A sharply incisive portrait.
Secrets of a billionaire.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and published reports, Das, finance editor at the New York Times, focuses on technology titan Bill Gates’ manipulation of money and power “to hide in the shadows or shine on the stage” as he pursues his goals in business, politics, policy, and philanthropy. Central to her investigation is the “ever-widening inequality” blighting American society along with the culture’s persistent veneration of billionaires. “The American dream,” Das writes, “loosely holds that in a land of liberty, boundless opportunity, and free enterprise, individual merit, hard work, and a sprinkling of luck are the keys that unlock fortune.” As Das chronicles Gates’ evolution from Microsoft’s nerdy creator to beneficent philanthropist, she shows that his education at private schools, strong family ties, and more than a sprinkling of luck were factors in his success. As a businessman, he was notoriously arrogant. His divorce from Melinda French Gates disclosed lifelong womanizing. More than 2,000 people depend on the Gates fortune for their livelihoods, Das notes, including “a small army of communications professionals” who work “to shape the public persona of Gates in a way to elevates his stature to benefit his foundation’s goals and burnish his individual brand.” Their task became especially onerous when Gates was linked with Jeffrey Epstein, whom he continued to see even after allegations against Epstein became widely known. “Why Gates hung around with Epstein may remain a head scratcher forever,” Das admits. But that failure of judgment, as well as ruthless business practices and marital betrayal, have been glossed over. Today, she finds, “the world has a completely refurbished image of Gates, the jagged edges of the monopolist softened by the halo of the philanthropist.”
A sharply incisive portrait.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781668006726
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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