Tim Schwab

“Across most of the diseases the Gates Foundation works on, its track record of innovation is quite weak. Gates planted its flag as the leading voice on malaria, working with a number of different companies to develop a vaccine, eventually putting all its weight behind a GSK product. The GSK vaccine’s efficacy was so weak that even the foundation distanced itself from the product. We see a similar story with TB, where the foundation put half a billion dollars into a nonprofit vaccine developer named Aeras, which shuttered in 2018. Gates also poured money into, and grandiosely promoted, its work on an AIDS vaccine and new TB drugs. Again and again and again, the game-changing innovations Gates promised never materialized. Yes, these failures speak to the complexity of these diseases, but many sources say they also speak to the foundation’s bullying and micromanaging, which stifle innovation.”
― Tim Schwab, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire

“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.”
― Tim Schwab, The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire