Bill Gates Shrugs Off Conspiracy Theories in New Series as Daughter Phoebe Shares a Warning: 'Friends Cut Me Off'
Although Bill is “pretty tough-skinned," the CEO of Gates Ventures says that "misinformation is incredibly perplexing" to the billionaire

By Maria Pasquini
Maria Pasquini is the staff editor for human interest’s digital vertical at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2017.
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Published on September 22, 2024 11:00AM EDT
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Bill Gates and Phoebe Gates. Time100 Gala held at Jazz At Lincoln Center.
Bill Gates and Phoebe Gates. Photo: J. Lingo/AdMedia via ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy
When it comes to conspiracy theories and misinformation, Bill Gates can sometimes brush off the “wild” stuff — but as his daughter Phoebe cautions, you have to be careful what you say online.

In the billionaire philanthropist’s new Netflix docuseries, What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates, Bill, 68, says that having been “incredibly successful” with Microsoft led him to understand that “there’d be a range of opinions about him,” but that since turning to charity full-time, things “really started getting crazy.”

However, as the start of the episode on misinformation online makes clear — when he is asked to read a series of conspiracy theories about him — sometimes what's out there is so far-out it can feel impossible to take too seriously.

A scheme to force people to eat bugs to weaken the lower class? Bill responds by saying, “I’d feel bad if I was doing that."

How about being part of a “reptilian” race of shapeshifting lizards? He shrugs: “Someone mentioned this one to me."

As for a conspiracy that he and ex-wife Melinda French Gates have been replaced by clones, he quips with a smile that Melinda “is still a real person,” while he does “my best.”

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As Larry Cohen, the CEO of Gates Ventures, Bill’s personal services company, puts it, the philanthropist is “pretty tough-skinned."

“Some of the stuff is wild, so wild, that it almost makes him laugh,” Cohen says in the episode. “But when you talk to Bill, I think misinformation is incredibly perplexing to him because it’s still not clear how we address the issue.”

When talking to his 22-year-old daughter, Phoebe, he asks if she has “ever run into crazy misinformation” about him.

Her response? “All the time."

“I’ve even had friends cut me off because of these vaccine rumors,” she adds, a reference to baseless theories involving her dad, the COVID-19 vaccine and microchips — the origins of which are explored in depth in the episode.

Bill Gates and Phoebe Gates in What's Next: The Future with Bill Gates.
Bill Gates and Phoebe Gates. Courtesy of Netflix
“I don’t know, I need to learn more because I naively still believe that digital communication can be a force to bring us together, to have reasonable debate,” Bill responds to Phoebe.

The Microsoft co-founder's youngest daughter goes on to gently point out that one thing she doesn't think her father "really" understands about being online "is that it's not really logic and fact that win out."

“People want an escape, they want to laugh, they want an engaging video, they want to be taken away from boring reality,” the recent Stanford University graduate says.

Bill Gates Was 'Worried' to Ask Daughter Phoebe to Be in Netflix Show, but Their Conversation Was His ‘Favorite’
But even entertainment value doesn’t explain why some conspiracy theories run wild. “It’s just madness, and who promotes that?” asks Bill.

He notes that after the rampant spread of misinformation during the COVID pandemic, it's "scary" to think about what would happen “if we have a pandemic that’s 10 times worse.”

“That’s right, I’m working on it,” he answers, laughing.

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What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates.
What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates. Courtesy of Netflix
Speaking with PEOPLE ahead of the show’s release, Bill said that working on the Netflix project gave him a “real chance to talk about topics that I care about and I have views on, and I learned a lot." Other episodes look at artificial intelligence, global warming and more.

And in a new post on his Gates Notes blog, he wrote that he hopes to inspire “more people to have conversations about these important topics.”

“We shouldn’t underestimate what happens when people work together and focus on a problem. I’m confident that brilliant people—especially young people—will step up with great solutions,” he wrote. “It’s a critical time, but if we engage, there is a path to progress."

What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates is currently streaming on Netflix.

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