Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World

by Anupreeta Das

From the finance editor of The New York Times , an examination of Bill Gates—one of the most powerful, fascinating, and contradictory figures of the past four decades—and an eye-opening exploration of our national fixation on billionaires that reveals how the wealthiest wield their power, manipulate their image, and pursue philanthropic aims to become heroes, repair damaged reputations, and direct policy programs.

When Bill Gates cofounded Microsoft in 1975, computers were found mainly in government offices, and software as a product didn’t exist. But by 1987, Gates had become the first technology billionaire, and by 1995, the richest man in the world, forever influencing how we think about tech founders, as the products they make and the ideas they sell continue to dominate our lives. But there is more to Gates’s story, and here, Anupreeta Das’s revelatory reporting shows us that billionaires have secrets and philanthropy can have a dark side.

Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world’s largest private philanthropic donor, touching millions of lives, and transforming Gates into a new kind of high-profile, do-gooder billionaire. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with current and former employees of the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, academics, nonprofits, and those with insight into the Gates universe, Das delves into Gates’s relationships with Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Epstein, Melinda French Gates, and others, to uncover the truths behind the myth.

Insightful, illuminating, and timely, Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King is an important story of money and government, wealth and power, and media and image, and the way in which institutions have tied their fates and their fortunes to the richest people in the world.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Business, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, Politics, Technology

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 13, 2024

Reviews

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am looking forward to reading Bill Gate's memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings. I am in the que for the book on Libby and it is an eleven week wait.

In the meantime, one of the available audiobooks on Libby was Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World so I listened to it. The author is Anupreeta Das and the narrator is Ulka Simone Mohanty. Based on the photo of Bill Gates on the cover, I mistakenly assumed it was a biography about Bill Gates from several decades ago.

Right away, I learned my assumptions were wrong. The book starts with Gates' association with Jeffrey Epstein and Gates' divorce from Melinda French Gates. The book really is not about Bill Gates. It is about billionaires in general and how their accumulation of wealth should be used for philanthropy.

Several times the book negatively references the Gates Foundation's efforts around the eradication of polio. I am very familiar with polio and how significantly it has been eradicated, primarily due to the polio vaccine and the global efforts of the Gates Foundation.

The book's bias and slant doesn't feel balanced or well researched.

[edmond j. fong · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books you should never read!

I would say that 70% of the book has nothing to do with Bill Gates. When the book does discuss Bill Gates, it does so with innuendo, third person recounts and presented through a lens of hate and no objectivity. There is nothing in this book that reveals anything new about Gates, his motivations or his life. Melinda French Gates is canonized in the book while Gates is a monopolist, bully, sexual predator and a phony. This book could have been a vanity publication from Elizabeth Warren. When I said 70% of the book has nothing to do with Gates, that 70% is used to bash billionaires. This book is a colossal waste of time. Read it if you're spending time in a penitentiary because all you have at that point is time to waste.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for the ARC of this title.

This was probably a 4.5/5, but rounding up rather than down.

If you're looking for a straightforward biography of Bill Gates, keep walking (but also: interrogate why you want that if you're not someone doing a report about Bill Gates). This does the smart thing of seeing Bill Gates' story as emblematic of multiple other stories (the rise of the "nerd" archetype, billionaire philanthropy, attempting to optimize solutions to worldwide problems like hunger and easily treated diseases) and uses Bill Gates as a lens to talk about the way our viewpoints around those things have changed in the last 20 or so years.

Das is critical of Gates' approach to charity and the sort of "rebranding" multiple billionaires on his level have done, and it's a breath of fresh air in an environment that tends to want to produce fawning, rags-to-riches coverage of top tech leaders instead of pushing back on the narrative we're asked to focus on. The book doesn't skimp on what he's been able to accomplish, but isn't afraid to put those accomplishments in the context of other work Gates has done to prevent the open-sourcing of both code and vaccines. More biographies, particularly of emblematic figures, would do well to follow the template this book sets.

[Luis · Rating 1 out of 5]

20 percent into this book I realized it is mostly not about Bill Gates but about how bad and evil and vicious billionaire tech entrepreneurs are and Gates is one of the worst manifestations of the same. I was expecting a book about bill gates but it is not. I really dislike it when authors say their books are about a specific subject and then they don’t proceed to talk about the subject and instead go on to unrelated self serving tangents. I will not waste any more of my precious time reading this resentful, hating socialist, feminist diatribe.

[Chester Mallory · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anupreeta Das is intelligent and writes well. However, the author misunderstands the
human condition, which hinders the chronical. Further, Das writes through a prism of oppressor and oppressed while seeming to have luxury beliefs. Not long into the book, the outcome of Gates' portrayal was generally known. There were too many anonymous quotes, contradictions, and bunny trails.

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5* The book "Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World" traces Bill Gates' journey from software mogul and Microsoft founder to philanthropist, highlighting his collaborations with key figures like Melinda French (his ex-wife) and Warren Buffett (with whom he co-founded the Giving Pledge), as well as fellow billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. While it delves into Gates' life, it frequently expands into a broader critique of billionaires—the ways they acquire, invest, and donate their wealth.

The book primarily focuses on Gates' later years, after stepping back from Microsoft, rather than his childhood or the formative years of the company. It critically examines the media’s portrayal of his carefully curated public image, shedding light on his investments, philanthropic efforts, personal controversies—including his infidelities and divorce—and his association with Jeffrey Epstein. It also explores his role as a prominent figure in pandemic relief efforts.

Despite offering sharp insights, the book feels verbose and somewhat unfocused, lacking a strong central theme beyond its overarching critique of billionaires. At times, it reads more like a collection of loosely connected essays rather than a structured biography. That said, it deserves credit for avoiding a hagiographic approach, presenting a more critical and unfiltered perspective on one of the world’s most influential figures.

[Casey · Rating 1 out of 5]

WASTE. OF. TIME. 


If you are looking for a book about Bill Gates, this is not it. This book has very little to do with Gates. It is more about bashing all billionaires. Extremely one side piece of diatribe. I should have checked the reviews before wasting my time. 


I was looking forward to reading about the man himself. Did not happen. On top of that, even given the changing context, this book is still boring and a one-sided vent. 


Don’t waste your time! 

[Nancy Dunham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dull book with little new information

I found this book incredibly disappointing. it’s almost like Bill Gates is just a character along with Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, and so many other billionaires. The book almost reads like the author took a bunch of newspaper articles and summarize them. Again, what a disappointment.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

complete waste of time

This was probably one of the worst books I have ever read. I was thoroughly interested in a biography of Bill Gates. This book has absolutely nothing to do with him save a token reference in each long winded chapter. There are next to no credited interviews with anyone remotely connected to him except an occasional “former employee”. This book is fantastic if you’re generally interested in anything but bill gates or need a new way to fight insomnia. It talks about the history of billionaires, robber barons, vaccines, nerds and philanthropy. If you’re buying a book supposedly about bill gates with his picture on the cover, the (poorly met) level of expectation is that you would learn something about him, not the adjectives used to describe him. The only thing I can compare it to is a middle school book report with tons of fluff and filler. Unfortunately I purchased the digital version so I can’t even use it as a doorstop.

[Rob Sedgwick · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a bitchy book, anti-male, anti-nerd, anti-elite. It looks at all Gates's bad points and none of his good. Even his success is grudgingly attributed to his "privileged" background of private schooling in Seattle (like he was the only one). According to the author, nerds epitomised by Gates have poor social skills and prey on women. She belittles everything he did and does including his foundation.

So what if he has an image consultant, and his foundation is tax-efficient? Fair enough she doesn't like him but why write a book on him? Maybe next time she'll write about someone she admires.

Don't expect salubrious tales of his affairs, there are no details at all, other than he had them. If you hate billionaires and want to read how terrible they all are, this book is for you.

[Srija]

Honestly, I wish the book had more of a narrative than it already does, but that just might be my fiction-addled brain.

It does seem that the author wanted to write a book that presents facts to you, sometimes systematically - to let you draw your own conclusions. There is some nudging, in the way the chapters are placed, towards a point-of-view (#BillSucks, which i fully support). But for the most part, the author seems to br letting her readers interpret this man for themselves (he sucks).

A fun book to read, albeit a bit too surface level for me? But I'm glad I learned more to further justify my hate for the guy :)

[Lianna Hawi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really not great. The title, synopsis, and cover of this book are misleading. I learned some things along the way, but overall would not recommend.

[Arthur Goldgaber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must say I chose to read this book because of the cover. I thought it was going to be a thorough biography about Bill Gates similar to Walter Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs. I didn't read his bio of Elon Musk. The title of the book is misleading because the book is much more a study of billionaires in our current world. Bill Gates' bio (not a complete bio) is used as a framework or structure to discuss and address how billionaires acquire wealth, spend it (multiple houses, airplanes, yachts and more), provide money to political campaigns and charity, etc.

Bill Gates is a prominent billionaire because his career has been closely followed in the press since the earliest days of Microsoft--his company went public in 1986. Since 2000, he has been a leader in donating his wealth through his foundation, but now his personal brand has been tarnished by his association with Jeffrey Epstein, affairs with employees and his divorce.

It's interesting that the way he initially made his fortune is that he insisted that people pay a fee to use his software; before he came along developers would distribute software and ask people to send contributions at their discretion. You can see that model didn't work well when people didn't have a big incentive to pay for your products.

The argument of free vs. payments has been a constant issue in tech since those days; paying for music downloads, games and streaming TV etc.

I thought the discussion about whether billionaires are self-made is interesting. I think many of them came from upper middle-class families, but they far surpassed their parents' accomplishments and net worth. As a country, I don't think the majority of citizens want our government to mandate how much money millionaires and billionaires should donate to charity or other causes. Also, people don't seem to want excessive taxes either. This is naive but I hope that companies see the need to pay employees a competitive salary. I also hope that as a country we can bring back more manufacturing and good-paying jobs back to the U.S.

[Blair · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape our World” is an unauthorised biography of Microsoft’s founder.

This is a light-weight book that pulls together most of the dimensions of Bill’s life – and labels them as “Billionaire. Nerd. Savior. King”. It’s not an in-depth biography and has received only minimal response from one representative of Gates Ventures, just before it was published.

I didn’t really like the book. It offered very little news and insights about Bill Gates, his life, and his family, coworkers, friends and rivals.

The book also missed some large topics in Bill’s life and didn’t answer the many questions I have about this interesting man, including:

1.) Whom does Gates admire?

2.) Who are Gates’ close friends?

3.) What was Paul Allen like?

4.) What was Gates’ relationship like with Steve Balmer?

5.) How did he deal with Apple, when it was nearly bankrupt and later with Steve Jobs was running it again?

6.) What happened to the 200 plus companies that Microsoft acquired including Skype and Nokia’s mobile devices division?

7.) What is the real story with ex girlfriend Ann Winblad? Did this cause his divorce?

8.) How involved is Gates with Microsoft today?

9.) Where does Gates think he has failed?

10.) Will Gates ever retire?

11.) Will he marry Paula Hurd?

12.) Does Gates have health problems?

While I wasn’t expecting an Isaacson-esque biography of Bill Gates, this needs more research and substantiation.

[StoicSniper · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the objective of this book was to make me hate bill gates and villainise him, then it did not happen. In fact, I gained more respect for him as some negatives make this mythical figure more human. As a 90s kid, I had no idea that bill was a cut throat business man back in the day as all my memories of him growing up is him being a nice philanthropist in his trademark sweaters and slacks. Obviously no one gets to the top without going to war and his PR gets my utmost respect for completely changing his image. Him having affairs is just can be ignored in front of all the good he has done because had he been a king or lord in the feudal ages, nobody would have blinked an eye to him taking multiple lovers. I also breathed a sigh of relief after knowing all his dalliances were consensual as him being a metoo predator would have made me lose my respect for him. I absolutely take my hats off for his philanthropy and his active role in executing his plans in saving the world. As an Indian, there are so many billionaires who do very vulgar displays of wealth here so it’s refreshing to see this man playing such an active role in seeing that his money is being well spent. Unlike elon who Is blatantly interfering with the government, I love the classy old school secretive way in which bill asserts his control over the world with the weight of his foundation. I also took pointers on what sectors cascade is investing in so that I can also align my investing philosophies with it. Overall decent read but I would prefer bill to write his own autobiography

[Tej Dhawan · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the author's note suggests, this book was curated from numerous attributable and anonymous sources. I started it with deep interest, to see the progression of Gates' life and understand a journalist's view of Bill & Melinda, the stories around Epstein, and the inner workings of the foundation. Sadly, I found the experience and information lacking.

The book is indeed a collection that reveals itself in stories that reappear throughout the text. I might understand expanding details in thematic chapters, but the repetitions didn't follow chapter themes.

The Foundation is painted as a hapless collection of subservient professionals who painfully do the bidding of a grandmaster. Yet seem to perform masterfully around the world.

Melinda is allocated a chapter that glorifies her but since their private life couldn't be presented a-la-tabloid, her glorification feels rushed. There is much innuendo about Gates' misdeeds and misgivings but, absent evidence, falls flat.

I think the book tries hard to jump between Bill, Melinda, the Foundation, ventures, Epstein, billionaires, and politics but never finds a singular thesis. I ended it as if I had read a dozen or so independent chapters in a multi-part newsletter/blog.

So much lost potential.

[Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of the reviews seem to misunderstand the point of this book, it’s a critical examination of the role of billionaires in society and challenging the narrative of social good it provides through the example of the case study of Bill Gates.

My joke with Elon and Bezos rising to prominence is that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates must be beside themselves since they spent the better parts of their lives arguing about the good that billionaires provide to society (I.e. free markets are even better vehicles for distribution of philanthropy than government bureaucracy, which this book provides a lot of counter-factuals against).

Readers are likely better off reading this than the popular hagiographies of the tech elite that have become popular reading lately.

My criticisms of the book are that it doesn’t clearly state its thesis enough up front, and the cover does make it appear to be more of a direct biography than the political piece it is. Additionally, I felt the book, in likely trying to read as neutral, sometimes did not lean in enough to the clear points it was trying to make.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a curious book because it isn't so much a book about Bill Gates as a book about billionaires. Featuring prominently in the story include Warren Buffet, Jeffrey Epstein, ex-wife Melinda French Gates, and the rest of the billionaires that have come to shape the economy, politics, and philanthropy like Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg. It doesn't mine the work ethic of the billionaires or provide similarities and differences between billionaires and average people. It shares more about the money trail and influence.

While there were focal points that individually fascinated me, as a whole, the book isn't what it sets out to do in the title/subtitle/description. It paints a curious picture of America's richest. It poses the ethical question about using wealth for good whether in other countries or related to scientific development. Though Das does focus on how Gates' worldview has shaped the world because he can put money to shape that influence.

[Haidong · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoiler Alert: this book is not about Bill G, If you are trying to learn something good / bad / fun / interesting about Gates, you will be very disappointed, if there had been a zero or negative star rating, i would have chosen it, it is the worst book i have read. It is more like a student who was assigned an essay about Bill, and submitted a hodgepodge of things copied from everywhere, some related to Gates, some not, just to satisfy the words/pages count requirements. In short, this is like the following quote from movie Airplane:
Q: I want to know absolutely everything that's happened up till now.
A: Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it.

[Hugh · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a book I mean, part of it was more interesting such as how Bill Gates got started and seeing how he could totally change his image I also think that it was interesting seeing more like a broad exploration of many topics, but it was definitely way too broad and the otter couldn’t really focus on anything which made it a bit hard to follow and also I think made her points less clear.

The part I like the most was probably saying how ruthless so many of these people would not think of as being nice actually were and really shows me that if you want to succeed in the startup world, you probably need to be really, really motivated to make the start up you want to make and not care about anything else I do ever think that is different if your goal is to become the worlds biggest company and if your goal is just to become a decently large company

[Audrey Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have casually read about the Dunning-Kruger effect but didn't expect to have it plainly played out throughout this biography of sorts. Although Bill Gates has his tender moments, towards the end I just couldn't help but feel increasingly revolted by his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and repeated infidelity and slights towards his now former wife and paramour, Melinda French. May this kind of relationship dynamic never find me. Glad to see Warren Buffett has distanced himself from the likes of him although he makes attempts at bettering the world through his charity foundations which just seem like good business strategy for tax breaks. Still a fascinating read although am sad that Microsoft did nothing to correct absolutely foul employee behaviour from a specific gender, until it affected business. Not all men, but always men.

[Cozy Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Net Galley, the publisher and to the author for the opportunity. My review opinon is my own.

I have read several books on Bill Gates as he is a fascinating brillant character of our time. He has accomplished more then most on the planet from creating the Microsoft universe to his global works. The author here is fixated on those of extreme wealth and much of what she prints here is about others of great wealth across the globe. They book has glaring mistakes,incorrect english usage and many errors. Beyond those her dislike of Bill Gates was clearly noted throughout this book. I find it interesting why she would not do research on his many accomplishments and revert to gossip and untruths. I found it difficult to finish and do not recommend it .

[Justin M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly expected this to be more about Bill Gates but it ended up being more of a critique about the societal conditions that have moved the USA towards increasing reliance on patchwork philanthropy instead of sustainable democratic social programs. The author came down quite heavily against billionaires as a whole, but also had what I considered to be some interesting commentary surrounding their continued cultivation of the idea of “the American dream” in order to justify their wealth instead of also acknowledging the fact that the “self-made” moniker ignores the immense support they overwhelmingly had access to during their wealth creation.

Not the best, but not the worst. Also the Epstein parts seemed a little off the main messaging, but I suppose he was inevitable to mention.

[Mikhail Filatov · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is actually two books:
One is unauthorized biography of Gates, another is jeremiad against “wealthy”, especially Forbes list. Second part gets. One star from me,
The problem with the first part that it’s not well researched. There are a couple of interesting tidbits, like Gates changing the state route near his summer house on Hood Canal, WA to keep his estate on the same side of the road.
But overall-almost everything in this book is known from the news and it doesn’t seem that the author ever tried to understand Bill Gates behind the PR machine…and you can’t write a good biography, even a negative one.

[Theresa Jehlik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is less a straightforward biography and more a meditation on how immense wealth has shaped current philanthropic practices. Using Gates' life as a template, Das explores how his business practices both enriched him personally and remade big dollar philanthropy into a strategic capitalist model. In her conclusion, Das reflects on how Gates' philanthropic ambitions and practices have been a humbling experience for him. His assumption that technology, strategy, and huge resources can solve humankind's long-term, intractable social problems hasn't worked out well in practice. As noted in her conclusion, human progress is nonlinear, finicky, and often upended by unforeseen events.

[Paul Sarbaugh · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is NOT about Bill Gates. The author cynically uses him only as a platform for her own take on issues surrounding billionairess today. She doesn't understand that these individuals launched unique inventions and ides tinto the world. She seems to dislike successful people. She attributes all to their favorable coonditioning and not to personal genius and inspiration. She claims society has failed by allowing billionaires to exist at all. Under her tutelage the world wouldd enter a new dark ages.

[AJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great explanation of Gates's inspiration, motivation, and philanthropy. I learned a lot about the business of philanthropy, philanthrocapitalism, and venture philanthropy. The discussion of billionaires was also enlightening. They drew the lines showing how he carries a monopolistic mindset in everything he does. The Gates Foundation gets a lot of coverage. Incredibly interesting book, would recommend.

[Meepspeeps · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book suffers from poor editing, including repetition and disjointed prose. Apparently no one from the Puget Sound area read it for accuracy, because there are comical errors, albeit incidental. I’m not sure what the author’s goal was because there are several better books making the points that “billionaires have secrets and philanthropy can have a dark side.” There were a few interesting tales about Gates facing the consequences, good and bad, of his brilliance and arrogance.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this biography informative enough. It is timely - August 24, 2024 was its publication date and now is March 25 2025, ergo that is 7 months ago.

Honestly, I liked some other books about the uppermost class in society a little better, but those ones I liked I read a very long time ago, when I was in early high school, so I couldn't spit out their titles right now.

I liked this book as it is.

[Krystle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an autobiography or exposé per se. However it does highlight the philanthropy of Gates and some other billionaires and the not so charitable motivations behind it all. This book does a good job of showing that we should question the morals of billionaires and not venerate them as pseudo Gods. Since they are simply humans with flaws and all.