Inside The Gates

Spending three months with the microsoft billionaire reveals how Bill Gates spends his money and what motivates someone worth upwards of us$90 billion.

- Mary Riddell

Microbes fascinate Bill Gates. On arrival for a meeting with Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, Gates is spotted clutching a book on bacteria, presumably so that he might devour a chapter or two should any lull occur in the conversation. When we meet shortly afterwards, Gates – though minus scientific tome – has the faintly restless manner of someone who finds microorganisms more absorbing than some dignitaries and most journalists. Gates and I have met several times before this, and I think I know his approach. Though unfailingly modest and courteous, he loathes wasting a single second. When it comes to changing the world, however, no topic is too small to engage his attention, and none too vast. He is, for instance, so intrigued by chickens and their potential to feed the hungry that he recently addressed a conference accompanied by a coop full of the birds. On the practicalities of rearing poultry, he is vague. “I’m very much the product of an urban upbringing. Once, in high school, we went to someone’s farm and had to kill the chickens to eat them. I was like: ‘This is horrific. Somebody actually has to choke these things? Oh my God! Why am I being asked to do it?’ Then, when we were in Africa, somebody sacrificed a goat, and we sat and watched them skin it.” More accustomed to the world of corporate bloodletting, Gates allows himself a fastidious shudder at the memory.

WEALTHY AND WISE

At 62, the founder of Microsoft has an estimated net worth of more than US$90 billion, which is a subject of endless fascination to almost everyone apart from the man himself. Interestingly, Bloomberg asserts that Gates would be worth closer to US$150 billion if he hadn’t given an enormous portion of his wealth away to charity.