Hi. I’m billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates. A lot of people have been angry at me for creating this pandemic, and unleashing a deadly virus across the globe. “Why did you do it, Bill?” they ask. “Why didn’t you just stick to the good causes that you’re renowned for, such as eliminating malaria and ending famine?”

It’s a fair enough question.

Until now, I have been hesitant to reveal my true motives in case I came across as too venal. After all, I’m supposed to be the happy philanthropist guy, right?

But as the pandemic I created rages out of control across much of Europe and North America, Melinda convinced me that I should probably let you know what my thinking is.

The answer is simple – laptop sales.

Thing is, I’ve been giving away a LOT of money over the past couple of decades. As a result, I’m only worth $119 billion. I’m barely scraping by.

So Melinda and I got thinking: how do we juice the fortunes of Microsoft so that my net worth gets back to being a bit more acceptable?

This got us thinking about pandemics. In a pandemic, people turn to trusted sources for information. Laptops use something called a ‘search engine’ to find news from all over the world. Users – that’s you and me – can then read that same news, right there on their laptop. Most laptops have Windows installed on them – which means more money for me.

I hope this goes some way towards explaining why I unleashed this pandemic. And if you are now thinking about buying a laptop, that’s even better! Please remember that 10% from each Windows laptop purchase goes directly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

And this week only, we’re giving special discounts for everyone buying a new laptop. Simply swipe the hidden microchip that I secretly implanted in your wrist on the credit card machine at checkout to unlock the savings.