Hi @pjcswart! Thanks for the comment, and I apologize for the delay in my response (you may notice I have not been active on Steemit for some time).

You pose a challenging question. Prior to the election, I would have believed that people like Bill Gates (those with these three qualities: famous, successful, and educated) would have been able to seriously influence the presidential election. In the case of the U.S., I suppose I see now that, even though we consider Trump to be apathetic towards issues of climate change and social equality, his opponent was not an obvious better choice for many people.

So to answer your question, I do not think that Gates will have much influence on who the future leaders of the world are, so long as the candidates themselves remain a choice between the lesser of two evils. I do, however, believe that he is inspiring the younger generation to become more interested in tackling the aforementioned issues, and that in a generation or two from now, the people advancing to the highest positions of politics will be those who grew up with Gates, and those like him, as a role model.