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Melinda Gates · The David Rubenstein Show

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Speaker 1: I'm juring Russa. We bring you another edition of Peer
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Speaker 1: to Peer Conversations with David Rubinstein from Bloomberg Television. This week,
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Speaker 1: David speaks with Gates Foundation co founder Melinda Gates about
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Speaker 1: inequality in the US. You have a new book called
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Speaker 1: The Moment of Lift. What is the moment of lift?
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Speaker 1: Referred to the phrase lift? Well, so for me, moment
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Speaker 1: of Lift. I grew up in the family in Dallas, Texas,
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Speaker 1: and my dad was an Apollo engineer on the Apollo missions.
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Speaker 1: And it was when we would go watch that rocket
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Speaker 1: launching and the Earth would be shaking and the rocket
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Speaker 1: was rumbling and it finally pushed against the forces of
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Speaker 1: gravity and went to the moon. To me, that's the
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Speaker 1: same thing I've seen with twenty years of work through
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Speaker 1: the Foundation for Women, that if we can help lift
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Speaker 1: up all women, we will change the world. But there's
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Speaker 1: a lot of forces pushing women down today. It's the
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Speaker 1: largest foundation in the world. It has assets of how
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Speaker 1: much now now we have assets of about fifty billion dollars.
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Speaker 1: You create the foundation from the wealth created by Mike
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Speaker 1: soft And then one day um Warren Buffett called you
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Speaker 1: and Bill and said, guess what, I don't know what
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Speaker 1: to do with my wealth, but I want to give
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Speaker 1: it to you because I like what you're doing. Is
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Speaker 1: that essentially it that's essentially at Warren's plan was that
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Speaker 1: his wife, Susie was very involved in philanthropy, and his
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Speaker 1: plan had been to give it away through the foundation
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Speaker 1: that he and she had, but she passed away early, unexpectedly,
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Speaker 1: and so then yes, he came in surprised. Bill and
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Speaker 1: I said that the vast majority would go through our foundation,
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Speaker 1: and then three that his children had, and the Susan T.
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Speaker 1: Buffett Foundation. So when somebody called you and said, guess
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Speaker 1: what I'm giving you fifty or sixty billion, you didn't expect?
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Speaker 1: What did you say? Thank you? Or I can't believe this,
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Speaker 1: or I can honestly tell you that. Bill and I
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Speaker 1: took a walk after that discussion and we were alone
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Speaker 1: and we both cried, and um, I think we cried,
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Speaker 1: both of us because to to know Warren's generosity and
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Speaker 1: that we would be able to do even so much
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Speaker 1: more than we were already doing for people around the world,
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Speaker 1: it was just unbelievably touch moment and touching moment of friendship. Okay,
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Speaker 1: so when you're doing the work of the foundation. The
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Speaker 1: two of you, you're going to substar in Africa, among
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Speaker 1: other places, a lot of travel. Eventually, you decided that
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Speaker 1: you wanted to focus a little bit more on women's issues,
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Speaker 1: and one of the first ones you thought about was contraception. Now,
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Speaker 1: you are a committed Catholic, and was it difficult for
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Speaker 1: you to say we should focus more of the foundation's
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Speaker 1: efforts on contraception. What was Bill's view? And did you
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Speaker 1: get a lot of flak from people in the Catholic hierarchy. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So Bill was a hundred percent supportive of this decision,
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Speaker 1: and he knew that I had learned so much in
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Speaker 1: the developing world from talking to women. He knew I
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Speaker 1: had looked at the data, I looked at where we
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Speaker 1: didn't have data, and I was able to talk to
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Speaker 1: him about and he knew, this is the greatest anti
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Speaker 1: poverty tool. We have, the greatest and if you make
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Speaker 1: sure that women have access all over the world. Two
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Speaker 1: hundred million women were asking the world to have this tool,
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Speaker 1: and we weren't delivering it as a world. So I
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Speaker 1: knew when I decided to take this on that the
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Speaker 1: reason we weren't delivering. It was political controversy in our
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Speaker 1: own country and religious issues, so it was a difficult
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Speaker 1: decision for me because of my Catholic roots. I am
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Speaker 1: still Catholic. But when I met so many women around
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Speaker 1: the world and they would discuss with me that this
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Speaker 1: was literally a life and death crisis for them as
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Speaker 1: a mom. They would say, if I have another baby
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Speaker 1: too soon, I'll die in childbirth, or I have five children,
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Speaker 1: it's not fair to my last child or the others
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Speaker 1: to have another one when I can't feed them. And
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Speaker 1: so I had to wrestle with my Catholic faith and say,
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Speaker 1: what do I believe in. I believe in saving lives,
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Speaker 1: and so this was the right thing to do. And
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Speaker 1: did you find sometimes a woman would say, take my
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Speaker 1: child because I can't raise this child more than once.
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Speaker 1: So I wouldn't be often. I learned from Warren's wife, Susie,
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Speaker 1: as she told me early, if you can go in anonymously,
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Speaker 1: so I'll go in too many rural settings, a woman
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Speaker 1: from the west pair khaki pants and a T shirt.
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Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. I was in northern India
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Speaker 1: and I visited a health clinic. So I went into
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Speaker 1: a village to talk to a woman. And by the
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Speaker 1: time I was finished speaking with her, I asked her
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Speaker 1: kind of had one last question. I said, so, what
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Speaker 1: hope do you have? Her name was Mina. What hope
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Speaker 1: do you have? And she looked down for a long time.
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Speaker 1: She cast her eyes down. I thought, oh, no, I've
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Speaker 1: asked something inappropriate, and she finally looked up at me
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Speaker 1: and she said, the truth is, I have no hope.
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Speaker 1: I have no hope for feeding this child or that one,
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Speaker 1: or educating them. Please take them home with you. And
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Speaker 1: when that happens, it was not the first time it
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Speaker 1: had happened to me. It is heartbreaking to see a
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Speaker 1: woman who loves her clearly loves her sons that much,
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Speaker 1: but to know they would be better off going home
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Speaker 1: with a stranger. That's heartbreaking. And that's the story of women, many,
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Speaker 1: many women and families around the world. So annually you
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Speaker 1: have a letter that is written to the Foundation by
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Speaker 1: the Foundation heads you and Bill. Originally was written by Bill.
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Speaker 1: And then when you said Bill, I want to get
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Speaker 1: some of the women's issues in what did he say? Yes? So,
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Speaker 1: first of all, the idea for the annual letter came
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Speaker 1: from Warren and Bill and I both thought that was
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Speaker 1: a really good idea. However, we had three very young
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Speaker 1: children at the time, and I was on several boards
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Speaker 1: and working at the foundation as an executive, and I said, Bill,
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Speaker 1: I don't have time to put pen to paper. I
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Speaker 1: just can't do it. And Bill said that's okay, I'll
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Speaker 1: do it. And so Bill started writing it and he
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Speaker 1: did a great job, but he got very used to
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Speaker 1: writing it alone. So when this contraceptive initiative that I
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Speaker 1: was leading came out, I said Bill, I really want
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Speaker 1: to write about this in the annual letter. And he
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Speaker 1: felt like the annual letter was going quite well from
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Speaker 1: his perspective, and so we had some difficult discussions at home,
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Speaker 1: and I finally wrote a sidebar in the annual letter.
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Speaker 1: The next year, we discussed it again before penn was
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Speaker 1: put to paper, um and I wrote a piece of
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Speaker 1: the annual letter about a third and the next year
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Speaker 1: we had another discussion and I wrote half, and now
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Speaker 1: I always write half of the annual letter. We have
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Speaker 1: to sometimes have those uncomfortable conversations. Bill and I believe
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Speaker 1: in equality, but did we really have it in our voice?
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Speaker 1: Not yet, And so we've worked on that systematically over time,
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Speaker 1: and now I can tell you my husband is a
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Speaker 1: hundred percent committed to making sure I have my voice
6:17
Speaker 1: fully in the world. Okay, so, like most married couples,
6:20
Speaker 1: you have disagreements from time to time. Sure, sure, I
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Speaker 1: think every marriage does, and I think I believe in
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Speaker 1: marriage you should have a little bit of healthy grist
6:28
Speaker 1: because that's how you move forward. Let's talk about your
6:33
Speaker 1: beginning of your life. You grew up in Dallas, and
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Speaker 1: you went on all girls Catholic school and you went
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Speaker 1: to Duke. Did you where else did you think of going? Well? Actually,
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Speaker 1: the first place I thought I wanted to go it
6:43
Speaker 1: was Notre Dame because many of my girlfriends in high
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Speaker 1: school's dad's had gone there. But when I went my
6:49
Speaker 1: dad and I went to visit Notre Dame, they were
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Speaker 1: phasing out computer science. They thought it was a fat
6:55
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to study computer science in college.
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Speaker 1: Then I saw Duke. They just had a big aunt
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Speaker 1: from IBM too great computer Labs, and I said, this
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Speaker 1: is where I'm going. You were not on the basketball team, right,
7:05
Speaker 1: everybody Duke doesn't play basketball, and not everybody I went
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Speaker 1: to the games, though I love them and you point
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Speaker 1: out in your book that interestingly, women were more involved
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Speaker 1: in computer science years ago than maybe today. Why was that. Yes,
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Speaker 1: So at the time I was in college in the
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Speaker 1: late nineteen eighties, we had about thirty seven percent of
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Speaker 1: college undergrads and computer science for women. So we were
7:25
Speaker 1: on our way up, we thought, like law and medicine,
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Speaker 1: and that has since dropped down about seventeen or eighteen percent.
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Speaker 1: Now it's on a slight uptick to nineteen percent. We
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Speaker 1: don't actually know why women have dropped out of computer science,
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Speaker 1: but there's some theories looking at the data we do have,
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Speaker 1: and that is that personal computers were really promoted to
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Speaker 1: boys as a home gaming device, and women and girls
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Speaker 1: said I'm out, and then it became this self referential circle.
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Speaker 1: You want a special program was a five year program
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Speaker 1: where you get an undergraduate degree and an m b
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Speaker 1: a R. So for five years you have your degree,
8:01
Speaker 1: are about to have your degree. So you were interviewing
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Speaker 1: at computer company. So there was a small company that
8:07
Speaker 1: was interviewed, I guess at Duke as well, called Microsoft.
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Speaker 1: I was part of the first hiring class of MBAs
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Speaker 1: at Microsoft, and uh, there were nine men and me.
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Speaker 1: So you go to Microsoft and as it as good
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Speaker 1: as you think, well, we were changing the world. I
8:21
Speaker 1: loved that. I love the innovative nature. I love creating products.
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Speaker 1: I did consider leaving Microsoft, though, within about two years,
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Speaker 1: because I was um the culture was abrasive, quite honestly,
8:32
Speaker 1: and um, I didn't and I could play that game.
8:36
Speaker 1: I knew how to do the debate. I knew how
8:38
Speaker 1: to stand up for my idea, stand up for my
8:40
Speaker 1: team's ideas. But I didn't like myself and I didn't
8:44
Speaker 1: like how I was treating other people when I go
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Speaker 1: to the grocery store out in the world or interact
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Speaker 1: with other people. And so I thought about leaving. And
8:51
Speaker 1: then I thought, no, I'm just I don't think this
8:53
Speaker 1: will work. But I'll try being myself in this culture
8:55
Speaker 1: and just see if it works, and if not, I'll
8:57
Speaker 1: go take some other job. And um, I started to
9:00
Speaker 1: be myself and I started to build teams that were
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Speaker 1: collaborative and that worked together more and we're less abrasive.
9:08
Speaker 1: And uh, it turned out I could recruit people from
9:11
Speaker 1: all over the company, to my surprise, to work on
9:14
Speaker 1: these teams. So when did you first meet Bill So?
9:18
Speaker 1: I actually first met Bill So three weeks into my job.
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Speaker 1: I'd never been to New York City. I never hailed
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Speaker 1: a cab. Microsoft sent me to New York for a
9:26
Speaker 1: business meeting. And so my female roommate. Microsoft used to
9:29
Speaker 1: make you have another roommate when you went traveling on
9:32
Speaker 1: the road. My female roommate said, hey, women, you're done
9:34
Speaker 1: with your business meeting across town, why don't you come
9:36
Speaker 1: to this dinner? And I said, great, came from across town,
9:39
Speaker 1: sat down at a dinner. There were two chairs open
9:41
Speaker 1: because I came late from this meeting h that I
9:44
Speaker 1: was at, and um, I sat down. Next year was empty.
9:47
Speaker 1: Ten minutes later, Bill came in, sat down next to me.
9:50
Speaker 1: And so that's when I first met Bill, about three
9:51
Speaker 1: weeks into the job, and he said, wow, how about
9:54
Speaker 1: getting to know me better? He didn't say that. Then,
9:57
Speaker 1: he sort of said, A bunch of us are going
9:59
Speaker 1: out dancing tonight. Why don't you come? And I said, well,
10:03
Speaker 1: I actually have some other plans from somebody I knew
10:04
Speaker 1: from business school tonight. Um. And then back at Microsoft
10:09
Speaker 1: a few months later. Everybody back then used to work
10:12
Speaker 1: late on Friday nights, quite late on Saturday. You'd worked
10:15
Speaker 1: all about three or four o'clock and so, um, my
10:17
Speaker 1: car was part next to his in a parking lot
10:20
Speaker 1: and he struck up a conversation and we talked for
10:23
Speaker 1: a while and then he said, um. He asked me
10:25
Speaker 1: if I would go out with him eventually too. This
10:28
Speaker 1: was Saturday, two weeks from Friday night, and I said,
10:32
Speaker 1: two weeks from Friday night. Like I was twenty two
10:34
Speaker 1: years old, you know. I was like, I have no
10:36
Speaker 1: idea what I'm doing two weeks from Friday night. I said,
10:39
Speaker 1: that's not quite spontaneous enough for me, and he said, okay,
10:42
Speaker 1: well you give me Can I take your phone number?
10:44
Speaker 1: So he did called me about an hour later at
10:46
Speaker 1: my apartment and said, well, is this spontaneous enough for you?
10:49
Speaker 1: How about tonight? But then he said, but I have
10:52
Speaker 1: a user group meeting and a dinner I have to
10:54
Speaker 1: go to. So how about a glass of wine downtown?
10:56
Speaker 1: I thought a user group meeting on a Saturday night,
10:59
Speaker 1: but I agreed to me him for a glass of wine.
11:01
Speaker 1: That was our first date. And was it hard to
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Speaker 1: work at the company while people knew that you were
11:05
Speaker 1: dating the CEO founder? Yeah? So I um, so the
11:10
Speaker 1: first date with Bill, I thought I would go out
11:12
Speaker 1: with him once, maybe twice, and I just thought, well,
11:15
Speaker 1: he'd be interesting. Obviously, he's running this company that's doing
11:17
Speaker 1: all these amazing things in the world. Then when I
11:19
Speaker 1: realized we were going to start dating more after the
11:21
Speaker 1: first two dates, I thought, this is tricky and I'm
11:23
Speaker 1: not sure I want to do this, because I had
11:25
Speaker 1: worked really hard, I mean computer science to get my
11:28
Speaker 1: m b A. I studied economics, and I thought this,
11:31
Speaker 1: I'm not sure this is going to go well for me.
11:33
Speaker 1: And I remember talking to my parents on the phone,
11:35
Speaker 1: particularly my mom. She's like, this is not a good idea,
11:39
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, but he's really interesting and he
11:41
Speaker 1: actually has a big heart that I think a lot
11:43
Speaker 1: of people don't see, and I don't know why. I've
11:46
Speaker 1: sort of gotten to see that side of him. And
11:48
Speaker 1: so what I decided to do was that, um, I
11:51
Speaker 1: would date him, but I made it known in the company.
11:53
Speaker 1: I didn't try to hide it, and I made it
11:55
Speaker 1: incredibly clear to the teams that I was managing, that
11:58
Speaker 1: I had these very bright lines, and that I did
12:00
Speaker 1: not go home from Microsoft and talked to Bill about
12:03
Speaker 1: work because I'm preparing teams to go into meetings with
12:06
Speaker 1: senior leadership, including Bill, and they're nervous, right, and I'm
12:09
Speaker 1: having to prepare them, prepare myself. And the last thing
12:12
Speaker 1: I could do is go home and talk to him.
12:15
Speaker 1: They had to know I had their their back in
12:17
Speaker 1: the meeting, and so I just had to have very
12:19
Speaker 1: bright lines around that and we made that work. Not
12:22
Speaker 1: worked out, it did work out. It's hard to believe
12:24
Speaker 1: that in the first night that you met him that
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Speaker 1: I can't see Bill going out and being a dancer.
12:28
Speaker 1: Is he a big dancer. I wouldn't have pictured he'd
12:30
Speaker 1: be going out dancing at night. He likes to. Okay, okay,
12:35
Speaker 1: you decided when your children came that you wanted to
12:37
Speaker 1: spend more time with them, and you you left Microsoft.
12:40
Speaker 1: I surprised Bill and told him I wanted to leave Microsoft, Yes,
12:43
Speaker 1: And his reaction was really because he knew I loved
12:47
Speaker 1: working and I loved working at Microsoft, and he also
12:50
Speaker 1: knew I had that piece of my brain that love
12:53
Speaker 1: to be be on the working side. So he was
12:55
Speaker 1: quite surprised when I told him I was going to leave.
12:57
Speaker 1: Did you then go to the foundation full time after
13:00
Speaker 1: your children were a little bit older. My whole issue
13:02
Speaker 1: about how much I was going to work at the
13:04
Speaker 1: foundation is. I had it timed for when our kids
13:07
Speaker 1: would get older, so I knew until our last daughter
13:10
Speaker 1: went off to preschool, I was not going to be
13:13
Speaker 1: full time. Once I knew she was going to be
13:15
Speaker 1: in preschool, my plan always then was to work full time.
13:17
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the issues of women in Subhan Africa
13:22
Speaker 1: and some of the other things you would address in
13:23
Speaker 1: your book. You point out that in sub Saharan Africa
13:26
Speaker 1: and other places, there are child marriages. Women are forced
13:30
Speaker 1: to marry at six, seven, eight years old. Why is
13:34
Speaker 1: why does that happen? Quite often a family will marry
13:37
Speaker 1: their daughter off because one, they then don't have to
13:40
Speaker 1: feed her, so that's less resources from their family, and
13:43
Speaker 1: two they also want to protect the family's honors and
13:47
Speaker 1: um that is a cultural barrier that is horrible for
13:50
Speaker 1: girls because they then often don't go to secondary school,
13:54
Speaker 1: or if they're in secondary school, um, they're pulled out
13:56
Speaker 1: of school, their moved to a village often where they
14:00
Speaker 1: oh no one, it's not even close to their home.
14:03
Speaker 1: It's a horrific thing for a girl. She basically becomes
14:06
Speaker 1: the property of her husband's family or her mother in law.
14:09
Speaker 1: So what have you tried to do to prevent some
14:12
Speaker 1: of this occur. The only way you can overcome cultural
14:14
Speaker 1: barriers is first you going in very sensitive ways with partners,
14:18
Speaker 1: but then the community has to commit to it. Another
14:22
Speaker 1: area you talked about in the book is a situation
14:25
Speaker 1: where you have female cutting, genital cutting. What is the
14:31
Speaker 1: purpose of that and how frequent is that done with
14:33
Speaker 1: young women around the world. That is still a tradition,
14:39
Speaker 1: particularly in a lot of northern Africa, and it is
14:42
Speaker 1: horrific for a young girl. Young girls bleed to death.
14:46
Speaker 1: It is trauma, a traumatic event in their lives. Villagers
14:50
Speaker 1: do it for different reason. They believe it protects the
14:53
Speaker 1: girl's honor. They believe that they if they love their daughter,
14:57
Speaker 1: they will do it. But what I have known is
15:00
Speaker 1: that when education comes in. I talked to um, a
15:04
Speaker 1: village leader and elder, and a group of women who
15:06
Speaker 1: used to cut their daughters and no longer do. In
15:08
Speaker 1: a group of women who are the cutters who no
15:11
Speaker 1: longer do, and they said, you know, when people bring
15:14
Speaker 1: in education from outside and they talk to us about things,
15:18
Speaker 1: how people view this in other places in the world,
15:20
Speaker 1: it starts to change our mind and we start to
15:22
Speaker 1: question our past and then we create change. Another one
15:27
Speaker 1: you talk about is abusive relationships, and husbands are very
15:30
Speaker 1: abusive to their spouses in many different ways. And you
15:34
Speaker 1: point out in the book and must have been difficult
15:35
Speaker 1: to write about this, and you had an abusive relationship
15:37
Speaker 1: as well before you were married. Yeah. So the reason
15:40
Speaker 1: I even write a page in the book about having
15:42
Speaker 1: been in an abusive relationship is that I want people
15:46
Speaker 1: to know it can happen to anyone. UM. Its silences
15:50
Speaker 1: your voice. It is a way of silencing a woman's
15:53
Speaker 1: voice in a marriage, or in her workplace or her community.
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Speaker 1: And for me, I lost my self confidence. And millions
16:01
Speaker 1: of women are being either harassed or abused UM in
16:05
Speaker 1: all kinds of places. And again it's silence as women.
16:09
Speaker 1: And so we have to talk about this barrier and
16:12
Speaker 1: we have to lift it up. And what we can
16:14
Speaker 1: do is collect data about it. The world doesn't actually
16:17
Speaker 1: collect data on abuse, and then we can go in
16:20
Speaker 1: and name it and recognize it and all commit to
16:23
Speaker 1: changing it everywhere in the world. Now, a few years ago, you,
16:28
Speaker 1: Bill and Warren decided to launch the Giving Pledge. Now,
16:32
Speaker 1: what was the purpose of the Giving Pledge? And how
16:34
Speaker 1: many people have now signed it. Yes. So the purpose
16:37
Speaker 1: this was Warren's big idea, which was the Giving Pledge,
16:40
Speaker 1: was to say, if you have great wealth, if you're
16:43
Speaker 1: a billionaire in our country or anywhere in the world,
16:46
Speaker 1: you can afford to give half away, and that is
16:48
Speaker 1: the right thing for society. Bill and Warren are really
16:52
Speaker 1: clear that they could not have founded their businesses if
16:54
Speaker 1: it had been saying Malawi or Mozambique. And so we
16:59
Speaker 1: benefit from what society gives us the infrastructure, and so
17:03
Speaker 1: those resources at least have should go back to society.
17:05
Speaker 1: You've been a big help to us in this, David.
17:08
Speaker 1: We now have a hundred and ninety families who have
17:10
Speaker 1: committed to the Giving Pledge and twenty two different countries
17:13
Speaker 1: around the world. There's a bit of a reaction against
17:15
Speaker 1: wealthy people saying, let's put our money here, put our
17:18
Speaker 1: money there. How do you respond to that? I think
17:21
Speaker 1: so what I know to be true is that Bill
17:24
Speaker 1: and Warren and I believe that we should not have
17:26
Speaker 1: this inequity that exists in the United States. We need
17:30
Speaker 1: to do something about that. But we we are lucky.
17:33
Speaker 1: I meet so many people around the world who would
17:36
Speaker 1: like to live in our country. Who would like to
17:38
Speaker 1: live in our democracy, in our capitalistic system, but we
17:42
Speaker 1: do have gaps in it and we need to do
17:44
Speaker 1: things to fix those gaps. The thing that Bill and
17:47
Speaker 1: I try to be most cognitizant of is what's the
17:49
Speaker 1: role of philanthropy. All philanthropy can be is that catalytic wedge.
17:54
Speaker 1: We can try things, we can experiment with our own
17:57
Speaker 1: money where you wouldn't want a government to expaire with
18:00
Speaker 1: taxpayer money, but then we have to prove it out
18:03
Speaker 1: and then it's up to government to scale up. So
18:05
Speaker 1: we feel that philanthropy with government, with a private sector,
18:10
Speaker 1: with a non governmental organization, that that set of partnerships
18:13
Speaker 1: in that ecosystem can do the best for the world.
18:17
Speaker 1: So many people are probably wondering what it's like to
18:19
Speaker 1: be for quite some time the richest couple in the world. Um,
18:22
Speaker 1: is it make it possible for you to go to
18:24
Speaker 1: a restaurant? Can you go to a movie? Well, first
18:26
Speaker 1: of all, we are incredibly privileged and lucky to have
18:30
Speaker 1: the resources we have from Microsoft that is that full stop.
18:34
Speaker 1: We do give up some privacy by having that, but
18:36
Speaker 1: I have to say most people are incredibly respectful Seattle
18:41
Speaker 1: is a lovely place to live. They'll grow up there,
18:43
Speaker 1: and so the people who come up it's more because
18:45
Speaker 1: they're proud of what he's built with Microsoft and that's
18:49
Speaker 1: being carried on or what we're doing with the Foundation.
18:52
Speaker 1: So I we try to look at those. I try
18:54
Speaker 1: to look at those as moments of grace, and we
18:56
Speaker 1: try to be out in the world. Bill and I
18:58
Speaker 1: still love to go out to movie as we like
19:00
Speaker 1: to go out to restaurants. So you told me a
19:03
Speaker 1: couple of stories about your life together, and I might
19:05
Speaker 1: ask you about them. Um. You told me once when
19:07
Speaker 1: you drop your first your oldest daughter off in college. Um,
19:10
Speaker 1: like anybody that drops their kids off in school and college,
19:14
Speaker 1: the first they said, well you need this, you need that.
19:16
Speaker 1: So you decided you'd go to Lows. I think it
19:19
Speaker 1: was to get some additional things to help your daughter's
19:21
Speaker 1: room look better. I can't picture Bill Gates going through
19:25
Speaker 1: Lows shopping. Well, it was actually really sweet moment. We're
19:29
Speaker 1: looking for an extension cord, which wasn't the easiest thing
19:31
Speaker 1: to find. It turns out it Lows. But when Bill
19:33
Speaker 1: goes into a store like that, it's like he's in
19:35
Speaker 1: a big laboratory. He's just curious about everything, and so
19:38
Speaker 1: Jen and I kept having to drag him and say,
19:40
Speaker 1: come on, we got to find the extension cords. Stay focused,
19:43
Speaker 1: and he mostly wasn't recognized until we got in the
19:46
Speaker 1: cashier's line. But you know, he just plays along with
19:48
Speaker 1: it and it's fine. Jackie Kennedy once famously said that, um,
19:53
Speaker 1: if you mess up raising your children, nothing else in
19:55
Speaker 1: life really matters. Absolutely, And as parents, we know that
19:59
Speaker 1: the hardest thing to do is raised children. So you've
20:02
Speaker 1: had to shield three children from the enormous wealth and publicity.
20:06
Speaker 1: I have tried with our children to always to first
20:10
Speaker 1: have them know that they are loved. Most importantly, they
20:12
Speaker 1: are loved no matter what, and their job in life
20:15
Speaker 1: is to find their talents and whatever those talents are,
20:18
Speaker 1: we will support that and we and it's up to
20:21
Speaker 1: them to bring those talents in the world no matter
20:23
Speaker 1: what they want to be. I also, when the children
20:26
Speaker 1: were young, have always taken them out first in the
20:28
Speaker 1: Seattle community, even when they were kindergarten age um, and
20:32
Speaker 1: then at age appropriate times when they got to be
20:34
Speaker 1: about ten or eleven, out into the developing world to
20:37
Speaker 1: not only do a beautiful Safari, but to actually see
20:40
Speaker 1: what life is like on the ground and the And
20:43
Speaker 1: the last thing I will say is because when you
20:45
Speaker 1: have great means, you don't have money as a buffer.
20:48
Speaker 1: My kids have always had an allowance, and UM, we've
20:52
Speaker 1: always had an agreement they're not allowed to tell other
20:54
Speaker 1: people their allowance. Neither am I. Because some people would
20:57
Speaker 1: say that's all the gates kids get. Another person would say, whoa,
21:00
Speaker 1: that's too much money that they get in a week.
21:01
Speaker 1: But since they were young, they've always had an allowance
21:04
Speaker 1: that grew over time, and when they wanted something, they
21:07
Speaker 1: either had to use their allowance to buy it or
21:09
Speaker 1: put it on their wish list for Christmas and hope
21:11
Speaker 1: their grandparents or we would give it. And I would
21:13
Speaker 1: be and I could say to them if they had
21:15
Speaker 1: something they saw in the store they just had to have,
21:17
Speaker 1: I'd say, well, just because I can doesn't mean that
21:20
Speaker 1: I should. But what would you like your legacy to be? Ultimately,
21:24
Speaker 1: you and Bill together for what you've done on the
21:26
Speaker 1: face of the earth, that we helped other people lift
21:30
Speaker 1: themselves up, to help everybody advance into society to advance.
21:35
Speaker 1: And I hope people say about me that I helped
21:37
Speaker 1: lift up other women. Thank you very much. And again
21:40
Speaker 1: it's a very good book and I highly recommend at
21:42
Speaker 1: the Moment of Left. Thank you very much, Melinda, Thanks David,
21:45
Speaker 1: great conversation. Thank you. That's Melinda Gates, the co founder
21:48
Speaker 1: of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, speaking with Carlisle
21:50
Speaker 1: Group co founder David Rubinstein for his Bloomberg television program
21:54
Speaker 1: Peer to Peer Conversations. I'm June Grosso and I'm at Baxter.
21:58
Speaker 1: This Isenberg m HM.