Sounds like the old "Rich Texan" marketing strategy
I remember reading an article many years ago about how some pretty wishful airplane projects were designed back in the 1960s. These projects, many from Europe, often were some pretty neat planes but had little hope for commercial success due to their high price. However, each of them hoped to find enough "Rich Texans" with more money than brains to buy their products. In the end, very few Rich Texans came forward to buy their toys.
As a side note, no matter what Bill Gates does, he's in for criticism because he didn't chose to spend his billions on the critic's pet projects.