Review: Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates

The United States has provided the environment for many titans of industry--such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller--to flourish.  Although many of these individuals used extreme tactics to build their empires, they tended to become philanthropists in their later years and turned their attention to the good of humanity.  Most invested their income in benevolent causes, but few invested their knowledge.  Bill Gates is different.

Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft and co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at age 63 is now the second richest person in the world (behind Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon). In Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates,  a new three-part documentary  series on Netflix created and directed by Davis Guggenheim, we are exposed to an in-depth look at the mind and motivations of Gates.

Each episode introduces a challenge that Gates and his foundation has addressed and counterbalances that with both backstory about the creation and growth of Microsoft as well as an examination of a key personal relationship. The documentary features a number of interviews with Gates as well as significant people in his life.  As the continuity bounces between background, relationships, and causes, the viewer may be a bit disoriented at times. 

The challenges are these:  simple, hygienic toilets, the eradication of polio, and safe nuclear energy.  The people are Mary Gates, his mother; Paul Allen, who was the co-founder of Microsoft; and Melinda, his wife and foundation partner.

The challenges addressed are important and clearly presented.  Gates has turned the drive he used to build Microsoft into other projects. When the interviewer says that some people say, “He’s a technophile who believes technology will solve everything,” Gates readily agrees.

But it is the relationships that are most interesting in this series. His mother, Mary, was a philanthropic force in Seattle and provided the impetus for his social conscience.  They often butted heads when he was a child, but it is clear that much of her vision to make the world a better place became deeply implanted in her son.

Paul Allen was something of a mentor to Gates, but he had diverse interests and was never as focused on Microsoft as his partner thought he should be.  He died of cancer in 2018, and an interview with Gates reflects that there is definitely some unfinished business there.

Melinda is his wife and loving partner who is not afraid to bring the human perspective to the brainy Gates’s attention.  He is about the technology related to each challenge and she is about the humanity.  In their Foundation, she characterizes their roles as “data versus relationships.”

When asked if he has changed over the years, Gates responds, “I have mellowed. Thank God.” Given the intensity he brings to the work of Foundation, not everyone agrees, including Melinda.

The driving idea for Gates seems to be that any problem can be solved if everyone will only work harder.  Of course, it helps if one can leverage millions of dollars (some provided by Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway) to address the problem.

The narrator points out that Gates’ relentlessness can be seen both as a strength and as a flaw, but when one is a visionary, he or she works with what they know best.  Gates is depicted as a person who brings the same drive that he used to build one of the world’s greatest companies to the big concerns of humanity.  Is he motivated by altruism or guilt?  We don’t know what causes this type of commitment, but it is fascinating to see Gates at work