A review by hannahmcjean
The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire by Tim Schwab

informative medium-paced

4.0

While this book was rather hard to get through as a fairly long & dense non-fiction book - I was very impressed by the author’s extensive and insightful research and thoughtful analysis of his subject: ‘the myth of the good billionaire’. While I expected the reality of Bill Gates’ philanthropy to fall short of the popular claims, I was still often shocked by the disgusting nature of the foundation’s global impact. Tim Schwab does not shy away from calling out the inexcusable white saviour mentality & neo-colonial structure of the Gates Foundation, as well as its role in further perpetuating the issues it claims to fight against, e.g. misogyny, health inequality, poverty. And beyond this, the book drives towards a broader critique of the wealth disparities that create billionaires and private foundations in the first place - adding an important contribution to the developing argument against such extreme and exploitative wealth accumulation in the first place.