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Culture
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Book review
書評
A biography of Bill Gates
比爾·蓋茨傳記
Dollar Bill
美元比爾
Billionaire, Nerd, Saviour, King. By Anupreeta Das.
《億萬富翁，書呆子，救世主，國王》，阿努普麗塔·達斯著。
“Americans appear to be growing increasingly uneasy about billionaires,” observes Anupreeta Das, a journalist and former finance editor at the New York Times.
“美國人似乎對億萬富翁越來越感到不安。”《紐約時報》記者、前財經編輯阿努普麗塔·達斯觀察到。
Do they embody the American dream or endanger it?
他們體現了美國夢，還是危及了美國夢？
And who gets to decide what billionaires owe to society?
以及誰來決定億萬富翁對社會欠下了什么？
Ms Das has chosen an original way to address these questions: by writing a biography of Bill Gates, the first superstar tech billionaire.
達斯選擇了一種獨特的方式來解決這些問題：撰寫比爾·蓋茨的傳記，他是第一位科技界的超級明星億萬富翁。
With his long career and its many ups and downs, Mr Gates is “the perfect prism through which to refract these thorny moral questions” in pursuit of a “collective rethink” about American values.
蓋茨的職業生涯漫長且曲折，在尋求對美國價值觀的“集體反思”時，他是“折射這些棘手道德問題的完美棱鏡”。
Ms Das goes from the founding of Microsoft in 1975 to its stockmarket flotation 11 years later (which made Mr Gates America’s youngest billionaire) in just four paragraphs.
達斯只用四段話講述了微軟從1975年創立到11年后上市（這使蓋茨成為美國最年輕的億萬富翁）的歷程。
This lets her broaden her analysis to the tech billionaires who followed in his footsteps.
這讓她將分析范圍擴大到那些追隨蓋茨腳步的科技億萬富翁。
By 1995 Mr Gates was the richest person in America but was facing a new problem: his company was so dominant that it attracted the attention of antitrust regulators.
到1995年，蓋茨成為了美國最富有的人，但卻面臨著一個新問題：他的公司過于強大，引起了反壟斷監管機構的注意。
The heroic nerd had come to be seen as a villain, a fate that awaited other tech bosses, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
這位英雄般的書呆子逐漸被視為是大反派，這也是后來等待著其他科技老板，如馬克·扎克伯格和杰夫·貝索斯等人的命運。
In his mishandling of the antitrust suit, Mr Gates provided a lesson to others in what not to do.
在蓋茨對反壟斷訴訟的不當處理中，他給其他人提供了教訓，告訴他們什么是不該做的。
Chastened, Mr Gates reinvented himself as a philanthropist, establishing the world’s largest charitable foundation with his then wife Melinda and promoting among other billionaires the Giving Pledge (a promise to donate most of one’s wealth to charitable causes).
受到教訓之后，他將自己的形象重新打造為慈善家，與當時的妻子梅琳達共同創立了世界最大的慈善基金會，并在其他億萬富翁中推廣“捐贈誓言”（承諾將大部分財富捐贈給慈善事業）。
So successful was this reinvention that Mr Gates was the most admired man in the world from 2014 to 2019, according to YouGov polls.
蓋茨的這次轉型非常成功，根據YouGov民意調查，他在2014年至2019年期間一直是世界上最受欽佩的人。
But then his infidelity and friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a financier and paedophile, led to the collapse of his marriage.
但后來他的出軌行為以及他與杰弗里·愛潑斯坦（金融家、戀童癖）的友誼導致他的婚姻破裂。
At the same time, the power of his foundation began to come under increasing scrutiny.
與此同時，蓋茨基金會的權力開始受到越來越多的審查。
It pours billions into public-health initiatives, outspending many governments, and thus shapes health policy in many countries—yet it is accountable to nobody but the Gateses.
基金會向許多公共衛生倡議投入了數十億美元，支出超過了許多國家的政府，從而塑造了許多國家的衛生政策——然而，基金會只對蓋茨夫婦負責。
During the covid-19 pandemic, Mr Gates was also the subject of conspiracy theories suggesting that he was profiting from vaccines and even injecting tiny microchips into people.
在新冠疫情期間，蓋茨也成了陰謀論的對象，認為他從疫苗中獲利，甚至把微小芯片注射進人們體內。
The geeky hero had once again become a villain.
這個極客英雄又一次變成了大反派。
Ms Das considers different facets of Mr Gates’s life, from his friendship with Warren Buffett and the breakdown of his marriage to the running of his foundation and the management of his wealth.
達斯思考了蓋茨人生中的不同方面，從他與沃倫·巴菲特的友誼，到他婚姻的破裂，再到蓋茨基金會的運作和他對財富的管理。
Some of this is eye-opening.
有些內容令人大開眼界。
Mr Gates is, among other things, the largest private owner of farmland in America, and his investment firm, Cascade, owns big chunks of everything from Four Seasons Hotels to John Deere.
其中包括蓋茨是美國農場最大的私人所有者，以及他的投資公司瀑布投資擁有從四季酒店到機械制造公司約翰迪爾等各種公司的大量股份。
But Ms Das’s book is most interesting when it shows how Mr Gates has influenced other billionaires—how they have emulated him, and how they have not.
但達斯的書最有趣的地方在于，它展示了蓋茨如何影響其他億萬富翁——他們如何效仿蓋茨，以及他們如何沒有效仿他。
Mr Zuckerberg, for example, faced his own crisis over Facebook’s role in the American election of 2016, and turned to Mr Gates for advice.
例如，扎克伯格曾因臉書在2016年美國總統大選中的作用而面臨危機，并向蓋茨尋求建議。
(Mr Zuckerberg dropped his hoodie for a sharp suit, but has recently reinvented himself as a hippie.)
（扎克伯格脫下了連帽衫，換上了一套利落的西裝，但最近他又把自己重塑成了嬉皮士。）
And when it comes to philanthropy, other tech billionaires have embraced Mr Gates’s technocratic, evidence-based approach, but have chosen to structure their philanthropic vehicles in different ways.
至于慈善事業，其他科技億萬富翁也接受了蓋茨的技術官僚主義、基于證據的方法，但選擇以不同的方式構建他們的慈善工具。
The book shows Mr Gates from many angles but provides few glimpses of him as a person.
這本書從多個角度展示了蓋茨，但很少表現他作為一個自然人的樣子。
There is a Gates-shaped hole at the centre of the narrative; Ms Das was not granted an interview.
在敘述的中心有一個蓋茨形狀的空洞，因為達斯沒有得到采訪蓋茨的準允。
So what does she conclude about billionaires?
那么，她對億萬富翁得出了什么結論？
They are, she suggests, lightning rods for deeper concerns about inequality and privilege.
她表示，在對不平等和特權的更深層次擔憂中，億萬富翁像避雷針一樣吸引批評火力。
But she holds back from making a strong argument about Mr Gates or the tech jet-set.
但她并未就蓋茨或有私人飛機的科技富翁們提出明確的觀點。
She drops hints that she disapproves, noting that family offices are “unregulated entities” and that private jets have large carbon footprints.
她暗示自己對他們持不贊成態度，指出家族辦公室是“不受監管的實體”，私人飛機也有巨量碳足跡。
It is as if she is waiting for readers to boo.
仿佛她在等待讀者對他們喝倒彩。
A book that promises to tackle billionaires’ place in society asks many questions—but also asks readers to make up their own minds.
一本承諾探究億萬富翁在社會中有何地位的書提出了許多問題，但也要求讀者形成自己的見解。
