Abstract
Bill Gates is one of the most successful businessmen of the last century and is world-wide known to have been one of the founders of Microsoft, in 1975, with Paul Allen. Due to the success of his company, he was, between 1996 and 2007 the wealthiest man in the world. In 2009, his personal fortune was estimated around US $40 billion. In June 2008, he decided to leave Microsoft to dedicate himself to his charity foundation, 'The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation'. This foundation is the most important charitable one in the world. But in the past few years, it has encountered several ethical problems after the revelations of the Los Angeles Times about some investments in total contradiction with their philanthropic aims. I have chosen this subject because it shows the interaction between business and ethics. Business, because a foundation needs to invest and earn money in order to be able to make donations but ethics too because usually, the most profitable investments are not the most ethical.
