Actually, this response is exactly what is wrong with the original comment. No, the fact that Bill Gates is a white guy has nothing to do with the race and gender of the authors of these books.

I think it does, and I think the influence is pretty obvious. If you ask Jack Ma for his 5 best books, I would be really shocked if he picked books by 5 white authors. A person's culture changes the way they see and appreciate things.

As a minority that's been closely tied his 'non-white' culture his entire life, I would strongly disagree. Most of my favourite books this year have probably been written by white men, but that's just because white male authors are common in the genres of books I like to read.

I'm not going to force myself to read books from people of my culture (or non-white in general) just to meet some arbitrary bigoted quota. I respect authors for their ability to write well and make solid arguments, not for their skin color, culture, or anything else. If your view of minorities is that we're so prideful/nationalist that we [should] read mostly books by non-white authors, then I find that highly offensive.

I didn't say should, I said does. And don't you think it's suspicious that your favorite genre is dominated by white male authors? What happened to all the other authors?

Edit: Sorry if it came across as saying that you should feel bad for reading the books you read.

Nothing probably happened to "all the other authors", they most likely just haven't existed in that sub-genre yet very much.

It would take a long time for enough people to become interested in writing books for certain fields for author demographics to really approach anything nearing a reflection of the global population, so I don't expect every genre of book to be equally diverse in its authors.

"Suspicious" is also a really strong biased word. I could just as well claim that I'm 'suspicious' as to why most parenting books are written by white women. But as I mentioned before, I do not care about the author (unless their biases shine through in their writing too much). And it's completely reasonable to expect that mothers would be more likely to write about their experiences parenting than fathers at this point in time, and that only in developed 'white' countries would parents have the free time and luxury to write books about their experiences raising children.

Similarly, if I read science books, I would expect (and want) authors of those books to come from places that have well developed science programs (like the US, which is predominantly white). If the author isn't in the majority of that sub-population, then good for them! But ultimately that does not dictate what I read. Neither the readers nor the authors should be blamed for the statistical outcomes of the environment. If you want more non-white authors, petition for the US to adopt a better immigration policy that would be welcome to experienced creative individuals from poorer countries; calling racism at readers/authors isn't going to solve anything.