this is an interesting aspect of certainly his story
Speaker 4: that is still being told, but that you cover so much.
Speaker 4: We were to come back with Prita Dos her new book,
Speaker 4: Billionaire Nerd Savior King. You are listening and watching Bloomberg
Speaker 4: Business Week right here on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: I want to get right back to Onoprida Dos. She's
Speaker 2: South Asia correspondent for The New York Times, her new book,
Speaker 2: Billionaire Nerd Savior King. Bill Gates in his Quest to
Speaker 2: Shape Our World. You were talking about Jeffrey Epstein just
Speaker 2: moments ago and the relationship that Bill Gates had with
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein. And I got to tell you the parts
Speaker 2: in your book that focus on and I've gotten ad
Speaker 2: a lot of media attention over the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Just explain what you learned about his relationship with Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein and why they found themselves having a relationship.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what happened.
Speaker 6: My best reconstruction, based on my reporting and documents, is
Speaker 6: that in twenty ten, you had the Giving Pledge, which
Speaker 6: was this effort essentially a get out of the vote
Speaker 6: campaign by Gates Warren, Buffett and Milan of French Gates
Speaker 6: to get other billionaires to commit to pledge to commit
Speaker 6: half or more of their fortunes to charity. And at
Speaker 6: that time a lot of billionaires were very interested in
Speaker 6: finding a way to put their money to use. Having
Speaker 6: the money is almost easier than figuring out how to
Speaker 6: give it away wisely, and so the Gates Foundation was
Speaker 6: very much set up to use billions of dollars and
Speaker 6: Gates was in the middle of this massive push toward
Speaker 6: polio eradication. He'd been the foundation, been working with other entities,
Speaker 6: and it was one of those times when Gates wanted
Speaker 6: to raise a lot of money. So Epstein kind of
Speaker 6: being in these circles of influence and power, he's someone
Speaker 6: who kind of collects, you know, collected bits and pieces
Speaker 6: of information, used leverage wherever he could, and realized that
Speaker 6: there might be an opportunity for him to pitch something
Speaker 6: called donor advised fund, and he wrote in JP Morgan
Speaker 6: and Jim Morgan had like other another relationship with the
Speaker 6: Gates Foundation. So he looked at all of this, he
Speaker 6: began pitching this idea for a donor advised fund. He
Speaker 6: reached out to people who he knew at the Gates Foundation,
Speaker 6: who you know, had an overlap with Gates of course,
Speaker 6: and began seeking an introduction. Now Gates took that introduction.
Speaker 5: There was there.
Speaker 6: He came and visited Epstein at his house the time,
Speaker 6: and then there was another meeting where there was a
Speaker 6: presentation Epstein had slides and everything. So that until then
Speaker 6: perhaps all well and good, But after that, the fact
Speaker 6: that he kept meeting with Epstein several times ostensibly to
Speaker 6: discuss philanthropy, and Gates has always said that he hasn't
Speaker 6: That was the only reason then that he was sorry
Speaker 6: for the lapse in judgment.
Speaker 5: But it still.
Speaker 6: Is a question for for Gates, essentially because he is
Speaker 6: perhaps the only person who would know why he kept
Speaker 6: going back and meeting with Epstein. There are people who
Speaker 6: say that Gates was enamored.
Speaker 5: Of Epstein's lifestyle.
Speaker 6: He did write to some employees and the Gates Foundation
Speaker 6: after saying that you know, he does have an adventurous,
Speaker 6: different lifestyle, but it's not for me. I'm not putting
Speaker 6: words into Gates's mouth, but that was essentially the point
Speaker 6: of what he was saying, and so clearly there was
Speaker 6: maybe amusement maybe surprise, maybe anticipation.
Speaker 5: It's hard to say.
Speaker 6: But again, coming back to the point I was making earlier,
Speaker 6: it is a surprising lapse in judgment for the people
Speaker 6: who work for him, but for Gates himself it's actually
Speaker 6: not that surprising, given that he does have a certain
Speaker 6: naivete when it comes to personal relationships.
Speaker 3: Now, you said you didn't get to talk to Bill
Speaker 3: Gates right for the book.
Speaker 5: No, I didn't. He turned down my request for an interview.
Speaker 4: Did he Were you able to ask him any questions
Speaker 4: like write and get responses or no, nothing at all.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 6: So what happened was that it was interesting because I
Speaker 6: sent them detailed fact checking lists, both at Gates Ventures,
Speaker 6: which is a private firm, and the Gates Foundation back
Speaker 6: in January or February, months months before. They stalled in
Speaker 6: stonewalled and didn't acknowledge my emails, and at the end
Speaker 6: when I said you have to give me a comment,
Speaker 6: they said it was hearsay. And then just weeks before
Speaker 6: we went to publication, they got back on some of
Speaker 6: the Epstein related points and they refuted and said that
Speaker 6: they could present documented evidence, and I asked for that,
Speaker 6: and they didn't provide anything. And the book went to print,
Speaker 6: and then the Daily Mail, of all the Daily Mail
Speaker 6: and the New York Post put out these tidbits from
Speaker 6: my book, and they were overblown and not entirely accurate,
Speaker 6: but the Gates found. But then Gates is private firm
Speaker 6: then put out a statement saying that it was all
Speaker 6: wild allegations and that they presented me with documented evidence
Speaker 6: that I chose to ignore, which is not true.
Speaker 2: Speaking of wild things that potentially could come up. I
Speaker 2: was joking at the top when I said the microchip
Speaker 2: vaccine stuff, but only half joking in the sense that
Speaker 2: these are real conspiracy theories about Bill Gates. Can you
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about where those come from and
Speaker 2: the idea of this quote unquote Davos elite that wants
Speaker 2: to control the world.
Speaker 6: I think the fact that Gates was so prominent suddenly
Speaker 6: in everywhere, he was suddenly everywhere. He was talking about vaccines,
Speaker 6: he was sharing the stage with doctor Anthony Fauci, he
Speaker 6: was advocating, he was kind of out there everywhere. He
Speaker 6: couldn't miss him, which led a lot of people to wonder,
Speaker 6: and I speak to I have one person in the
Speaker 6: book who said, who made the point that you know,
Speaker 6: I had always thought of Gates as the Microsoft co founder,
Speaker 6: and suddenly, why is this guy talking about vaccines? And
Speaker 6: so I think if you are grown to conspiracy theories,
Speaker 6: I think that was kind of the first signed for
Speaker 6: a lot of people that maybe Gates has some kind
Speaker 6: of vested interest, and you know, conspiracy theories obviously.
Speaker 5: Take on a life of their own.
Speaker 6: And I think there was a study, and don't quote
Speaker 6: me on this, but I think there's a study looking
Speaker 6: at the feasibility of having some information, you know, implanted
Speaker 6: into a person's under a person's skin, and it was
Speaker 6: an mit feasibility study and nothing came of it, but
Speaker 6: that led to this kind of big idea that somehow
Speaker 6: Gates was trying to you know, implant chips and people
Speaker 6: and kind of all manner of things.
Speaker 5: Now I think for.
Speaker 6: The vaccines, And you know, Gates was He's a rational guy.
Speaker 6: He's driven by evidence and science and tech, and I
Speaker 6: think he just didn't understand why there were people questioning
Speaker 6: what seemed to him very obvious steps. He couldn't understand
Speaker 6: being a personal target of the conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4: We just have about forty five seconds left here. Your
Speaker 4: title billionaire nerd Savior King, which is the most appropriate
Speaker 4: as you finish your book in terms of which word
Speaker 4: really you would most closely identify with him, As I said,
Speaker 4: only got about forty.
Speaker 5: Seconds today, it would be King.
Speaker 6: He really kind of is on top of so many
Speaker 6: you know, I would say Savior King. Perhaps the billionaire
Speaker 6: is a fact, the nerd is a version of him
Speaker 6: back in the day, but today he's kind of on
Speaker 6: top of the world, sharing the stage with heads of state,
Speaker 6: and he is a savior of people in the global
Speaker 6: South with the Gates Foundation.
Speaker 5: So I would say Savior King.
Speaker 3: Very cool stuff.
Speaker 4: Really enjoyed this and good luck with the book, and
Speaker 4: I'm really glad that we could get time with you
Speaker 4: and youre. Pritadas is South Asia correspondent for The New
Speaker 4: York Times and her new book is Billionaire Nerds Savior King,
Speaker 4: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World.
Speaker 3: That book is out today. Looking forward to that and
Speaker 3: that's no doubt about that. Probably going to hit our
Speaker 3: weekend podcasting broadcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's safe to say.