Tim Schwab

Jan 16, 2025 | timschwab.substack.com | Tim Schwab

One of the most visible demonstrations of resistance to the ongoing genocide in Gaza are the student protests aimed at pressuring universities to divest their endowments from companies complicit in Israel’s war machine. The university protests rapidly expanded following international news coverage of demonstrations at Columbia University in April 2024, as then-president Minouche Shafik led an aggressive crack down on students.

Oct 29, 2024 | timschwab.substack.com | Tim Schwab

While nations around the world have long treated Bill Gates as a head of state, it’s now been practically codified into law in Kenya. Last week, the government announced that the Gates Foundation—and its “servants”—would be granted diplomatic immunity, a privilege normally given to foreign officials, like ambassadors. The foundation’s new ‘special status’ includes “immunity from legal action for acts done in the course of official duties,” according to Kenyan news reports.

Sep 19, 2024 | timschwab.substack.com | Tim Schwab

You may recognize the name Morgan Neville. He’s the Academy-Award winning director of the documentary “20 Feet from Stardom.” He also directed celebrated films about Anthony Bourdain (“Roadrunner”) and Fred Rogers (“Won’t You be My Neighbor”). Neville’s name was familiar to me when his production company, Tremolo, asked me to participate in a new Netflix documentary about “significant global challenges our world faces.” I was excited by the opportunity, but also skeptical.

Dec 11, 2023 | scroll.in | Tim Schwab

In a 2019 debate at the Oxford Union, the famed venue associated with Oxford University where fancy people formally argue, the proposition on the table was whether it is immoral to be a billionaire. Writer Anand Giridharadas argued in the affirmative, interrogating the sins of the superrich and the false promises of billionaire philanthropy. “They find clever new ways to pay people as little as possible and as precariously as possible.

Dec 7, 2023 | bbrief.co.za | Tim Schwab

Reckoning with the Myth of the Good BillionaireBy Tim SchwabA critical look at how Bill Gates uses his wealth and power through the Gates Foundation to advance his own agenda and erode democratic institutions in the process. How much money should one man be allowed to amass? Would your answer change if you knew he was a saint? From greedy to generous, from cold- to kind-hearted, from rogue to hero, Bill Gates is an extraordinarily complex public figure.