'Sweden's Bill Gates' reveals how he ended up homeless and living outside $281 million London mansion
You probably haven't heard of Anders Fernstedt, and even if you have, you might not recognize the 57-year-old tech fan. Once dubbed Sweden's Bill Gates in a Swedish news article, Fernstedt finds himself sleeping outside one of London's most exclusive residences, calling the porch of this $281 million mansion his home.
As for Bill Gates, his trajectory has soared from co-founding Microsoft in 1975 to watching the company grow into one of the 'Big Five' of the tech world. While Gates has vowed to give away most of his wealth, he was named the world's richest man for 13 consecutive years from 1995 to 2007, again claiming the title in 2009, and from 2014 to 2017.
Despite his philanthropic endeavors, Gates still boasts an impressive net worth of $122.3 billion and is currently the 17th richest person in the world. Does he fancy throwing Anders Fernstedt a dollar or two?
Who is Anders Fernstedt?
The story of Anders was recently reported by DW Cultures, explaining how he's lived at the luxury 2–8a Rutland Gate for the past 3.5 years.
Advert
Born in 1968, Fernstedt supposedly built a career advising executives at AT&T, later being a freelance writer for the likes of The Economist, and then earning the nickname of the 'Swan Whisperer' in London.
He had been living on a sailboat, but as well as a severe storm damaging it, his freelance commissions started to dry up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Fernstedt tried to survive on savings he'd earned from tech company shares, he transitioned into living in a tent before eventually calling 2-8a Rutland Gate his home in 2023.
One section of the DW Cultures video includes a snippet from Borås Tidning, a regional newspaper that refers to him as a Swedish IT expert from Borås. Although there’s no exact date, the article says he'd become an influential figure in shaping the future of IT by the age of 30, with some even claiming he had more sway than Gates himself.
Part of the legible text has Fernstedt gushing about his love for computers from a young age, spending all the time he could in the computer lab.
Still, his school ended up banning him from the computer room altogether. That same article mentions how Fernstedt was offering advice to some of AT&T's most senior execs at the time of publication. Although he doesn't fully fill in the gaps, we know he moved to the UK in 2016 and can check out some of his adventures on his Facebook page. A previous piece published in The Guardian says that he was living in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2013 and became close with New York Times technology writer John Markoff.
Casting his mind back to that period, Fernstedt told the outlet: "I was his [Markoff's] sidekick and, in the intensive part, he and his wife put me up in their San Francisco house, where they would have dinners for the netocracy or the cyberati, or whatever you want to call it.”
Being introduced to the Economist’s Silicon Valley correspondent, he was told the publication was hiring in the UK but referred to himself as "a freelancer whose commission never arrived." Expanding on how he became down on his luck, he added: "I had a press card, so I spent probably a couple of years going to events. I was exceptionally well informed, kept a finger on a million things – but without a desk, without a commission and so without an income.”
Even though Anders Fernstedt is technically classed as homeless, we can think of worse doorsteps to find yourself on than 2-8a Rutland Gate.
Located in the elite Knightsbridge district of London, this 45-room mega-mansion sold for a record-breaking £210 million ($281 million) in 2020 but has sat in limbo since it was bought by Chinese billionaire Cheung Chung-kiu.
Records revealed that the mansion's actual beneficiary was the ex-wife of Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan, and as Evergrande collapsed with more than $300 billion in debt (with Hui Ka Yan sentenced to life imprisonment), the assets have been frozen.
As the former London residence of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, 2-8a Rutland Gate spans an impressive 62,000 square feet, has an indoor swimming pool, underground car park, and is believed to have bulletproof windows. Even though Fernstedt doesn't actually live inside, a makeshift tent on its porch is where he calls home.
Once known as a technology journalist and fact-checker, it now seems Anders Fernstedt has gained even more attention for his life at 2-8a Rutland Gate.
