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.

Few billionaires have been in the public eye for as long, and in as many guises, as Bill Gates. At first heralded as a tech visionary, the Microsoft cofounder next morphed into a ruthless capitalist, only to change yet again when he fashioned himself into a global do-gooder. Along the way, Gates forever influenced how we think about tech founders, as the products they make and the ideas they sell continue to dominate our lives. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he also set a new standard for high-profile, billionaire philanthropy. But there is more to Gates’s story, and here, Das’s revelatory reporting shows us that billionaires have secrets and philanthropy can have a dark side.

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 public persona. In telling Gates’s story, Das also provides a new way to think about how billionaires wield their power, manipulate their image, and pursue philanthropy to become heroes, repair damaged reputations, and direct policy to achieve their preferred outcomes.

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 ways in which the world’s richest people hold us in their thrall.

About The Author

Michael Lionstar

Anupreeta Das

Anupreeta Das is the finance editor of The New York Times, overseeing coverage of Wall Street, including banking, investing, markets, insurance, and consumer finance. Previously, Das spent nearly a decade at The Wall Street Journal, where she helped run the paper’s coverage of business and technology, focusing on corporations and the issues affecting them. Das was also a reporter at the Journal. She wrote stories about finance, investing, and Wall Street, including a groundbreaking series she conceived and coauthored about family offices, the private investment firms of the extremely wealthy. She holds degrees from Boston University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Delhi. She is an avid hiker, having hiked across a Himalayan glacier as a teenager and summiting Mount Kilimanjaro. She is the author of Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King.

Product Details

Publisher: Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster (August 13, 2024)
Length: 336 pages
ISBN13: 9781668006726

Raves and Reviews

FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2024 Longlist

“Eye-opening . . . Full of intriguing titbits about Gates . . . Although her in-depth reporting digs deep into the history and structure of our billionaire-friendly financial world, Das’s clear writing makes for an entertaining story. It may not quite be a beach read, but it will surely be read on yachts. . . . Perfectly timed too, as tech bro billionaires are now more obviously wielding their influence.” —The Times (UK)

“Das widens the lens through which Gates’ life and career is viewed. Each facet of his reputation is couched within a larger framework of capitalism, social justice, and entrepreneurship to question the outsized sway Gates and others of his rank hold over society writ large. Venturing deep into every aspect of Gates’ professional and private spheres, Das offers a balanced, perceptive, and thought-provoking portrait of a man and his times.” —Booklist

“Ms. Das considers different facets of Mr. Gates’s life, from his friendship with Warren Buffett and the breakdown of his marriage to the running of his foundation and the management of his wealth. Some of this is eye-opening . . . . But Ms. Das’s book is most interesting when it shows how Mr. Gates has influenced other billionaires—how they have emulated him, and how they have not.” —The Economist

“A sharply incisive portrait.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A vivid, deeply reported look at one of the most influential figures in business and technology that confronts the urgent question of whether empire-builders such as Gates play too large a part in shaping the world we live in.” —Sheelah Kolhatkar, New Yorker staff writer and author of Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street

“A perceptive and vibrant character portrait.” —Publishers Weekly

“Anupreeta Das’s brilliantly written and ambitiously reported Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King shows—through the complicated and fascinating story of a single tycoon—how the power and the perils of enormous wealth shape and distort not only what we expect of our democratic institutions, our tax system, our public health infrastructure, and our expectations for the future; it also examines how all of us are complicit in, but often unaware of, the ways in which the wealthy use that wealth and that power to turn greed into generosity and immorality into heroism.” —Jesse Eisinger, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Chickenshit Club

“In tight, elegant prose, Anupreeta Das’s Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King shares the fascinating life story of Bill Gates and then uses it to ask and to answer timely and important questions about the roles that the wealthiest Americans play in our increasingly stratified society. It’s the book we need right this minute.” —William D. Cohan, author of Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon

“With delicious stories and dogged attention to detail, Anupreeta Das delves into the paradox of Bill Gates: a man whose intellectual prowess and vast wealth simultaneously uplift and complicate the fabric of society. A compelling read about one of the most powerful people on the planet.” —Rob Reich, professor of political science at Stanford University and author of Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better