I’m convinced America has lost its collective mind.
Gas prices continue to skyrocket with wild abandon. Inflation is creeping up despite the Fed’s best efforts to keep it in check. We’re playing nation-building in the Middle East while the North Koreans mock us, boast of having nukes and lob missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Further, one party in Congress screams about “activist judges” who, coincidentally, were mostly appointed by presidents within their own party. And the other party threatens to slow down all congressional business rather than develop its own ideas and then sitting down at the negotiating table.
As if that weren’t enough, as a nation, we’ve blindly allowed private beliefs to creep into politics and dictate our public policy.
It’s clear we’re focusing on the wrong things these days. But in the midst of this madness, I found a bright spot from the unlikeliest of places — Bill Gates, chairman and founder of Microsoft.
Rather than bash his company as countless others have, let’s look at Gates, the man, and how he truly understands the importance of his wealth and power.
As the world’s richest man — his fortune is estimated at $46.5 billion — Gates is also the most philanthropic man on the planet, perhaps the greatest philanthropist in history. His Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been busy giving away its nearly $29 billion endowment at an unprecedented rate in the face of attacks against his company.
But what makes Gates’ foundation impressive beyond its sheer scale is the focus of his grants — education and health. Not coincidentally, they are the two areas of society with the greatest impact on our world and its future.
Nearly every CEO cites finding skilled workers and controlling rising health care costs among the top three issue for his or her business. Simply put, a well-educated and healthy work force is the key to making our free-market society work — whether you subscribe to the economic philosophies of Adam Smith or Alexander Hamilton.
I don’t know Gates’ political bent, and quite frankly, I don’t care. But his ability to identify and fund solutions to the critical problems that society faces gets to the heart of not just what’s right in our personal lives but also what it requires for our businesses to survive and thrive.
And for that alone, Gates should be a role model.
