The Sunday Times has a new interview with Melinda Gates to promote her book out just this week called The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Melinda covers her own journey in her marriage to Bill Gates to becoming co-founder of the largest private foundation in the world, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She also writes about finding worthy women-focused causes to support and about the incredible women she’s met in her work. I was impressed with some of her quotes in this interview and I wanted to talk about it. Oh and a couple of months ago Bill and Melinda were on Colbert. I didn’t cover it here but it’s a great interview where they say we should tax the wealthiest people more. Here’s some of what she told The Sunday Times [via People]:
“He needs a little training, and he’d tell you that too,” Melinda told the outlet, noting that he’s generally easy to live with but recalling a time when she got angry with her husband after she needed help packing up the family car and getting their three children ready to go while Bill, now 63, was deep in a book about Winston Churchill.
Patience, she shared, has been the key: “When he was having trouble making the decision about getting married, he was incredibly clear that it was not about me, it was about, ‘Can I get the balance right between work and family life?’ ” Melinda, 54, told The Sunday Times.
Melinda “wasn’t going for a certain type, obviously, when I fell in love with Bill,” she explained, but admitted she “was a little bit predisposed because I’m a computer science major, so when I was in college the people I spent a lot of time with were young men and a lot of them were geeky.”
“We’ve just gotten to a point in life where Bill and I can both laugh about more things,” she said. “And, believe me, I can remember some days that were so incredibly hard in our marriage where you thought, ‘Can I do this?’ “
“It’s absolutely a partnership of equals,” Melinda said [in 2017] “It’s important to both of us that the world understands that we are running this place together. This is our joint values being played out in the world.”
I like that Bill was clear with Melinda in the beginning that his reluctance to marry wasn’t about her. That can be a really tough thing to navigate at that stage in a relationship. So many guys seem gun shy about marriage but then go on to marry the next girlfriend. In a lot of cases they’re just not ready though. Also a lot of couples go through really tough times and just act like everything is fine and don’t talk about it. You hear about your friends splitting and you think “them, really?” You never know how things are behind closed doors. So it’s reassuring when people who have been together for decades admit that they had tough times too. I’m really interested in this book and want to read it now. Melinda and Bill have absolutely changed the world in far-reaching ways and they seem like really decent people committed to learning about people’s needs and doing whatever they can to help, in the most efficient way. I am always so impressed by them and you can tell that they’re in this together.
Here’s a cute video where Melinda talks about her relationship with Bill. She met him when she first started working at Microsoft!
Now I want to read this, too! I am very impressed with the excerpts, and as them as a couple.
I really admire both her and Bill. They are excellent examples of being wealthy and successful but not being @$$holes about it.
I remember decades ago watching a documentary on the lack of philanthropy in Silicon Valley. They interviewed Bill Gates, who responded along the lines of “I am still in acquisition mode. You’ll know when I change to charitable mode.” At the time I thought he was a jerk. Fast forward 5-10 years and, man, he lived up to his quote! So happy to be wrong about someone. When the foundation was still in early days I saw an interview with the head of day-to-day operations for the foundation, and she was impressive. She had something like a $2-5 million leeway in decision-making before having to run it past Bill or Melinda. She was working while talking and walked him to the printer. He realized she was printing checks and asked how much. It was something like $10+ million, and I think she joked that the day was still young. Ever since I have been a fan of them both.
I love when I’m proved wrong about someone too. It makes me happy there are people like them in the world to shatter my stereotypes about the privileged.
I have a friend who works at the foundation, and it seems like a truly wonderful place to work.
I’ve never thought much about the “Melinda” part of “Bill & Melinda Gates”, because I figured she’d be a bland nobody, but this woman has personality and passion and I like her!
I saw Melinda on The View and she handled Meghan McCain perfectly when she started screeching that she’s not a feminist because pro-lifers aren’t allowed.
I don’t want to make myself listen to Meghan’s voice; can you please elaborate on Melinda’s response?
those pictures, wow.
Yeay Melinda and Bill! Strengthening women is the way to help all humankind!
Bill Gates is notorious for having treated his employees poorly at Microsoft. He himself has said he was a nightmare boss to work for.
It bothers me that he’s worshiped and glorified as this great philanthropist. Sure he does good work with his billions now, but you don’t get to be a billionaire by treating people fairly with good working conditions. I hope all his money helps him sleep at night when he thinks about the people who had to put up with him for years.