Bill Gates is a public health expert. He has been working on these problems with some of the smartest minds in the field for decades now. How long does someone need to be working on a problem before they're worthy of being a "go to source", in your opinion?
Well anyone who has extensively published novel research that has altered best practise in the field for the better and has a track record of being sensible, well-reasoned, logical, has an understanding of how humans organise not just the natural world and has wonderful command of spoken and written expression would be near the top of the wish-list.
It's not how long it took that person to demonstrate this. It's that Gates kinda hasn't really done it.
He's far from terrible but he gets pretty low scores on most of those attributes. He's not going to be listened to if he didn't bring the money. His experience in making microsoft a juggernaut in the 80s and 90s is not super-relevant here but that's why he's being held up as an "authority." That position of authority is one he seems very happy to hold and use as a pulpit.
Is it deserved at all? Maybe it is. He did bring the money to a lot of programs and I believe he is even bankrolling the WHO nowadays (worthwhile after their multiple screwups that continue? I don't know. Maybe it is and a vital service he's performed there). Gates an expert? Hmm. Don't think he's really demonstrated that conclusively. He'd use his position to get advice from one or more, one would think.
To be clear. More power to him giving his vast wealth away to try and make the world better in tangible ways. You can't possibly spend more than $100m in your life on consumption even if you're totally nuts. Go for immortality. Do it in a way that's kinda good. Go Bill! I pray your good intentions don't pave a road you don't want built as I do everyone's good intentions, including my own.
> but that's why he's being held up as an "authority."
Look at his prepandemic warnings of a pandemic and how it would play out. And real money and action in trying to prevent it. That's why he is being held up as an authority.
Presumably Bill Gates was a good manager and CEO, he became the richest man in the world by running a very successful software company.
And in his current field of "global health" he hopefully has as good of a grasp of the issues, the proposed solutions, and since he's a smart man he's hopefully able to separate the bullshit from the effective solutions.
A financial stake is usually about making a profit. The Gates Foundation is not going to make any profit here, it's looking at funding vaccines at super low cost and giving them away or the manufacturer selling them for as little as possible to governments who would give them away. I hated Gates the monopolist and the foundation has messed up on a few questions (see: efforts in Education), but how in hell can you say that it has a financial stake? If anything, the most successful people are at finding a solution, the more he's going to deplete the coffers of the Foundation, as a vaccine manufacturing force multiplier.
Bill Gates certainly doesn’t have the credentials of a public health expert. His work with health experts has extended to funding and choosing what problems to solve.
You’d presume he’s learned a fair amount about it over the years. But I’ve learned a fair amount about accountancy through my years of working with corporate accountants. I’m definitely not an accountancy expert though.
What qualifications do you imagine he has? What significant work do you believe he has personally contributed to?
There are credentials and there are credentials, right?
The difference between a trained lawyer or accountant and someone with a lot of exposure to such knowledge is very specific skills and procedures. The difference between someone who is a trained manager with a degree and someone who's managed a medium sized organization is more or less nothing just an ability to use jargon.
I've actually looked online courses and documentation on epidemiology and public health. Unlike medicine (which I know nothing of) or advance mathematics (which I know and I know it take specialized skills), epidemiology seems to be a "smattering" sort of fields. A mix of public policy, simple medicine, biology and experimental methods and statistics. I could be wrong but it seems a field that's wide, not deep.
If your full time job is to lead corporate accountants / head a large corporate accountancy firm and you've done it for several years, I'd consider you an accountancy expert.
It's not corporate in the sense of a successful business. It's a self-funded personal project with nothing to hold it accountable for competency. This is one of the major criticism of Gates in the NGO world.
Sure, but that doesn't make him not an expert. Accountability != expertise. People believe Bill Gates is credible because he has a long track record of being credible.
I guess that makes the guy who manages my software engineering team a software engineering expert too?
As far as I can tell, the person who actually leads the Gates Foundation health division is Trevor Mundel. Even then, the work of the Gates Foundation has been in funding projects lead by other organisations, rather than in implementing those projects themselves.
So if an engineering team is successful, then their manager is necessarily an engineering expert? You’re really not providing any rationale to support this rather extreme position. Bill Gates experience in the field of public health is choosing projects to finance, and even then he is not the primary person responsible for that in his foundation. Bill Gates has no credentials you could point to, and has done no work you could point to, that would support an assertion of him being a public health expert. It is frankly a ridiculous proposition.
His work in eradicating Polio.
Choosing which projects to finance is a skill in itself, something he's likely more capable of than a traditionally credentialed expert. I can't help but think that you have an arbitrarily narrow definition of expertise.
What public health expertise do you believe Bill Gates personally contributed to the
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative? As far as I can tell, Bill Gates contributed $110 million USD
to The Global Polio Eradication Initiative in funding, but personally contributed no polio eradication expertise at all to that project.
There is no basis at all for claiming he’s a public health expert. He might be an effective philanthropist, but that’s a completely different topic.
I mean but you can take this even further using your logic: Why even listen to Dr. Fauci, then? Is Fauci at Moderna right now actually making the vaccine? Get me the lab tech running the tests and I'll settle for nothing less!
Like it or not, he's become a highly controversial figure for a large fraction of the population, particularly within the societies that his foundation works. In my opinion, they'd do good to pick a figure whose name is less tarnished if they want the message to be more broadly accepted.
3 : he wants to use his money for philanthropic cause. I can't overstate how great it is. The way he uses his money though, has been pretty controversial. From pushing a pro patent agenda in countries that are too poor to afford medicine made under that system to accusations of straight up using his money so his ideas are applied, even when they go against actual experts with data (and actual expertise) to back their positions.
I'm not interested in digging up the information on this because it was over 10 years ago, so take it with a huge grain of salt.
He had this huge presentation about a laser zapping mosquitoes. The patent was fed to a patent troll, the whole board was stacked with his friends, the company produced nothing and was set up to sue anyone who did try and produce anything. 10 years later they still haven't produced more than the one prototype. The 'charitable' donations were literally just tax write offs that paid for his friends salary.
Since then I really don't take him seriously at all. His charities are just a way to reduce his tax bill and look like he cares, while he's just paying his friends to work on projects they find interesting regardless of the chance of success.
In short: hubris, corruption, white collar rico and tax evasion.
The point of this article appears to be that the Gates foundation simultaneously promotes vaccination and helps pharmaceutical companies with their vaccine research. While that is technically a conflict of interest...it's not much of one. They do both of those things vaccines because vaccines save millions of lives per year.
It'd be like saying it's a conflict of interest to promote access to clean water, while also investing in companies that supply clean water. Sure. It's a conflict. It's also exactly what you would do if you just wanted people to have clean water.
I think his biggest mistake is that he's focused so much on two issues that make it easy to paint him in a negative light. If I was a native Nigerian and some rich white guy started building abortion centres and injecting people with needles all over my country it would be easy to become skeptical.
If I were in his shoes I'd focus more on issues like education, improving basic utilities in urban areas, fighting corruption and enabling economies to expand.
No matter who you put forth saying what Gates has been saying, they will quickly be tarnished by the same baseless bullshit. Effectively 0% of people knew who Facui or Birx were before the pandemic. Now they're the target of the same kind of controversy.
It’s the same mechanism over and over. If I say something on a blog or newspaper like : “user Creato makes apps that make people dumber”
It is you who have to go on the defensive, especially if it gets spread far and wide, regardless if it is true or not. But the lie is out there and your truth has to catch up.
I think if someone was gay and or dealt with HIV in some form, they likely heard of Dr Fauci. Researchers definitely know who is. From his CDC bio: “In a 2020 analysis of Google Scholar citations, Dr. Fauci ranked as the 41st most highly cited researcher of all time. According to the Web of Science, Dr. Fauci ranked 7th out of more than 1.8 million authors in the field of immunology by total citation count between 1980 and January 2020.”
Maybe zero young people but I’d say well informed middle age and up would know who Facui is. It’s hard to debate this with a source but these people have even in the news for decades when things go wrong. I disagree with the “effective 0%”
“author, coauthor, or editor of more than 1,300 scientific publications, including several textbooks.“
“Dr. Fauci ranked 7th out of more than 1.8 million authors in the field of immunology by total citation count between 1980 and January 2020.”
Note this isn’t just 2020. It’s a long history.
“Dr. Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984.” And has served under 6 presidents. Most of which had more than 1 term.
If you are looking for a long list of awards and honorary doctorates head over to his Wikipedia page.
To the replies I got
- I don’t consider 30’s middle aged. I guess I was thinking if you were around with AIDS news in the 80’s you might remember him. Oxford dictionary considers middled aged 45-65
- google trending searches isn’t how I would evaluate the history of someone over decades of time.
For fun I did fin a bunch of videos of times he was on TV via YouTube. So again my point is that 0% is far from right.
But Gates is controversial because of the work he did that make him a qualified source, so it's not unlikely that any reasonable alternative would also have their name "tarnished".
So... do you keep picking new spokespeople when each one becomes unreasonably tarnished?
Because each and every person who promotes public health and (particularly) vaccination, eventually has so much baseless shit thrown at them that they become 'tarnished' before long.
Or should we try to make some sort of stand, and let the wingnuts know their opinions don't matter?
We see the effects of this sort of compromise in the vaccine space - perfectly safe additives were removed in an effort to assuage fears, but that action was twisted into a victory by antivax campaigners - "see, we were right, it was harmful, they lied, we forced them to remove it".
(Gates is tarnished in my eyes for computer industry reasons, but I have no issue with his record in public health)
Makes no difference. Ohio had Amy Acton, a medical doctor who specialized in public health. She did a great job but the right wing nutcases still sent her and her family death threats to the point where she was forced to resign.
Yes, it's really weird, also that he is actually supporting the WHO financially. But here's the reality: U.S. doesn't spend enough to WHO (in fact now they even want to leave), so he gives them money - which is actually possible for everyone. Also Bill Gates wasn't the only "Cassandra", practically every popular science magazine (and probably also HN) has written about the possibility of a future pandemic since years. And yet, Government did nothing. Actually in Germany there were even pandemic simulations about 10 years ago, showing how bad Germany is prepared. Still, nothing was done to improve that.
I think the summary is: this is really odd but it is even more odd how governments are unable to work on long-term topics unless shit hits the fan.
> this is really odd but it is even more odd how governments are unable to work on long-term topics unless shit hits the fan.
Not so odd. This is a common human behavior. We humans are very slow in responding to low probability but high impact events, especially if they require coordination.
E.g. upcoming climate disaster ("climate change" is a euphemism at this point), or nuclear weapons stockpile and the military systems which are effectively a dooms-day device for humanity.
At a smaller scale, various preventable accidents like Beirut explosions or most industrial accidents.
Ironically, a well functioning bureaucracy is one of the best answers, as you can see from Taiwan or South Korea's preparedness and response to COVID pandemic.
> I think the summary is: this is really odd but it is even more odd how governments are unable to work on long-term topics unless shit hits the fan.
This is just because there is no incentive for any politician. It's just like how security is at the bottom of the budget list for most IT companies. Unless we have a framework where people are accountable, nothing will change.
That’s not true. GWB took it very seriously and put a plan in place. Obama modernized the plan. Trump is the one who ignored his predecessors and set the stage for the mess we are in.
I believe you’re downvoted for mentioning politics but it is true. The US had an effective pandemic infrastructure, which got dismantled in 2018.
This isn’t unique to the US. Canada had an extremely effective pandemic forecasting agency. This got dismantled by two separate governments since 2014. I can’t find the article but the globe and mail had a big exposé.
The Atlantic article above is one of the top five articles I’ve read on the pandemic disaster and is worth reading.
You can set google to search articles from 2018, when everyone referred to it as the team being disbanded and warned of trouble. Administration officials have tried to spin it as not disbanding it, but it’s not obvious why they should be viewed as being correct. Some 2018 articles:
Pandemic preparedness was merged with WMD control. The below article refers to it as streamlining but notes
>The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer’s departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack.
For a couple of reasons; Gates is well known and will draw more visibility. He’s a well trained public speaker. He knows enough about the subject matter to communicate it effectively. Also, a short interview probably isn’t long enough for someone with deep subject knowledge to scratch the surface.
Zuckerberg and Musk and Trump are billionaires and no one wants to hear their ramblings. Gates has run a huge public health organization for over a decade.
Eh, Musk is well respected when it comes to space matters. Check out his conversations with Everyday Astronauts, Scott Manley, Tory Bruno, Peter Beck as well as space journalists.
Zuckerberg grants an interview to opine, he can get that in any newspaper or magazine and it's on the front page here.
Musk's ramblings are always covered and he's used them to build a brand in Tesla the equal of Mercedess without spending a single dollar on advertising.
President Trump is the actual president of the USA. God bless us all.
I see the point you're trying to make and I wish were true, but it just isn't as supported by the precise examples you've given.
I'm not a fan of Gates, but he's clearly a smart person. Think of him as a sort of CEO of the organization that coordinates lots of the work done by the "really smart people", a CEO smart enough to be able to give Levy a better summary than Levy would come up with himself if he spoke to 10 actual experts.
He's proven to be reliable over decades. That's the main reason, I think. There was a small reason to talk to him about public health at first, but over time it's grown into a huge reason.
The question remains, is what is he reliable at? Why do I and so many others want to listen to him more over the years? I think it's because of the depth and breadth of issues he discusses. It's a sweet spot for me, between talking in too much depth and not enough depth.
I think he’s like a bored nerd tremendous in managing Windows and using web browsers.
So I’d think his accounts would be as easy and correct as some wiki articles or better, and at the same time would sound “irrelevant” to the public for the lack of emotional components to it.
An excellent question that shouldn't be downvoted. Why is Bill Gates "the guy?" Don't read that in a conspiratorial sense, just in a rational "can someone explain this to me" sense.
He has spent a large amount of time coordinating and strategizing health care interventions in multiple countries over the last couple of decades. Seems like he would be in a very good position to explain this stuff to the public.
His foundation has been in the health space since it's inception. He's very hands on, and consumes and synthesizes health knowledge, which he's been doing for a long time. He has a broad view of many of the factors that go into vaccines, treatments, societal impact, etc. I've never seen him stumped or give a political non-answer on any of the interviews he's been given. I consider him an authority on the topic.
He has broad experiencing in tackling infectious diseases through methods like vaccination & propaganda and he also has doubtless expertise in computers. He has long before COVID frequently been the target of conspiracy theories of him vaccinating people for nefarious purposes.
Thus questions regarding a contemporary infectious disease potentially treated by a disease causing odd politicized conspiratorial behavior on social media is right up his wheelhouse and he's a well known public speaker. There are many epidemiologists you could hear from, and most people have heard from them repeatedly, but Gates offers a fresh perspective due to his fairly unique experience and perspective.
This is misleading at best. Sure, his dad was a lawyer and he was raised in a well-off househould. But he made something -- Microsoft -- through his own ingenuity, effort, and business acumen. I didn't agree with his business ethics, but to pretend he just fell into MS because of his connected family is fairly ridiculous.
Amazingly, he has since turned his fortune into one of the most successful philanthropy projects probably in human history. Now, do I think governments should do what he does? Yes. Would I prefer higher tax rates for people like him so the people could decide what to do, not him? Yes. But he has actually been working for good, you have to give him that.
And now my life is complete: here I am, trying to defend Bill Gates, on the internet.
Gates mother introduced Microsoft to IBM for the contract by speaking with the then Chairman of IBM, who she was an acquaintance of. How many of your parents can do something like that?
Sure, Bill is a very smart person. But it's kind of impossible to say for sure whether he could have been as sucessful, if he was born in a different family. Parents play a major role in shaping the mind of children. For what we know Bill would not even have gone for a programming career and might have been a TV news reporter was he born in some other family.
If he is born in some other family, is he even Bill?
Think of it this way: how many people were as well off and well connected, and lucky as Bill Gates when he started out? let's say 100,000 people, conservatively? How many of those are as successful as he is?
Parents connection doesn't mean you will get the business out of personal experience it can even lead to the opposite to avoid being blamed for nepotism.
No, I just wanted to say that having well connected parents doesn't mean that always will be beneficial for the child it can also work against them, like it did for me.
If he was born into some other family he wouldn't be bill gates but he would still be a very successful if far less notable businessman. To become world famous does take a degree of luck not just merit. People who only have merit are boring.
>And now my life is complete: here I am, trying to defend Bill Gates, on the internet.
I feel the same way. Talk about full circle, it goes from a point in time where Mr Gates appeared to be set on destroying [internet/open source/linux] to now being one of the leaders I actually want to get behind.
In what every role (Mr Gates Villian, Bill the philanthropist) he is at least well informed.
It's not misleading at all, you've just grown up in a warm bath of Bill Gates PR. Gates is a very shrewd business man from a very shrewd and well connected family. There is nothing 'amazing' about his monopolistic practices, which he is now focusing on global bigPharma. Gates hides behind a 'giving it all away' trust based (aka tax avoidance) philanthropy but his wealth has doubled in the last few years.
I wouldn't normally waste time on this but Gates is a dark character once you look beyond the pr veneer and fawning media coverage. We are in a very serious global pandemic where transparency and solutions by, of and for the people are needed, not for profit 'philanthropic' capitalism and social controls.
Did I despise MS od the 90s and their business tactics? Sure. But wether he pays taxes on his philanthropic endeavors doesn't really matter, what matters is that they exist and do some good in the world -- and certainly, spending money on health care is good in my book. So what makes him a "dark character" in your eyes?
Instead of donating to existing public health (and education) organizations, OS programmer Gates created his own so that his personal biases wouldn't be challenged.
@BeatLeJuce You don't have to go very far online to find the answers to you question. James Corbett has amassed a formidable array of facts and history, for example.
A critique of most modern billionaires and millionaires is that they settle for ivory tower philanthropy throwing money around so they can chat with rich experts to figure out which other rich experts to give more money to. While good does come from this, it doesn't seem to make much progress in solving the underlying problems. For instance, how long has the Gates Foundation been involved with vaccines and pharmaceuticals and does it look like solutions are in within striking distance for the underlying issues?
As an example, a millionaire (who recently became a billionaire) decided on two areas where mankind needed dramatic improvement. Instead of ivory tower philanthropy, he started two different for-profit companies, one for each set of issues. Both companies have stuck around for more than 10 years and the issues they are tackling appear to have solutions within striking distance. A tangible difference has been made. If you didn't guess, the two companies are Tesla and SpaceX.
In contrast, it seems like the Gates Foundation is treading water with the issues it’s tackling. I could be wrong, but that is my perception.
As another example, an entrepreneur back in the day decided every desk needed a computer on it and used his for-profit company to make that goal a reality. That entrepreneur, of course, was Bill Gates himself.
Very few people have the R&D and engineering expertise, economic sense, and the money to lead a company to achieve world changing endeavors. Gates did it once. Musk has done it more than once.
Gates could start a pharmaceutical company, run it himself, learn the ins and outs, and reshape the industry along the way (if he could successfully learn the ins and outs). However, he does not appear to be willing to accept the risks involved in starting his own a pharmaceutical company and the problems of the pharmaceuticals industry remain unchanged.
> For instance, how long has the Gates Foundation been involved with vaccines and pharmaceuticals and does it look like solutions are in within striking distance for the underlying issues?
The Gates Foundation joined the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 2000, and has become the primary financial supporter of that body. The Gates Foundation has provided a total of $3.7B to the polio eradication cause.
You are free to do what you claim Gates should be doing. What give you the right to tell him what he should be should be doing with his time and money?
To be fair they said "could" not "should." And honestly, it's a great suggestion. I'd love to see what Gates and a team he assembled came up with (plus it'd just be fun to know there's another superstar entrepreneur out there working hard).
Because he's not just randomly throwing money around and has a well earned reputation for getting a decent return on his investments: he tends to spend money on things that work. So given that he's actively spending money and getting results, his perspective on what things need to be invested in and why is very interesting.
There are plenty of rich philanthropists but very few with Gates's level of understanding and ability to make good policy choices.
Managing the foundation as a business with the goal of maximizing return on investment is precisely one of the criticism leveled at Gates. Note that return on investment refers to financial return, not some abstract notion about improving the world.
I think there's nothing with focusing on ROI in a foundation that presumably does not enrich shareholders (which a foundation does not have) and instead puts any savings to good use doing more of whatever they want to do.
Like on WHO? The organization that lied for months about the potentiality of the covid to become a pandemic and that is excluding on political ground the country that handle best the virus (Taiwan). By still sponsoring this China’s lying organization, Bill Gates lost credibility in my eyes.
You seem to be misremembering WHO's reluctance to declare that the pandemic had reached the criteria to be called a "pandemic" (due to having been accused of being too hasty last time) as something... entirely else.
There are many other people interviewed about Covid and other public health issues. But until recently almost all of the experts were essentially unknown to the general population. Gates is simply a very widely known name, and due to the Gates Foundation actually somewhat relevant to the topic.
I could very well be that his interviews attract far more attention than interviews with experts, but you can't really compensate for that kind of name recognition.
Rich elites have a long history of oversized influence on public policy in the US. I'm not sure why exactly this is happening, but I think it's at least partly because of the relatively low involvement of the government in various social topics.
If you think about it, having public policy being at least partially dictated by unelected and unaccountable individuals is not a good place to be.
Hasan Minhaj had an episode on the Patriot Act about this topic and how:
a) the huge sums of money and foundations these billionaires manage have less of an impact than one would think because of the staggered way that the money is handed out, organizational bureaucracy and the fact that most problems that they're trying to tackle don't really lend themselves to being quashed just by throwing money at them. Many pursue such philanthropy also in part to clean up their public image and as a tax reduction strategy.
b) those huge sums distort the domains that they are injected in and could in some cases cause harm. The Gates Foundation is known for favoring high-impact project and sucking the air out of the room for other initiatives for example.
I guess for the general U.S audience having a well known figure, who has been active in the public health space for some years now through his foundations, speaking as an authority on the ongoing crisis makes sense, giving the lack of ongoing leadership in that country.
However for someone living in a western European country it would not be received very well if a business person, even one with such a big philanthropic side to them, would become the go to authority on public health and wellbeing during this time. For that only be an actually trained and experienced professional can be turned to.
If you can listen to his talk and tell us what part of what he said is wrong then I think you will have a point. Anyone can talk about anything and certainly he can talk about what he and his organizations are working on and what they plan to do about various public health issues.
Please don't misunderstand me, I don't believe he said anything wrong. Nor do I think he doesn't have the right to have a say or to have an opinion on the matter.
My point is more along the fact that he is predominantly a business man who has done a lot of good around the world with his philanthropic foundations. He is a well informed individual with deep pockets and political connections, who is well placed to enact change in what ever forum he would decide to use those resources in.
He is neither an elected representitive nor someone who has to answer for his opinions or actions to any authority within a regulated professional occupation (doctor, professor, publishing researcher etc).
The way that U.S society works, and the level of trust and respect that the general population places on the 'famous' and 'rich' just doesn't resonate with the reality of life where I am.
That is why he, or his like, would never be turned to as authority figures on this matter in my country of residence as they aren't looked at as experts on these matters nor trusted to not have an alterior motive (however small).
My country of residency is not part of the European Union. But you are correct, that there are sadly always problems in most human made systems due to its inclusion of the problematic element it self. Us.
"So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?"
There is definitely a billionaire cult going on these days. I don't know when it started but I see more and more headlines "billionaire does X", "billionaire says Y". Somehow being a billionaire gives you credibility on everything you do or say.
Like it or not money is influence. It’s even more amplified when you have an incompetent government. It would be great if Trump hadn’t bungled the entire response, then maybe BG would just be another person behind the scenes helping with funding.
I don’t understand what your motivation is for saying this. Why do you think Bill is not to be asked these questions? Do you think he would twist or misrepresent facts? Do you think somehow funding so much research makes him untrustworthy?
Oh, they can certainly ask Bill these questions, but I would say there are a ton of people who have far more expertise in infectious diseases than him.
If they were asking him about funding these efforts, then yeah, he’d be the go to guy.
He is not about the details of the research, in the whole article he was simply talking about it as a manager who understands what he is leading. I am sorry but the way you phrased those statements feels as if you are convinced he is lying and has nefarious intent.
He was talking about the performance of the procedure as a whole. He's saying most tests are unacceptably slow in the US because the labs doing the testing aren't paid less for being slow, so they take in more customers than they can handle reliably.
Actually, he blames reimbursement and has this to say "Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system."
That is not an accurate statement. Yes, the government sets reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid, but not for private insurance which is ~60% of Americans.
Exactly when it takes 2+ weeks to hear back about a test it's pretty much pointless as the person is probably either close to recovering or in the hospital.
Don't forget he gave a TED talk warning the world about the next pandemic. And obviously he knows a thing or two about high-level issues dealing with epidemics (which extend beyond just the medicine). Why would they just ignore him?
But why listen to him either? You could have talked to any disease expert over the last few decades and they would have told you that a pandemic will be coming and that we aren't prepared.
Unlike a field expert, dude has influence, reach and an organization (with experts) in the trenches, and now decades of experience in all of the above. He’s not a couch-commenter. It’s like asking why we ought to listen anyone from Y itself here since they have zero experience with temp/vacation housing, storage, payments... all true, but they have experience with people and what and where and when to listen to. Gates is like that, multiplied by decades of experience.
One reason is incentives. He is an expert who is spending money. Most experts are asking for money. Thus, he is incentivized to find the most effective solutions.
I never said he was the only one who warned the world about the next pandemic. Nor do I believe he sees himself as some kind of prophet on this either.
I’ve heard my own CEO try explain something technical and it’s clear they don’t really understand it (and why should they? That’s why they hired experts).
In this article Bill says “most of the Covid tests are garbage”. That seems like a technical statement that should come from someone who is an expert in testing.
If the question was “what do you think the most promising Covid treatments are?” that’s a good question for Bill, assuming he’s involved in the funding decisions (maybe he’s not?).
The "smartest" (most accomplished?) experts within a field will often disagree with each other - sometimes on very important topics. I've encountered this first-hand. It's more common in certain fields than others, but I've seen at least a little bit of it almost everywhere. I can see value in an independent third-party from outside the field who brings experts together, listens to their best advice, and then decides what course to recommend.
Indeed, if you look at what he was saying at the end of February, there was no concern about the way the U.S. was handling the pandemic. Look at what he wrote on February 28th[1] - his recommendations for the current pandemic are for richer countries to assist poorer countries, and for a vaccine to be made.
If someone like Gates sounded the alarm on the poor way the U.S. was responding, it might have made a difference, but he did no such thing. Like most of the leadership in the U.S., he seemed to have a big blind spot with regards to how bad things could get in America. Some people were sounding the alarm early on (take a look at the last minute of this video[2] for an example), but were mostly ignored.
I mean we have other unelected experts leading the pandemic response (eg Fauci) so does he need to go?
Or is it just about the wealth?
Bill Gates is there because his foundation is responsible for helping to eradicate diseases and coordinate pandemic responses, so without his wealth he certainly has experience in this field.
Fauci was appointed by an elected representitive. Who appointed Bill Gates? He purchased his position of influence/
Nothing against the man. I'm distrustful generally in the richest people in the world wielding control that can make their friends even richer. I really doubt I'm alone.
Fauci was not appointed by an elected official. His position as head of NIAID is selected by the agency. This position makes him sought by Presidents. He was not put there by Presidents.
His biggest contribution is money, which pays for really smart people to tackle these issues.
So why not talk to the really smart people he hired?