New York: Media reports over Bill Gates’s private office's choice to ask some female job candidates about their sexual histories — including what kind of pornography they liked, whether they ever had extramarital affairs and even if they had nude pictures of themselves on their phones—created a flutter and raised questions about the billionaire magnet's claim of 'set work ethics' for professionals.
It is, however, not clear if male candidates faced such questions while seeking jobs at the firm of Gates, who with a net worth of $132 billion, is the No. 4 richest person in the world. According to reports, during Gates’s extensive screening process, women interviewees confronted uncomfortable questions like if they ever “danced for dollars" by a security firm.
Another candidate revealed that she was asked whether she had ever contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Such personal questions during the hiring process for Gates’s private office, called Gates Ventures, sparked an outcry and raised questions about the work ethics laid down by the 'philanthropist' billionaire magnet.
In the face of widespread criticism, a spokeswoman for Gates Ventures sought to duck queries saying she had not heard such questions being asked during the background checks, which were conducted by third-party contractor Concentric Advisors.
Reports said these interviews were conducted in recent years, and Concentric’s interviewers were believed to be finding any information that could be used to compromise or blackmail individuals working so closely to Gates.
The Gates spokeswoman said Gates Ventures abides by industry standards during pre-employment screenings for both men and women but she did not mention code of ethics by the Gates' office.
Controversy's favourite man
Behind his image of a tech mogul with the heart of a philanthropist, Bill Gates was infamous for throwing naked pool parties with strippers and being often labelled as “womanizer” in his early days despite meeting her future wife Melinda, according to a biography.
The Microsoft co-founder’s hedonistic ways were well known among his inner circle — though media reports especially “spoon-fed stories,” continued to show him in good light. In the 1997 biography, “Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace," James Wallace wrote Western media preferred not to report on the wild bachelor parties that Microsoft’s chairman had thrown in his Seattle home. According to Wallace, Gates would visit one of Seattle’s all-nude nightclubs and hire dancers to come to his home and swim naked with his friends in his indoor pool.
