Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
They can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code VOLKSGEIST at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: incogni.com/volksgeist
In 1999, a federal judge ruled that Bill Gates ran an illegal monopoly and ordered his company split in two. A Belgian anarchist hit him in the face with a pie. Time put him on the cover as a robber baron. Six years later, Time put him on the cover again — this time as a Good Samaritan, beside Bono.
Nothing was reversed. No court exonerated him. The receipts didn't change. The narrative did.
This is the story of how the most reviled man in American business became one of the most admired people on the planet — and an argument that he never actually changed his playbook. He just changed the building it was run out of. From the IBM partnership he was hedging against before the ink dried, to the browser war, to the foundation that turned a fortune into something harder to measure: influence.
A long-form video essay. Names, dates, dollar figures, and the documents themselves.
patreon.com/volksgeist to support directly
volksgeist.org for more info
volksgeist@night.co for business
#volksgeist #billgates #billionaires
They can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code VOLKSGEIST at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: incogni.com/volksgeist
In 1999, a federal judge ruled that Bill Gates ran an illegal monopoly and ordered his company split in two. A Belgian anarchist hit him in the face with a pie. Time put him on the cover as a robber baron. Six years later, Time put him on the cover again — this time as a Good Samaritan, beside Bono.
Nothing was reversed. No court exonerated him. The receipts didn't change. The narrative did.
This is the story of how the most reviled man in American business became one of the most admired people on the planet — and an argument that he never actually changed his playbook. He just changed the building it was run out of. From the IBM partnership he was hedging against before the ink dried, to the browser war, to the foundation that turned a fortune into something harder to measure: influence.
A long-form video essay. Names, dates, dollar figures, and the documents themselves.
patreon.com/volksgeist to support directly
volksgeist.org for more info
volksgeist@night.co for business
#volksgeist #billgates #billionaires
