wl

Terri Kelly, who led the textiles and high-tech firm WL Gore for 13 years, until 2018, put it best in a discussion with the management guru Gary Hamel in 2010: “One of my associates said, ‘If you call a meeting, and no one shows up, you’re probably not a leader, because no one is willing to follow you.’”

In addition to “H of G,” “ID,” “WL,” and “O for the P,” Farmer used scores of other abbreviations and slang in his and emails.

“There’s a WL line—the ‘They’re poor but they’re happy,’ line.

“WL” was Farmer’s abbreviation for “white liberal,” a group that donated quite generously to Partners in Health but which he now seemed to be claiming was naive.

Days before he had told me how grateful he was for the support of whites, blacks, anyone who was prosperous—they all fell under his umbrella of WL—whether their motive was sacrifice, remorse, or even pity.