One of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.
This statement is so 90s and so BOFH-centered that it is irrelevant to a level of stupidity. Gates has done a lot to prove he's not a cold-hearted mf and compared to all the bros in their prime at the moment, dude, just think of Elon or Larry Ellison, well our man Billy is really very much a bright persona.
Rationally, you're correct. But emotionally, there's a lot of people who don't understand why someone would provide a free service without an ulterior motive. Gates talks about this a bit on the Trevor Noah podcast.
Microsoft's company practices under Gates don't help, but they are far from the main issue people have with him nowadays. Most people aren't even aware of the things Microsoft did.
People think he is the antichrist because he promotes vaccines and because there are multiple quotes of him where he explains that he wants to reduce the world's population. By raising the standard of living and giving healthcare to the poor, which empirically seem to cause lower birth rates, but lots of nutjobs assume he tests weaponized vaccines or something like that. And people are distrusting of people who appear too altruistic in general, thinking it's some kind of con (and often they are right).
Agreed—I spent the 90s idolizing Jobs and despising Gates. But today I have deep respect for Gates and the way he's using his wealth as a positive force in the world. Jobs had better taste and was a more effective product leader, but I'm sorry to say that he sucked as a philanthropist. It's disappointing that he spent ANY of his mental energy at the end of his life building that dumb $100M yacht, rather than focusing on his legacy.
I think the comment was referring more to the antivax/conspiracy crowd who often mix Gates in with Soros, etc. in their stories. Still plenty of those folks.
I am not saying Gates is a monster. So I am not commenting on him. I am commenting on your logic of doing supposed good and hence they becoming good.
When you look at the history of most colonial monsters you will notice is an often repeated trend. Those despicable monster amassing wealth literally on the bodies of natives and then going back home (including some to USA) and buying a "good name" (sometimes literally in the form of those fancy titles and peerages etc).
Oh by the way, Musk and Ellison from your example are benign non-beings compared to pretty much all those "monsters".
I don't know where you are from or where you are now but a lot of world sees "good deeds of good people" with great suspicion.
My guess would be, actually a very small number of people think he’s the antichrist. Why would anyone other than someone with decades of operating system passion even care who this guy is? They know he’s a rich guy. Big deal. I’d guess most people just live their lives and don’t care about Microsoft monopoly or FOSS or anything. The same can probably be said for his altruism—most people probably have no idea.
The antivax movement has been demonising the medical side of his foundation for decades at this point - I'd wager the folks who weren't born in the 90s are more likely to have heard about that than about the genesis of Windows
For many people "wealthy = evil". And "poor = good". It is easier to demonize someone that is doing better than you than to admit that maybe he is just making better choices.
Yea, his involvement with the Covid vaccine research seems to have made him a target for a large portion of the GOP/MAGA contingent. They are convinced that he wants to use the vaccine to implant a microchip in everyone and control them.
Huh? You must not hang around middle America, out here people act like Bill Gates wants to vaccinate all of Africa in order to sterilize them and also put microchips in your brain. I guarantee if I asked five random people on the street in Kansas about what they think of Bill Gates, half of them would say “oh right he’s like doing bad stuff with the Illuminati?” or something similar.
Some people will always believe some dumb shit. There is no tragedy, just the regular condition of many people being ignorant.
He also did awful things in the business world when he was younger. He's no saint, either, he is just a normal, messy person. But he's done more for the poorest and neediest people in the world than most countries.
> a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.
Beware that you don't fall into the trap of thinking the 1% of the population that makes 90% of the noise on the internet is "significant" or a representative sampling of the population. Most everyone else's views are quite boring and detached from extremism, they just don't shout their moderation on the rooftops.
I'm not sure he's actually the philanthropist with the "highest positive impact", when looking at the "net value"
he's "extorted" a lot of money from various states by locking and price-gouging, money that would have otherwise been spent on social projects
basically he has done
Gates -> extort money -> fantastic personal wealth -> gave back to organization *he* decides to give too
while the normal path would be
Governments and people have lower spending because they don't need to give Microsoft too much cash -> governments and people decide by themselves how to spend extra money -> there are more, and more diversified, humanitarian actions
Ah yes, saving millions of kids’ lives through vaccination and virtually eradicating polio is a way to make up for … checks notes… bundling a browser into an OS and not being nice with open source.
I think he is both. Maybe you need to do some evil before you can do some good, because the general evil does whatever necessary to win in competition, and that is challenging.
He would have never got the money he has if he didn't do that.
And then I suppose that Steve Jobs is the Christ in this story.
You only have to look at the research output of Microsoft Research to know that it is the other way around. Kind of weird how even smart people get things mixed up.
I could understand some of the criticism for charitable work.
For instance, his foundation pushes birth control in developing nations. On the surface, it look like a just and noble cause.
But imagine how a developed nation would view an act like this on its own people from a foreign body. Imagine some wealthy Chinese national started taking out ads on American television telling Americans to have fewer children and going to poor neighborhoods in the US and handing out free contraceptives.
It's a kind of soft imperialism and social engineering that I imagine a lot of people object to. The guy can't even keep his marriage together and he's insistent on telling people half way around the world how to run their life?
Al Capone ran a Chicago soup kitchen during the Great Depression, serving hundreds of thousands of free meals. Did this philanthropy absolve him of the harm done while acquiring the fortune which paid for the charity?
Yeah, and vaccines are a big reason why. He has seen the benefits of mass vaccination first hand and was a big advocate for pandemic prevention before COVID. COVID really broke a lot of people's brains.
You'd be saying the same thing about Epstein if he hadn't been caught.
What I don't understand is the comradeship I see in people competing to effusively praise oligarchs. Bill Gates fought against technological progress, fought against free and open source software, fought against antitrust, even bribed officials to push out competitors. Why would people pat each other on the back for admiring him?
Even afterwards, when he bought his redemption by showering money upon dubious nonprofits, and by creating other, even more dubious nonprofits - simply paying everyone who could possibly have a problem with him, including dozens of journalistic organizations and hundreds of individual journalists - all of his charitable efforts are still obviously ways to play with various social theories that he has, not to help people.
It takes a real psychopath to accumulate that much power, with so few principles, and then to use it to play games with people's lives. His entertainment and the entertainment of his class is endangering the world.
And I still listen to Michael Jackson, so whatever, but we know that his relationship with Epstein was pretty extensive, and what was said during his divorce (in relation to that) was alarming, as well as the fact that he immediately crumbled and gave her the farm. There's your conspiracy theory; I'm not going to be caught praising a guy for mosquito nets whom I pretty much knew hung out with Epstein for a time as intensely as anyone else did. Epstein was giving away money for elite approval, too.
What's money for if not for patronage? You can't take it with you.
He is not the greatest. He is literally taking the playbook from Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller who amassed great wealth then gave it away. These days you have Warren Buffett or Saros doing the same.
Many in tech were along for the Bill Gates show and felt he was a negative actor to the industry in many ways. The fact that he is taking that wealth and channeling it through charity to achieve what he believes is important worries many on both sides of the political divide because of the enormous amounts of power he has.
Specifically over the foundation:
1. Influence Over Public Policy
Criticism: The foundation’s massive financial power allows it to heavily influence public health, education, and agricultural policy, sometimes without democratic oversight.
Example: In education, their support for charter schools and Common Core standards drew criticism for pushing reforms without enough input from teachers and communities.
2. Pharmaceutical and Vaccine Influence
Criticism: The foundation has been accused of favoring pharmaceutical-based solutions, sometimes at the expense of broader public health approaches.
Example: Critics argue that funding pharmaceutical companies during vaccine rollouts (especially during COVID-19) prioritized private profits over equitable global access.
3. Corporate Ties
Criticism: The foundation has invested in companies that contradict its stated goals (e.g., Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil), raising ethical questions.
Example: Investments in fossil fuel companies were seen as inconsistent with health and development goals.
4. Global South Criticism
Criticism: Some argue that Gates Foundation programs in Africa and other regions can be top-down, lacking local input, and continuing a form of “philanthropic colonialism.”
5. Agricultural Interventions
Criticism: Through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the foundation promoted industrial farming and GMOs.
Response: Some say this undermines traditional, sustainable farming practices and increases dependence on multinational corporations for seeds and fertilizers.
6. COVID-19 Vaccine Access
Criticism: Gates opposed waiving IP rights for COVID-19 vaccines, which some argued delayed access in poorer countries.
Defense: The foundation claimed that maintaining IP was key to quality and speed, though many public health experts disagreed.
He is an interesting and unique character who achieved much but don't polish those angel wings just yet.
No billionaire will ever be a net positive to society. The wealth he accrued was literally stolen from the labour of millions of people. No token donations at the end of your life will ever remediate that situation.
I often see this sentiment whenever a billionaire is in conversation, but I don't understand. Can you elaborate on how his wealth was "stolen" from people?
The way I see it, he's wealthy because he founded a wildly successful technology company by first creating something of value (MS-DOS). Microsoft has since grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, which hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily work for in exchange for a high salary, at least for engineers.
>> The wealth he accrued was literally stolen from the labour of millions of people.
It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that?
What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from?
I don't even think you need to go that far - nobody who is not at least somewhat sociopathic will even become a billionaire (Buffett, that includes you) - because they'll happily step off the rat race at 10 or 100 million.
Anyone with a truly global perspective will notice multiple elephant-sizes omissions from Gates' statement. The premise that deep, systemic societal issues can be addressed directly while stepping on egg-shells around political topics is laughable. In 2025, you cannot separate starving kids and poverty alleviation from global politics and the world order.
His #1 goal listed is almost offensive when you consider what is happening right now in May 2025 -- an utterly preventable scenario that he can't even mention lest it get "too political" and tar his image.
In other words, it's perfectly valid to be skeptical of his motives, which seem primarily to be around elevating his personal brand and legacy.
> No mom, child, or baby dies of a preventable cause
This goal might offend you but it doesn't offend me, and I don't think his motives (whether it's for legacy or personal brand) matter to me or the mother of a child who didn't shit itself to death because a vaccine for the rotavirus.
It's hard to take him seriously or consider him a good guy. While advocating for the environment, he doesn't hesitate to short tesla, an EV company (questionable nature aside).
There are two possible reasons for this (the 'why' remains -- not enough money?):
- He's admitting he doesn't care about the environmental mission, just the returns
- He thinks tesla is a fraud, but isn't saying it publicly
Well it seems obvious why anyone would (and morally should) short tesla... but let me break it down for those in the bleachers with two facts.
Musk 1: behind the presidential podium during the inauguration with the country watching twice did a salute of the enemy of the American people in WW2. And 2: controls the vast majority of tesla shares and is their current CEO.
It is patriotic to short tesla. And Bill Gates clearly cares about the future direction of this country.
larodi|9 months ago
posix_compliant|9 months ago
wongarsu|9 months ago
People think he is the antichrist because he promotes vaccines and because there are multiple quotes of him where he explains that he wants to reduce the world's population. By raising the standard of living and giving healthcare to the poor, which empirically seem to cause lower birth rates, but lots of nutjobs assume he tests weaponized vaccines or something like that. And people are distrusting of people who appear too altruistic in general, thinking it's some kind of con (and often they are right).
turnsout|9 months ago
el_benhameen|9 months ago
crossroadsguy|9 months ago
Is that ever?
I am not saying Gates is a monster. So I am not commenting on him. I am commenting on your logic of doing supposed good and hence they becoming good.
When you look at the history of most colonial monsters you will notice is an often repeated trend. Those despicable monster amassing wealth literally on the bodies of natives and then going back home (including some to USA) and buying a "good name" (sometimes literally in the form of those fancy titles and peerages etc).
Oh by the way, Musk and Ellison from your example are benign non-beings compared to pretty much all those "monsters".
I don't know where you are from or where you are now but a lot of world sees "good deeds of good people" with great suspicion.
unknown|9 months ago
[deleted]
mhh__|9 months ago
People like the bill gates of the 90s don't just disappear
BSOhealth|9 months ago
swiftcoder|9 months ago
Azkron|9 months ago
SwamyM|9 months ago
wincy|9 months ago
throwaway5752|9 months ago
He also did awful things in the business world when he was younger. He's no saint, either, he is just a normal, messy person. But he's done more for the poorest and neediest people in the world than most countries.
coryfklein|9 months ago
Beware that you don't fall into the trap of thinking the 1% of the population that makes 90% of the noise on the internet is "significant" or a representative sampling of the population. Most everyone else's views are quite boring and detached from extremism, they just don't shout their moderation on the rooftops.
oulipo|9 months ago
he's "extorted" a lot of money from various states by locking and price-gouging, money that would have otherwise been spent on social projects
basically he has done
Gates -> extort money -> fantastic personal wealth -> gave back to organization *he* decides to give too
while the normal path would be
Governments and people have lower spending because they don't need to give Microsoft too much cash -> governments and people decide by themselves how to spend extra money -> there are more, and more diversified, humanitarian actions
BurningFrog|9 months ago
That people can create wealth is alien to most people!
They think wealth is money, which leads to a zero sum belief system. That is, if Bill has $200B, he must have taken it from the rest of us.
sam_lowry_|9 months ago
sailingparrot|9 months ago
Some grass is in need of touching.
knowitnone|9 months ago
tasuki|9 months ago
nicce|9 months ago
amelius|9 months ago
And then I suppose that Steve Jobs is the Christ in this story.
You only have to look at the research output of Microsoft Research to know that it is the other way around. Kind of weird how even smart people get things mixed up.
mithametacs|9 months ago
bko|9 months ago
For instance, his foundation pushes birth control in developing nations. On the surface, it look like a just and noble cause.
But imagine how a developed nation would view an act like this on its own people from a foreign body. Imagine some wealthy Chinese national started taking out ads on American television telling Americans to have fewer children and going to poor neighborhoods in the US and handing out free contraceptives.
It's a kind of soft imperialism and social engineering that I imagine a lot of people object to. The guy can't even keep his marriage together and he's insistent on telling people half way around the world how to run their life?
unknown|9 months ago
[deleted]
philosopher1234|9 months ago
marssaxman|9 months ago
1970-01-01|9 months ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Treatment_of_collea...
unknown|9 months ago
[deleted]
queuebert|9 months ago
tootie|9 months ago
unknown|9 months ago
[deleted]
codr7|9 months ago
pessimizer|9 months ago
What I don't understand is the comradeship I see in people competing to effusively praise oligarchs. Bill Gates fought against technological progress, fought against free and open source software, fought against antitrust, even bribed officials to push out competitors. Why would people pat each other on the back for admiring him?
Even afterwards, when he bought his redemption by showering money upon dubious nonprofits, and by creating other, even more dubious nonprofits - simply paying everyone who could possibly have a problem with him, including dozens of journalistic organizations and hundreds of individual journalists - all of his charitable efforts are still obviously ways to play with various social theories that he has, not to help people.
It takes a real psychopath to accumulate that much power, with so few principles, and then to use it to play games with people's lives. His entertainment and the entertainment of his class is endangering the world.
And I still listen to Michael Jackson, so whatever, but we know that his relationship with Epstein was pretty extensive, and what was said during his divorce (in relation to that) was alarming, as well as the fact that he immediately crumbled and gave her the farm. There's your conspiracy theory; I'm not going to be caught praising a guy for mosquito nets whom I pretty much knew hung out with Epstein for a time as intensely as anyone else did. Epstein was giving away money for elite approval, too.
What's money for if not for patronage? You can't take it with you.
ipaddr|9 months ago
Many in tech were along for the Bill Gates show and felt he was a negative actor to the industry in many ways. The fact that he is taking that wealth and channeling it through charity to achieve what he believes is important worries many on both sides of the political divide because of the enormous amounts of power he has.
Specifically over the foundation: 1. Influence Over Public Policy Criticism: The foundation’s massive financial power allows it to heavily influence public health, education, and agricultural policy, sometimes without democratic oversight.
Example: In education, their support for charter schools and Common Core standards drew criticism for pushing reforms without enough input from teachers and communities.
2. Pharmaceutical and Vaccine Influence Criticism: The foundation has been accused of favoring pharmaceutical-based solutions, sometimes at the expense of broader public health approaches.
Example: Critics argue that funding pharmaceutical companies during vaccine rollouts (especially during COVID-19) prioritized private profits over equitable global access.
3. Corporate Ties Criticism: The foundation has invested in companies that contradict its stated goals (e.g., Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil), raising ethical questions.
Example: Investments in fossil fuel companies were seen as inconsistent with health and development goals.
4. Global South Criticism Criticism: Some argue that Gates Foundation programs in Africa and other regions can be top-down, lacking local input, and continuing a form of “philanthropic colonialism.”
5. Agricultural Interventions Criticism: Through the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the foundation promoted industrial farming and GMOs.
Response: Some say this undermines traditional, sustainable farming practices and increases dependence on multinational corporations for seeds and fertilizers.
6. COVID-19 Vaccine Access Criticism: Gates opposed waiving IP rights for COVID-19 vaccines, which some argued delayed access in poorer countries.
Defense: The foundation claimed that maintaining IP was key to quality and speed, though many public health experts disagreed.
He is an interesting and unique character who achieved much but don't polish those angel wings just yet.
unknown|9 months ago
[deleted]
closewith|9 months ago
cjustin|9 months ago
The way I see it, he's wealthy because he founded a wildly successful technology company by first creating something of value (MS-DOS). Microsoft has since grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, which hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily work for in exchange for a high salary, at least for engineers.
gambiting|9 months ago
It's such a weird take I don't even know where to begin. Are you suggesting that all people who worked at Microsoft to make Windows and IE and all their other products had their labour "stolen" from them? If yes, can you expand on that?
What do you do for a living? Do you perform some kind of a job that you get compensated for? If yes, do you also feel like you're being stolen from?
bombcar|9 months ago
pphysch|9 months ago
His #1 goal listed is almost offensive when you consider what is happening right now in May 2025 -- an utterly preventable scenario that he can't even mention lest it get "too political" and tar his image.
In other words, it's perfectly valid to be skeptical of his motives, which seem primarily to be around elevating his personal brand and legacy.
JamesBarney|9 months ago
This goal might offend you but it doesn't offend me, and I don't think his motives (whether it's for legacy or personal brand) matter to me or the mother of a child who didn't shit itself to death because a vaccine for the rotavirus.
haarolean|9 months ago
There are two possible reasons for this (the 'why' remains -- not enough money?):
- He's admitting he doesn't care about the environmental mission, just the returns
- He thinks tesla is a fraud, but isn't saying it publicly
Either way, it's sus, so it's tough to trust him.
altruios|9 months ago
Musk 1: behind the presidential podium during the inauguration with the country watching twice did a salute of the enemy of the American people in WW2. And 2: controls the vast majority of tesla shares and is their current CEO.
It is patriotic to short tesla. And Bill Gates clearly cares about the future direction of this country.
staticman2|9 months ago