A Kinder, Gentler Bill Gates

Now Bill Gates is undertaking a belated crisis management program, although the damage from his association with Epstein, as well as his sexual harassment of subordinates at Microsoft and his divorce, was done several years ago, and as more comes out from the latest tranche of Epstein files, the cleanup job just gets harder. The poor guy is just a creep.

More than a year ago, February 1, 2025, he published a ghostwritten memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, which as far as I can tell almost nobody noticed who wasn't paid to notice it. I asked Chrome AI Mode, which on the whole I think is quite a good product, better than Grok or ChatGPT, which charge for features Chrome provides for free, "Who was Bill Gates's ghostwriter in Source Code?" It answered,

Bill Gates's memoir, Source Code, was written with the assistance of Rob Guth.

Guth is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who now works for Gates. Gates has described their collaborative process as one where he would talk to Guth about his early life, Guth would write the initial drafts based on those conversations, and Gates would then edit the material.

In other words, Guth is his full-time publicist, tasked with cleaning up Gates's image. Source Code is to be the first of a three-part memoir covering Gates's full life. According to Wikipedia,

Several reviewers noted Gates’s penchant for self-deprecation and his ability to humanize his success. Writing for The Guardian, Steven Poole remarked that Gates conveyed humility, in contrast to other tech titans. Poole wrote: "There is a sense of the writer, older and wiser, trying to redeem the past through understanding it better." . . . In The New York Times, Jennifer Szalai liked the description of Gates's youth but found that not much happened in many parts of the memoir. . . . She wrote that Gates might have to grapple with more difficult reflections on his later years in his two upcoming memoirs.

This promo site for the book gives some pull quotes that are nothing more than anodyne:

I left college early, but the experience left a huge impression on me. I made lifelong friends, and I expanded my programming skills while messing around in Harvard's computer lab.

Although I have always been curious about the world, I wasn’t always the best student. I was lucky to have amazing teachers and mentors at the Lakeside School who sparked my love of learning.

Growing up, my world was defined by the people around me. I wouldn't be who I am today without my parents, my sisters, and my childhood friends.

I was curious whether a modern-day captain of industry like Gates would have any insight into Ivy League culture -- a good part of my own leisure reflection has been over the bait-and-switch I encountered at Dartmouth. I could never understand how a place that had such a high reputation was full of dullards and Babbitts. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "Does Bill Gates in his memoir provide any insight into why he dropped out of Harvard?" The best it could come up with was,

Gates admits in the memoir that he actually regretted leaving. He "struggled intensely" with the choice because he loved the classes—even auditing courses in psychology and history— and valued being surrounded by smart peers.

Except that the prestige-school undergraduate program is vapid, especially in fields like psychology and history, and as I keep repeating, by and large, Ivy undergraduates are no smarter than anyone else, except they're convinced they are. It doesn't seem like Gates actually paid much attention at Harvard.

Another part of Gates's rehabilitation program is a much-publicized town hall with Gates Foundation staff this past Tuesday:

In the meeting, Gates maintained that he took no part in wrongdoing but conceded that he had damaged the non-profit’s brand by having close contact with the late financier, which he said was in the hopes of connecting with donors to his global health efforts.

Well, he'd damaged the non-profit's brand by causing it to cease being idenmtified as the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation in 2024 in consewquence of their divorce, which according to Melinda was only partly connected with Epstein:

Melinda French Gates on Tuesday said that her ex-husband, Bill Gates, needs to answer for the behavior alleged in the latest trove of private communications released in connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"For me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage," French Gates said in an interview on NPR's Wild Card podcast.

"Whatever questions remain there of what — I can't even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband," she said. "They need to answer to those things, not me."

I asked Chrome AI Mode, "How much does Rob Guth make working for Bill Gates?" It answered,

Specific salary details for Robert (Rob) Guth at Gates Ventures are not publicly disclosed, as Gates Ventures is a private personal service company.

However, based on industry standards for high-level roles at Gates-related organizations, here is the estimated compensation landscape:

Rob Guth, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, has been a key member of Bill Gates’s private team, notably working on book projects with him since at least 2014.

. . . At Gates Ventures, a Director of Communications earns an average of $173,662 per year.

. . . Compensation for specialized high-level roles (e.g., Legal/Tax) in the Seattle area ranges from $319,500 to $495,300.

. . . Given Guth's long-term personal proximity to Bill Gates and his senior role within the private office, his compensation likely aligns with the upper tier of these executive ranges.

Here's the problem I see. It sounds as though Guth has been Gates's publcist for more than a decade, certainly including the period of his divorce, Microsoft's investigation of his sexual harassment, his departure from Microsoft, and extended revelations about his relationship with Epstein, which most recently suggest was much deeper and more extensive than he previously claimed.

Yet over this period, his publicist's responses to all these developments have been reactive, self-justifying, and incomplete. Let's just take what's reported at the link above from the Tuesday townhall at the Gates Foundation:

“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit…,” Gates said, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

“To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,” he added, per the Journal.

Gates reportedly admitted to having two extramarital affairs with Russian women, but said they did not involve Epstein victims.

I asked Chrome AI mode, "Does the term 'illicit' cover adultery?" It answered,

Yes, the term "illicit" covers adultery, as it refers to actions that are forbidden by law, custom, or moral standards. In legal contexts, especially regarding divorce and alimony, "illicit sexual behavior" is frequently used to describe adultery. This includes sexual acts with someone other than a spouse.

So based on what's public knowledge, including statements by Melinda, adultery, apparently involving both Russian women provided by Epstein, Microsoft employees unrelated to Epstein, and whatever else, was a major factor in their divorce. But apparently if none of these trysts was with a minor, that's not "illicit", and Gates is pure as the driven snow.

I think if I were Rob Guth, I'd be advising Gates to say nothing, rather than weasel-worded statments that do nothing but cause further embarrassment. At the link,

A spokesperson from the Gates Foundation [Rob Guth?] said the town hall was a time for Gates to answer “questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health.”

The spokesperson added that Gates “spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.”

I doubt if Gates's PR problems can be fixed at this stage. Things are just going to continue to leak, and his responses via Guth are going to continue to be reactive, partial, and weasel-worded. But this is because Gates is basically a creep. Not even a high-paid publicist can fix creep.