Employees who worked at Bill Gates’ mega-charity claimed they were appalled by the billionaire’s domineering behavior – with one comparing the tech mogul to France’s King Louis XIV, according to a new book.
Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft who went on to launch one of the world’s largest philanthropic efforts, is said to have ruled over the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with an intimidating presence that left employees fearing “inquisition” his.
The charity has been renamed the Gates Foundation following the departure of ex-wife Melinda French Gates, who divorced the software pioneer over his reputation for cheating and his friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
While Bill Gates was perceived by the outside world as a “global statesman,” those who interacted with him professionally saw him as an “absolute monarch,” New York Times reporter Anupreeta Das wrote in her new biography of the billionaire.
“He’s the scariest person in the world to give a recommendation or briefing to because he scans a page and comes back to you saying something like ‘what you say in the footnote on page 9 doesn’t match the footnote on page 28 “. A former employee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation told Das.
Das’ new book, Billionaire, Fool, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World, was recently released nationwide.
An excerpt of the book appeared on the Business Insider news site.
A former foundation executive told Das that meetings with Gates “had the feel of a king holding court, as if Gates were Louis XIV and the employees were courtiers bowing and scratching before him at Versailles, hoping to curry favor with the ruler theirs”.
Another former executive told Das that staff “would scrutinize Gates’ expressions” during meetings.
“The slightest hint of a smile or a nod might mean he approved; an impatient face could mean he didn’t do it,” Das wrote in the book, quoting the former executive.
According to Das, Gates’ reactions — or lack thereof — would be the talk of the staff for days after the fact.
“Once the meeting was over and people returned to their offices and desks, they would share Gates’ questions and expressions for days, often celebrating if they concluded that they had impressed their boss,” he told the author. another person who attended the strategy sessions.
Foundation employees sought praise from their boss, although “even the lack of contempt was seen as validation,” one former employee told Das.
“Sometimes, interpreting what Gates wanted could take hours of back and forth between directors and teams,” this person said.
“I felt we were spending more time managing than working to meet people’s needs.”
The Post has sought comment from Gates.
A spokesman for Gates told Business Insider: “Relying almost exclusively on second- and third-hand hearsay and anonymous sources, the book includes highly sensational claims and outright falsehoods that ignore the actual documented facts that our office has provided. the author in many cases”.
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