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Bill Gates certainly doesn’t have the credentials of a public health expert. His work with health experts has extended to funding and choosing what problems to

Bill Gates certainly doesn’t have the credentials of a public health expert. His work with health experts has extended to funding and choosing what problems to solve. You’d presume he’s learned a fair amount about it over the years. But I’ve learned a fair amount about accountancy through my years of working with corporate accountants. I’m definitely not an accountancy expert though. What qualifications do you imagine he has? What significant work do you believe he has personally contributed to?

ipsum2 6y ago
If your full time job is to lead corporate accountants / head a large corporate accountancy firm and you've done it for several years, I'd consider you an accountancy expert.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I guess that makes the guy who manages my software engineering team a software engineering expert too? As far as I can tell, the person who actually leads the Gates Foundation health division is Trevor Mundel. Even then, the work of the Gates Foundation has been in funding projects lead by other organisations, rather than in implementing those projects themselves.
  - ipsum2 6y ago
    > I guess that makes the guy who manages my software engineering team a software engineering expert too? If they do it very well and can point to measurable results of success, I would think so!
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      So if an engineering team is successful, then their manager is necessarily an engineering expert? You’re really not providing any rationale to support this rather extreme position. Bill Gates experience in the field of public health is choosing projects to finance, and even then he is not the primary person responsible for that in his foundation. Bill Gates has no credentials you could point to, and has done no work you could point to, that would support an assertion of him being a public health expert. It is frankly a ridiculous proposition.
      - TheOperator 6y ago
        >He has done no work you could point to His work in eradicating Polio. Choosing which projects to finance is a skill in itself, something he's likely more capable of than a traditionally credentialed expert. I can't help but think that you have an arbitrarily narrow definition of expertise.
        AmericanChopper 6y ago
        What public health expertise do you believe Bill Gates personally contributed to the The Global Polio Eradication Initiative? As far as I can tell, Bill Gates contributed $110 million USD to The Global Polio Eradication Initiative in funding, but personally contributed no polio eradication expertise at all to that project. There is no basis at all for claiming he’s a public health expert. He might be an effective philanthropist, but that’s a completely different topic.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- sukilot 6y ago
  It's not corporate in the sense of a successful business. It's a self-funded personal project with nothing to hold it accountable for competency. This is one of the major criticism of Gates in the NGO world.
  - darawk 6y ago
    Sure, but that doesn't make him not an expert. Accountability != expertise. People believe Bill Gates is credible because he has a long track record of being credible.
joe_the_user 6y ago
There are credentials and there are credentials, right? The difference between a trained lawyer or accountant and someone with a lot of exposure to such knowledge is very specific skills and procedures. The difference between someone who is a trained manager with a degree and someone who's managed a medium sized organization is more or less nothing just an ability to use jargon. I've actually looked online courses and documentation on epidemiology and public health. Unlike medicine (which I know nothing of) or advance mathematics (which I know and I know it take specialized skills), epidemiology seems to be a "smattering" sort of fields. A mix of public policy, simple medicine, biology and experimental methods and statistics. I could be wrong but it seems a field that's wide, not deep.
schwartzworld 6y ago
gates has one qualification: he's rich. that's enough for a lot of people to assume he's right about everything.

ipsum2 6y ago

If your full time job is to lead corporate accountants / head a large corporate accountancy firm and you've done it for several years, I'd consider you an accountancy expert.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
I guess that makes the guy who manages my software engineering team a software engineering expert too? As far as I can tell, the person who actually leads the Gates Foundation health division is Trevor Mundel. Even then, the work of the Gates Foundation has been in funding projects lead by other organisations, rather than in implementing those projects themselves.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  > I guess that makes the guy who manages my software engineering team a software engineering expert too? If they do it very well and can point to measurable results of success, I would think so!
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    So if an engineering team is successful, then their manager is necessarily an engineering expert? You’re really not providing any rationale to support this rather extreme position. Bill Gates experience in the field of public health is choosing projects to finance, and even then he is not the primary person responsible for that in his foundation. Bill Gates has no credentials you could point to, and has done no work you could point to, that would support an assertion of him being a public health expert. It is frankly a ridiculous proposition.
    - TheOperator 6y ago
      >He has done no work you could point to His work in eradicating Polio. Choosing which projects to finance is a skill in itself, something he's likely more capable of than a traditionally credentialed expert. I can't help but think that you have an arbitrarily narrow definition of expertise.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        What public health expertise do you believe Bill Gates personally contributed to the The Global Polio Eradication Initiative? As far as I can tell, Bill Gates contributed $110 million USD to The Global Polio Eradication Initiative in funding, but personally contributed no polio eradication expertise at all to that project. There is no basis at all for claiming he’s a public health expert. He might be an effective philanthropist, but that’s a completely different topic.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
sukilot 6y ago
It's not corporate in the sense of a successful business. It's a self-funded personal project with nothing to hold it accountable for competency. This is one of the major criticism of Gates in the NGO world.
- darawk 6y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't make him not an expert. Accountability != expertise. People believe Bill Gates is credible because he has a long track record of being credible.

joe_the_user 6y ago

There are credentials and there are credentials, right? The difference between a trained lawyer or accountant and someone with a lot of exposure to such knowledge is very specific skills and procedures. The difference between someone who is a trained manager with a degree and someone who's managed a medium sized organization is more or less nothing just an ability to use jargon. I've actually looked online courses and documentation on epidemiology and public health. Unlike medicine (which I know nothing of) or advance mathematics (which I know and I know it take specialized skills), epidemiology seems to be a "smattering" sort of fields. A mix of public policy, simple medicine, biology and experimental methods and statistics. I could be wrong but it seems a field that's wide, not deep.

schwartzworld 6y ago

gates has one qualification: he's rich. that's enough for a lot of people to assume he's right about everything.