From American Rennaissance, we have a detailed article about the hypocrisies of Bill Gates by Greg Hood. It might be one of the best things that he’s written, and he often writes well.
Mr. Gates also realized that the tech industry was in a fierce competition for high-IQ workers. He famously said his biggest adversary was Goldman Sachs, because they were competing with him for the brightest employees. Unfortunately for him, Griggs vs. Duke Power makes it difficult to use IQ tests for job interviews because of the “disparate impact” such tests have on blacks. Therefore, Microsoft’s job interviews featured word teasers and other questions specifically designed to get the effect of IQ tests without actually using them. There is an example at the end of this article.
Bill Gates is known to be obsessed with IQ. After traveling the country for five days with Mr. Gates, a reporter from Forbes said that he “must have talked about IQ a hundred times. Getting the brightest bulbs to work at Microsoft has always been his obsession.” Years later, the same reporter noted that “Gates has always loved IQ . . . . It never seems to occur to Gates that IQ has become a politically incorrect subject for many.”
Even though he has not run Microsoft for some time, Mr. Gates remains passionately interested in IQ. He stresses the importance of raw intelligence in his public statements, and he is clearly aware of one of the great challenges of a globalized economy–the low IQ of people in developing countries. In a speech in July 2013, Mr. Gates noted that “the average IQ in sub-Saharan Africa is about 82.”
And yet, Gates has poured billions into a fruitless effort to change traits which are genetically determined.
Exfernal says
Genetically limited, mind.
Exfernal says
Or is ‘co-determined’ better?