DINH DOONG

Bill Gates would behave like a “kid in a candy store” around young female interns so much that the management had to ban them from being alone with him discloses a book authored by Anupreeta Das. The book titled, Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World gives a peek into the Microsoft co-founder’s personal and professional life.

The New York Times journalist also noted the details of the dynamics between the billionaire and his wife Melinda French Gates after an alleged extra-marital affair. According to the NY Post, the infidelity rumors left his wife “seething for a long time.” A book excerpt acquired by Daily Mail that hints at the flirty nature of Bill reads, that it was “not unusual for Gates to flirt with women and pursue them, making unwanted advances such as asking a Microsoft employee out to dinner while he was still the company’s chairman.” Adding on it discloses that Bill “flirted with some of the interns at the Gates Foundation, putting them in the uncomfortable position of having to think about their career prospects while not wanting to be hit on by the boss.”

“In one instance a colleague chastised one person for sending a 22-year-old intern to Gates’ office by herself, saying: ‘She’s too young and too pretty,’” the controversial book which hit the stores on August 13 shared. The book also reveals how Melinda would often ask the housekeepers to not give Bill’s personal phone number if any female was on the phone line. As if that’s not enough, Melinda would also keep changing the security team of her husband from time to time thinking they were “enabling him to be places where [she] didn’t know he was at.”

However, according to a former executive of Bill, the advances made by him were not predatory in nature and phrased it rather “clumsy.” “He’s not Harvey Weinstein…I know of no real situation in which anyone got anything for sleeping with Bill,” the former executive told Das having witnessed the flirtatious techie at work. There was “certain naivete in his interactions with women, mistaking engaged conversation for mutual interest,” the anonymous exec added. The couple parted ways in 2021 after 27 years of their marriage.

In an interview with CBS Mornings Melinda revealed what was the straw that led to their split. However, she also clarified there was no one defining moment that made her decide on it, but several situations. “It wasn’t one moment or one specific thing that happened. There just came a point in time where there was enough there that I realized it just wasn’t healthy, and I couldn’t trust what we had,” she said. In a joint statement, they wrote, “We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.”