Women asked about sex lives during Bill Gates job interviews – WSJ
Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates subjected female job candidates to a battery of intrusive questions about their sex lives as part of the hiring process at his private office, Gates Ventures, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing multiple applicants and people familiar with the matter.
Women were allegedly asked if they had had extramarital affairs, whether they had “danced for dollars” in the past, whether they had nude selfies on their phones, what kind of pornography they liked, whether they had any sexually transmitted diseases, and other prying questions about their sex lives, as well as drug use.
While the source told the WSJ that the questioning – conducted by risk management consultants Concentric Advisers – was meant to discover information that could potentially be used to compromise or blackmail Gates and his companies, none of the male job candidates who spoke to the outlet recalled being asked those or similar questions.
A spokeswoman for Gates said that his office was unaware that such questions had been asked on behalf of Gates Ventures, insisting they would be a violation of the contractor’s agreement, which requires compliance with pre-employment screening laws. Concentric agreed, suggesting the sensitive information must have been volunteered. Federal law prohibits employers from asking questions about a candidate's medical or psychiatric history.
The applicants countered that the interviewer had not only asked questions about their personal lives but explicitly linked the job offer to interview performance, which is supported by a consent form from Concentric. By signing, prospective employees agreed that a “behavioral assessment,” which includes drug, alcohol, medical, and psychiatric history, would be used by Gates Ventures to “assess suitability for employment.” Signing the form also gave Concentric permission to disclose “highly sensitive information,” but “does not allow for re-disclosure of sexually transmitted diseases.”
Gates left the board of Microsoft in 2020, amid an internal probe into an “inappropriate” liaison with an engineer employed at the firm, one of the billionaire’s many alleged affairs. Fellow Microsoft employees reportedly considered him the “office bully” for his tendency to pressure women working for him into sexual situations and hitting on female reporters.
Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein allegedly tried to blackmail Gates using his affair with Russian bridge player Mila Antonova. While that effort supposedly failed, the financier is believed to have habitually blackmailed powerful men using his harem of underage girls, with audio and video recording devices hidden all over his properties.
