From hidden truth to the timing of love

This week, Patricia McCracken's selection will take you from the history-making worlds of Bill Gates and Mathews Phosa, to a fictional tale set during the Second Anglo-Boer War, and a story of long-distance love.

Billionaire, Nerd, Saviour, King by Anupreeta Das (Simon & Schuster, R475) Forget the Kardashians and their ilk, says Das; it was Gates, Bezos, Dell and other Seattle and Silicon Valley leaders who really made us love billionaires (until we didn't). This intriguing read isn't another biography of Bill Gates but rather an analysis of the context in which he built his empire and within which he was effectively ousted from his flagship company, Microsoft, to help it survive its founder's increasingly menacing image – piratical approaches to competitors, tyrannical behaviour in the office, womanising … He then found philanthropy, specialising in improving healthcare and helping to alleviate poverty and the effects of climate change. I encountered him at an international conference in Durban almost a decade ago, and he was clearly…

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Farmer's Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 24 January 2025

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