On the last day of my life, can I say to myself, I was loved by my family and friends. And for over two decades, Melinda French Gates helped lead the world's largest private foundation, saving millions of lives around the world. Now, with a 12.5 billion commitment and her own organization, Pivotal Ventures, she's bringing the fight home.
Having the richest country in the world, the wealthiest country, but not having women all the way to the places they ought to be able to go in society does not make any sense to me. And we need to get there further and we need to get there faster.
But to think that they will grow up with fewer rights than my daughters or I grew up with and what she's daring to do next. Let this time in my life be another big opening and see what is to come.
Join host Martin Luther King III, Andrea Waters King, Martin Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger for a powerful conversation navigating life's biggest transitions, living a life of service and the questions that define our time.
But we need to reckon with that now in society, not a year from now. And then on the positive side, I would say the more women we get in computer science, which is another thing I've been working on because they bring a good lens, they create new products.
Welcome to My Legacy. There are few people whose philanthropy has enabled a more profound impact in the world than our guest today, Melinda French Gates. It is a privilege and honor to welcome you here today. Thank you for being with us.
Oh, thanks for having me.
Melinda, we are so thrilled to have you here today. On this show, we love to go back to the beginning to the people who shaped who we are. Your father, Raymond, was an aerospace engineer who worked on the Apollo program. You've written about your father. His faith in me gave me faith in myself. The truth is, without him, I would have never gone on to a career in computer science. Well, can you share a moment when you felt him believing in you before you believed in yourself?
Oh my gosh, several times, maybe many times in my life. So, first of all, I was incredibly lucky to grow up in a very loving family. And my mom and my dad are still together and still alive. They're 87 and 85. I just spoke with them on Monday. And you know, he believed in me before I could even see what I was going to become. But one day he said to me, I was in college and we were walking around a part of Dallas where IBM had several buildings and it was along kind of a beautiful man-made canal in Dallas. As a family, we were walking around and we walked by one of the IBM buildings and he said, 'Melinda, you should post your resume here. They will hire you.' And I was like, 'Dad, no, no, no. I'm a freshman. I, you know, no, I can't do that.' He's like, 'No, no, no. They would be silly not to hire you.' Do you know I not only got a job with IBM, I got a summer internship in that building.
So, my dad could see what I couldn't even see in myself. And that's just as a young woman, that is an amazing thing to have your dad in your corner.
Yeah. To be witnessed that way.
Totally. And for him to see that, my sister and I both, we were four children, two girls and then two boys. But my dad absolutely believed that women could be good in science and math. He had teams that worked on the Apollo missions. And he said they were better when he got female mathematicians onto the teams, but he absolutely believed my sister and I could be good in science and math. And guess what? We were. You know, I think you also try to live up to that expectation of what they can see in you.
Yes. Did he ever tell you about the women from Hidden Figures? Did y'all ever have a conversation about them at all?
Well, we talked about them certainly after the movie was over. And so again, my dad is an engineer, so he was very specific about what was correct in that movie and where they got a few things. But my dad is still such a fan of women in careers. He literally a few days ago, Fei-Fei Li, who is in artificial intelligence, she's somebody I know and I'm lucky enough to know, but he pointed out to me, 'Do you know she is one of the women of the year this year in USA Today?' And I was like, 'Actually, Dad, I did see that and I'm going to reach out to her.' But he still so believes that, you know, we need women at the forefronts of these technology fields because he knows and we know they advance society, but if you don't have diverse perspectives and different lenses on it, you don't create the best products.
Well, you spoke about your father. Now, of course, we must turn to your mother, Elaine, who had this mantra that you described as the best advice you've ever received in life, that you have to set your own agenda or someone else will set it for you. And so, you've talked about how long it took you to find your voice. And was there a moment when her advice just deeply resonated with you where you realized you had to set your own agenda or risk losing yourself?
Absolutely. And many times, but I would say for sure in college because, you know, I was lucky enough to go to Duke University. My parents took out debt to send me to that college and university and same with my siblings where they all went. But, you know, I could see a lot of kids who were taking their education for granted. You know, and I'm not saying I didn't have fun on the side while I was studying computer science, but you know, I saw a lot of kids who were partying or not making the most. And whereas I said to myself, 'No, no, no. Set my own agenda here. I am determined to get a computer science degree. I'm determined to make the most of this university experience, take some classes in other fields that I wouldn't have explored otherwise.' But I could see that there were kids who were kind of just falling into a different crowd that, you know, I didn't know where they were going to be after college, but I was like, 'I know where I'm going and I better set that agenda.'
Well, let's talk about that laser focus because the other side to that is I know that you've talked about struggling with perfectionism, right? Particularly during your teen years. We have an 18-year-old daughter and it's something that we talk to her about. You know, she's very goal-focused and intentional and then sometimes, you know, she'll reach a goal and then, you know, not pause and savor it. You set a particular goal to become your class valedictorian. And you said that, and I'm going to read this because this is so fascinating. 'Even when I did eventually make valedictorian, I spent approximately 5 seconds feeling good about it. Then I got so worried about the next task figuring out what I would say in my graduation speech that I started to cry.' What do you wish you could go back and tell yourself at that moment?
Just to take a breath and take it in. Right. I wanted to be valedictorian because it was a stepping stone to where I wanted to go to college and I felt it was the only way I could get into the university I wanted to go to. But to take a breath and take in, wow, you set that goal and you actually did it. And interestingly enough, I was just in a meeting yesterday online with about half a dozen members of my team and we were talking about last year and I was saying, you know, we are not very good about reflecting and they were bringing forward, you know, they were showing me a few things we'd done and I was like, 'Wait a minute, you all also accomplished X, Y, and Z. Like, let's stop and take that in.' I think it's really, really important.
Yes. Well, let's talk a little bit more too about last year because it was a banner year for you because you wrote the best-selling book, The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward. And you were incredibly vulnerable and open about some of the biggest transitions that you've experienced in your life thus far, and you called yourself a recovering perfectionist. What's one thing you've finally given yourself permission to be imperfect at?
Um, how I dress, how I look. You know, again, I don't, you know, I think as women, I'll say about myself, society puts a lot of things on us. You know, you're supposed to look like that woman on Instagram or in the magazine or you're supposed to look a certain way while going grocery shopping.
Yes. Right. Which is ridiculous.
Then you get to a point where you don't care. You're going to go grocery shopping in your yoga pants because you just left yoga and you're feeling good for doing something for yourself. Totally. And so I've learned a few years ago, so if you saw me most days, I've got my hair up in a ponytail. I wear my ponytail everywhere now. And even recently, I went on a walk with friends and didn't realize I was going to go walking again in the afternoon. And I was like, 'Well, I'm going to wear my work clothes. I'll just throw my tennis shoes on. Yeah, I don't have any yoga pants on, but so what, right?' And so just letting myself be who I am. And I don't know if some of that came, I grew up in the south and in Texas, but I really had to look at that and say, 'Hey, push back on some of my own thoughts, right, about those things.'
Yes. Melinda, I'd like to turn to something else that's important to you. Women's health. Women's health has become the throughline of your philanthropic work for decades. You said there's no path to equality in the world that neglects women's health. Was there a moment, a person, an advocate who helped you connect healthcare to women's freedom and access to power? Or maybe there were many moments.
I would say it was many moments, Martin. You know, I was lucky enough with the foundation to travel all over the globe. So many countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, our own backyard, many places in the United States. But you could see time and again that if a woman didn't have her own health, she struggled to have the job she wanted, to raise the kids in the way she wanted. And I just saw too many women in that situation. And yet as I learned and started to look at the data, you know, we collect data or we did about women's reproductive lives or maybe maternal mortality, but women live a much more wholesome life than that, just having children or some choose not to have children. And as I came to learn that, you know, women live nine years of their life in poorer health than a man. And people, you first read that statistic and you think, 'Oh well maybe it's end of life because they live longer.' No, it's their most productive years. And so you have to go back and say, 'Well, why is that?' And I came to learn that it's we've assumed in health sciences and in research that the man's body is the default. And yet women's bodies are quite different. And so we haven't put the right research focus on that. And I believe if we do put the right research focus on women's bodies, we will make advances that will help women be able to thrive in their lives, not just survive or be struggling with pain or some sort of chronic illness.
Well, I'd love to build on that theme. In fact, by doing so, coming back to your mom's guidance to you, the idea of setting your own agenda, because in 2024, you transitioned from the Gates Foundation and made this very bold commitment of your time, committing the vast majority of your wealth to support women's empowerment, to support women and family including reproductive health in the United States. Now, you had supported reproductive health globally, but this was an important focus and you've actually credited Phoebe in some of the conversations that you've had with her to focus on the US. And sidebar to our listeners and viewers, I'm a huge Phoebe fan. I think she's amazing. We've had the privilege to host her multiple times at our schools and projects in Africa and volunteer work. So, I'm hoping you could bring us into those conversations that you had with Phoebe and why you chose to focus your work back at home.
Well, I felt like with the Gates Foundation, we were doing quite a bit of international work on women's reproductive rights, but I never, never, never thought we would roll back a law that was on the books for US women. I just, I didn't think that was going to happen. As became more clear that that might happen, Phoebe and I were talking a lot about it. And the difference that using voice and advocacy and money in the United States, the difference that could make and that it was needed. And so, you know, when that happened, she was outraged. I was outraged and shocked, quite frankly. And to think that I have, I now have two beautiful granddaughters, ages one and three. Not that I'm biased. They're beautiful. But to think that they will grow up with fewer rights than my daughters or I grew up with, that just shouldn't be. And so when I made the bold move to leave the Gates Foundation because more than 70% of its funding was going internationally, which I agreed with, I decided when I wanted to make the switch that I wanted 70% of Pivotal's funding, which is what I fund through now, my organization Pivotal, that 70% would be focused on women's power in the United States because having the richest country in the world, the wealthiest country, but not having women all the way to the places they ought to be able to go in society does not make any sense to me. And we need to get there further and we need to get there faster because women have power inside of them, but we're often held down by society. And so reproductive health is one piece of that.
