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Comment by tuna-piano | Hacker News Reader

1. Bill Gates is extremely competitive, he's a bulldog, he fights and wants to win against whatever. He built Microsoft into a Monopoly and is fighting hard (and doing a great job) against diseases.

2. Bill Gates looks at problems logically, finds missing links, and solves those links. Whether that is refrigeration for vaccines, getting useful data for diseases, etc.

3. Bill Gates knows a ton about diseases, epidemics, etc. He's super curious and doesn't stop learning.

Who could be more qualified for the job?

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Maybe someone with a medical degree?

Gates can certainly bring some unique skills to the table if he was invited, but it seems like we should have an actual doctor leading the charge.

Why? Being an MD isn't a huge deal in these cases. Not to say that having knowledge of the fundamentals of biology or healthcare isn't useful, but managing thousands of people, complex human systems, mass organizations, and building a plan to eliminate a disease is not something they teach in medical school.

Gates has done more to battle malaria and other diseases than anyone currently alive. His track record is second to none, in terms of building a huge strategy, managing complex systems, and executing a pragmatic plan. And I suspect he has many MDs in his close circle of advisers who he relies on. A leader doesn't need to be a specialist -- they need to be a leader, a generalist, and rely on a team for specialist knowledge.

MDs are good at treating patients, but they're not necessarily good at leading people.

Good leaders know how to draw on the expertise of others to organize a coordinated response... which the Gates Foundation has proved themselves very capable of doing, particularly with public health issues. The Gates Foundation employs lots of healthcare professionals.

I'd highly suggest looking up some of the talks Gates has done about his work with his foundation. He definitely has his shit together.

Spot on.

Doctors are people who are trained and have experience diagnosing and treating individual patients. I'm not sure why those skills are necessary for fighting an epidemic?

The person in charge of the epidemic will not be doing patient diagnosis and care. The person will be doing some aspects of: Logistics, managing a ton of people, political wrangling, PR/media relations, setting and achieving organizational goals.

Of course some disease and medical knowledge will be required, but not being an MD doesn't seem relevant.

It's always mostly about business/decision making, once you surround yourself with competent people who you can trust - you don't need to be a world-class expert.

He'd obviously consult top doctors. Why would a doctor be better at organizing a large response than a proven business leader who pivoted to disease control?

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