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Comment by louwrentius | Hacker News Reader

> Board members at Microsoft Corp. made a decision in 2020 that it wasn’t appropriate for its co-founder Bill Gates to continue sitting on its board as they investigated the billionaire’s prior romantic relationship with a female Microsoft employee that was deemed inappropriate, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

> Citing unnamed sources, The Journal reported online Sunday that board members looking into the matter hired a law firm in late 2019 to conduct an investigation after a Microsoft engineer alleged in a letter that she had a sexual relationship with Gates over several years.

Maybe this is just gossip and private life things we should not care about. But I think this is disturbing behavior. Other articles report that he approached many more women over the years.

And then that connection with Epstein. The final straw that allegedly was the primary reason for the divorce.

This really doesn’t look right to me.

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I will be very disappointed if Bill Gates is a creep. Are there accusations? Have women came forward and told their story? I honestly haven’t heard anything at this point. I will be very sad if something like that happens.

As soon as I saw that his wife left him after he gleefully associated with Epstein decades AFTER the world knew he was a pedophile... it looks bad from my perspective.

Bill knew Jeff. He knew he was a predator. He knew it all. And he smiled and invited him into his home to treat him like a brother.

I just can't imagine why you invite the most notorious pedophile in our lifetimes into your home against your wifes wishes. I have literally zero reasons why that occurs. I cannot think of a single excuse for Bill outside of just "dum as brick". But he's a very smart man. Who made a very intentional decision, I guess.

Just reports, not ‘accusations’ in any legal sense. But it doesn’t look great to me.

> Other articles report that he approached many more women over the years.

I'd be careful with what you're reading into that. Approaching women isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as it's respectful. It's not improper in itself - it can be, but that's not specified here.

I haven't seen anything untoward about the relationship itself, only company politics and how it might impact his marriage.

I'll be honest, I'm uncomfortable with witch-hunt being the default footing, especially when it relies on assumptions that aren't given (or worst, conflicts with facts that are given). So far this is gossip within the context of their divorce. Assuming impropriety in every relationship can only be a disservice to those that do deserve the attention.

Also, one of the women he approached, the one that took him up on his offer ended up having decent life and sizable fortune. And others just rejected him and so far there's not much evidence that it wasn't the end of it in nearly all cases. And we know just about one women who took the offence.

The anti-competitive behavior, surveillance capitalism, oligarch moves didn't tip you off?

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