(DailyVantage.com) – Billionaire Bill Gates reportedly had a reputation for “clumsy” flirtatious behavior with young female interns at his software company Microsoft which resulted in the management taking steps to prevent the interns from being alone with him, a new book claims.
An excerpt from the book “Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King” by New York Times reporter Anupreeta Das that was published in the UK tabloid The Daily Mail last week reveals an unflattering portrait of the tech billionaire, including his history of infidelity that allegedly left his wife Melinda “seething.”
According to Das, Gates had a reputation for flirting and making “unwanted advances” like asking an employee to dinner when he was Microsoft CEO.
Das writes that almost immediately after Gates married Melinda French in 1994, he continued to pine for his former girlfriend, tech entrepreneur Ann Winblad. He arranged with Melinda to continue visiting Winblad at her North Carolina home once a year.
Melinda allegedly replaced her husband’s security detail, convinced that they were helping him to keep his travel plans hidden from her. She also instructed the housekeepers not to give her husband’s direct phone number to women who called the house looking for him.
According to Das, the marriage eventually fell apart over the couple’s different ideas of what a marriage was supposed to be. Melinda, who had a “deep belief” in the sanctity of marriage, believed that Bill’s behavior would change once the couple was married. However, Gates believed that marriage did not necessarily mean love, Das writes in her book.
The billionaire’s wandering eye not only affected the female staff at Microsoft. It also was a problem for the women who worked at the couple’s philanthropic Gates Foundation.
Witnesses to Gates’ flirtations told Anupreeta Das that the tech billionaire wasn’t predatory like former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Instead, his overtures were seen as “clumsy.”
One former executive said the Microsoft CEO never preyed on women or tried to gain favors of intimacy in exchange for professional advancement.
The marriage between Bill and Melinda Gates ended in 2021. Earlier this year, Melinda Gates left the Gates Foundation to pursue a new philanthropic endeavor.
“Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King” hits bookstores on August 13.
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