April 11, 2025 • 41 mins
In this episode, we talk to Melinda French Gates. Famous as one half of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – one of the largest philanthropic outfits in the world – Melinda spent more than two decades overseeing the giving-away of more than $US77 billion. Then, in 2021, she and Bill divorced after 27 years of marriage, and Melinda began to chart a new path for her life. That new path is the subject of a feature profile in this week's magazine – "The 'Gigantic Joy' of a Fresh Start" – in which Gates discusses the end of her marriage, the hard-won pleasures of personal growth, and philanthropy in Trump's America. She joins us today to chat about all that and more, with Good Weekend senior writer, Amanda Hooton.
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S1 (00:09):
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:31):
stories of the day. In this episode, we talk to
Melinda Gates, famous as one half of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic outfits in
the world. Melinda spent 20 years overseeing the giving away
of more than 77 billion USD. Then in 2021, she
and Bill divorced after 27 years of marriage, and Melinda
(00:54):
began to chart a new path for her life. This
path is the subject of a feature profile in this
week's magazine, the gigantic Joy of a Fresh Start, in
which gates discusses the end of her marriage, the hard
won pleasures of personal growth and philanthropy in Trump's America.
She joins us today to chat about all that and
more with Good Weekend senior writer Amanda Hooton.
S2 (01:18):
Congratulations on the book. I really enjoyed it. I actually
wanted it to be longer. I kept thinking, oh no,
I seem to be getting towards the end on my
electronic copy. Um, but it was, it was a really
thoughtful and and and and at times really beautiful, um,
reflection and I was I really enjoyed it. Oh.
S3 (01:38):
Thanks, Amanda. That's so good to hear. Thanks.
S2 (01:40):
Yeah. Well done. It's a massive achievement. So congratulations. Yeah.
So let's jump right in. Um, with perfectionism.
S3 (01:49):
Okay.
S2 (01:49):
Um, the reason I was thinking about this was it's
the first after that lovely first chapter about your dad.
It's the first, um, of your own sort of personality
traits that you sort of choose to reflect on. And, um,
and I wondered, I thought that might be significant in
some ways. Obviously, the connection with your own children, you know, is,
(02:11):
is a really profound one. Um, but I wondered if
you could talk a little bit about where you think
perfectionism comes from in your own life, whether you were
was it something you were born with, or did you
develop it as a child or a young adult and
and how you feel it, it perhaps both helped and
hampered you as you sort of move through your life.
S3 (02:32):
Yeah. I chose to, um, reflect on perfectionism so early
in the book because it's one of those things that
I think I didn't really drop soon enough in my life,
and I wished if I had known it earlier, that
I needed to drop it and had tools for letting
(02:54):
go of things. I think I would have just relaxed
into life more, and I think I definitely was not
born with it. I don't think anybody's born with a
trait particularly like that.
S2 (03:07):
Um.
S3 (03:08):
But I think society puts it on us as women
and I'll say, or put it on me as a
young girl and as a woman. And I, um, for
sure there's something about growing up in Texas, you know,
your makeup needed to look right, your hair needed to
look right. I mean, but I bought into that. So
I have to admit that. Right. Um, and there was
(03:29):
kind of this ideal also, uh, when I went to
school at Duke University, this came out later, actually, when
I was on the board at Duke, they surveyed young
women on campus, and there was this idea which definitely
existed when I was there, which is you had to
look like you hadn't worked too hard to look good
that day. So here I am studying computer science and
(03:51):
trying to look good enough, you know, as you walk
up and down the campus, which is just ridiculous and
silly and then for sure in society when you go
out in society, I think many I know, many women
face this. We're supposed to be able to kind of
do it all and still, you know, look like we're
not under pressure when we are, look good when we're
not feeling good. And it's just ridiculous. Um, and I
(04:15):
actually naively thought it would get better when social media
came along, especially for moms. I thought, oh, you know,
they'll share more of their stories and the hardships and
the oh my, you know, my playroom is completely messy today,
which it is almost every day. You have a child. Um,
but in fact, it made it worse, which is just sad, actually.
(04:38):
And so I also put it very early in the
book because I thought it was an important message that, again,
had I learned it earlier, would have helped me. So
maybe if other women can learn it earlier, maybe it's
helpful to them in some way.
S2 (04:51):
Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's so true, isn't it? That
sort of curated life, that perfectionism that is sort of
delivered to us on our screens all the time, that
it absolutely makes things worse. It's one of the really
toxic parts of social media, certainly for young women, I think.
And so how did you address it in your own life? Um,
you know, you talked about it in relation to your children.
(05:13):
I don't know if you want to address it in
that lovely Winnicott, you know, good.
S3 (05:16):
Enough.
S2 (05:17):
Way which she that, that, that sort of philosophy of Mr.
Winnicott has helped me a lot in my own parenting journey.
S3 (05:25):
Definitely.
S2 (05:26):
But how did you. Yeah. How did you get on top? Yeah.
When I learned.
S3 (05:29):
About being a good enough parent, someone said it to
me and I said, you know, can you write me
more about that? Like, where does the concept come from?
Can you share more? And when they did, I was
just it just sort of like opened my mind. I
was like, oh my gosh, if that's the bar, a
(05:52):
good enough parent I was immediately I was like, I've
cleared that bar like I am clearing that bar, right?
And I don't have to be perfect. And and the
other thing is, the more you reflect on it, the
more you think, wait a minute. There is no such
thing as a perfect parent who can define whether a
mom doing this or that, or working or not working
(06:15):
or putting on the birthday party, or not putting on
the birthday party. There is no such thing. And so
I just it really helped me relax more into my parenting.
And quite frankly, it took the pressure down on the house.
The kids even say so. Oh, mom, it just things
got easier. Right? I wasn't on them so much either. Like, oh,
I've got to raise these children that, you know.
S2 (06:37):
Yes.
S3 (06:37):
Their manners are perfect. Or, you know, they they exactly
know how to do their laundry really well before they
go to college. No, it can come out. They could
have mixed the reds and the whites and somehow they're
going to still be okay, you know.
S2 (06:48):
Exactly. And they don't have to look perfect walking down
the corridors. So that's a good thing. Yes. When they're
at when they're at college, I mean, and the other
wonderful thing about Winnicott, I always think, is, is that
reflection that in fact, being a good enough parent is
really important for children, that you know, that it helps
them be the best version of themselves. I think that's
(07:10):
a really wonderful thought as a mother, isn't it? It's
kind of reassuring.
S3 (07:14):
Definitely, because we want to be good role models for
our children. Right. So if I'm I realized if I'm
role modeling, they have to be that I have to
be perfect. My God, what are they picking up? Right.
That's not fair to them. Um, there's also a meditation
teacher who I used to listen to a lot of
his lectures, James Burroughs, and one of his lectures was about, um,
(07:38):
really thinking about all these different parts of yourself and
accepting the parts that you don't like, because we all
have those parts. And part of perfectionism is actually kind
of pushing those away and going, no, I don't have that. No,
I mean, but if you invite those in to sit
at the table with you and you look at them
and go, yeah, okay. I'm that, you know. Okay. Yeah.
(07:59):
I don't quite know enough. Oh yeah. That was me
on that day, you know. Yeah. It just it just
frees us up in life. And then I could also
laugh at myself more. And it allowed me as a
mom for my kids to laugh at me. Right. You know,
and to bring up jokes. They still bring up jokes. Oh,
remember when mom called so-and-so the wrong name? Or, you know,
(08:20):
which I did all the time with their friends all
the time?
S2 (08:25):
Oh, well, you know, I loved that little joke that
you told in the book where you would talk about
being grateful for something around the dinner table, and, and
the children had to kind of bite down when you
were talking about the beautiful little wren you'd seen in
a bush, only they're like.
S3 (08:39):
All right, mom, really?
S2 (08:41):
Oh my goodness, mom, another romantic gesture. Yeah, I that's
very true to my own life too. Yes. And and
that's that we can all have those laughs with each other.
It doesn't always have to be, you know, completely serious
and hardcore. I think that's a real relief, isn't it?
S3 (08:57):
Yeah, yeah, we have to be able to laugh at ourselves,
and our kids have to be able to laugh at themselves.
And there are funny things that happen in life. And
if you can accept those and you can even be
humble about them and sometimes bring them up, it leads
to people being more authentic, even, that you're just getting
to know, right?
S2 (09:15):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So how do you find being a
grandparent in this context? Do you need to worry about
being a good enough grandparent, or is that just a
completely different, um, you know, are we in a different
world there where you just get to be? I just
totally I.
S3 (09:33):
Get to.
S2 (09:33):
Be just totally team.
S3 (09:35):
Totally funny, silly laughing, show up, get down on the
ground as soon as I come in the door crawling around,
you know, um, if I was tough on myself as
a grandparent, it would be, oh, why am I not
seeing the grandkids more? And of course, I would love
to see them more, but they are on the East
Coast and I live in Seattle, right. So I see
(09:57):
them as much as I can. And when I'm there
and I do get the, you know, hours on this
day or hours on that day with them in between
naps and feedings. I'm very, very present to them. And
it's just it's very joyful. Yeah.
S2 (10:12):
Oh, yeah. That's lovely. It seems like a trait for
or an experience for lots of women that I've talked
to about it, that it's, you know, it the, the
kind of concerns and worries and the sense of responsibility
we feel as parents sort of lessens. We get to
just be the the completely loving and, um, you know,
(10:36):
positive grandparent where everything the child does is fantastic. We
don't have to do any of the kind of bad
or the not the bad stuff, but the hardest stuff,
the hard stuff.
S3 (10:45):
Wrestling him into bed when they're overtired or, you know.
S2 (10:49):
Disciplining.
S3 (10:50):
Disciplining them. Exactly. You kind of just get to be
the the fun person in their life.
S2 (10:55):
Yeah, exactly. How lovely. Um, reflecting on that idea of
of traits that we have in our life or characteristics
that we have, and you were talking about one of
the traits of perfectionism is that maybe we tend to
push those away. And I wanted to talk to you
about your writing, about the inner voice or your own
inner voice. And I thought it was really striking that
(11:18):
you described, in the years leading up to your the
breakdown of your marriage to Bill, um, that you feel
you lost that inner voice. And so I guess the
first my first question is, what do you think that
inner voice really is? And and why is it so important?
I mean, is it the expression of our sort of
(11:39):
most deeply held values? Is it our kind of uncensored
opinions about the world? Is it our survival instinct? What
what what what are the components of that? First of all.
S4 (11:50):
I could just speak.
S3 (11:52):
For myself, but my inner voice is my truest, most
authentic self. One of the things I really, really try
to do is lead an integrated life, right? That hopefully
the way I show up professionally is the way I
show up personally and, um, to not have those things,
(12:13):
to not have those things separated. So it's that most,
the truest sense of who you are and how you
want to be in the world. And I think your
inner voice, if you listen to it, it it calls
you to be, at least for me, my best self
or whispers to me. Okay, you're a little off here,
you know, you got mad at that person. Okay, try
(12:33):
not to be too tough on yourself. But how are
you going to change that, right? I talk about in
my book, my Monday morning walking group, My Truth Council.
Like I need to show up and be able to
say to them, um, I did this thing, especially when
I had younger kids. Ooh, I did this thing over
the weekend that, you know, I wished, you know, to
my kids that I wished I hadn't said to them
(12:55):
or I got I lost my temper. Right. And same
with them. And so that helps you stay on your
truest self. But sometimes you don't want to see things,
you know, you want to push them away because it's inconvenient. Um,
it might disrupt your life. And so, yeah, but it's
really important to to know and cultivate who your inner
(13:16):
self is.
S2 (13:17):
How do you think, um, you why do you. I mean,
you talk in a beautiful way about your being encouraged
to sort of be able to hear that voice and,
and actually in a way, kind of being trained to
listen for it and understand it when you heard it
as a, as a young, as a even as a child,
I think, but certainly as a young woman, a teenager
(13:38):
and a young woman. So how do you think you lost?
You lost it in your sort of adulthood? Is it
is it a function, perhaps, of when when things get
difficult and you maybe parts of your life are not
You can't afford to hear that voice because. Because parts
of your life are in conflict with it. What what
what was happening?
S3 (13:58):
Well, when you're in a relationship with somebody else, let's
call it a let's just say even a trusted friend, right?
S2 (14:04):
Yes.
S3 (14:05):
You want to have the same values. You want to
be able to move forward the same. And so when
you enter a marriage, at least in our case, we
certainly had agreed on our values. Right. And you can
think for a long time you're living those values. But
if you start to find that one partner is veering off,
you have to ask yourself, well, am I veering off too?
(14:27):
You know, and not even not even big things, but
even people that come into your life that you think, hmm,
maybe that person's not such a great person, you know?
Or maybe you start going to too many events where
you know, you wish you had drinking less at a
particular event. You know, you just you can veer off
in these small ways, right? But over time, they can
(14:51):
become bigger. Or maybe that person really veers off. And
so you might try and repair and repair. And if
the person says they'll change but they don't, then you
have to say, can I stay true to my values
and be in deep, intimate relation with this person? And
that was what I was feeling and needed to really
listen to.
S2 (15:12):
Yeah. And and that's what you need to sort of
kind of get to grips with, isn't it? Because there's
lots of competing values there. You know, obviously, you know,
there's the, the the time and the investment and the,
the strong, um, bonds that you have with somebody. And,
and I think it's, it's, it's a very interesting reflection
when you think especially in small ways, there's always a
(15:34):
sort of, um, a sense of, well, just how important
is this compared to the enormity of a life with
someone or a family with somebody or even a really
deep friendship? Um, and I and I guess that's why we,
we sort of tend to think, I think for a
long time. Well, let's just, you know, this is okay.
We can manage this. This isn't. This doesn't involve a
(15:55):
fundamental shift. Yeah, but what struck me in, in your
book was the real absence of resentment or anger or
or sort of conflict. I mean, maybe it's still there,
but if so, it was not evident to me. Um,
in your relationship today with Bill and I, I wondered
(16:16):
if you would reflect a little on what finding that
inner voice, how that changed the way you were able
to interact with with Bill.
S3 (16:25):
Well, finding my inner voice ultimately led to what I
needed to do, which was to end my marriage. And
then I'm very honest in the book about, you know,
I've been through a lot of therapy, right? And it's
helped me in so many ways. It's helped me be
a better parent. It's helped me, I hope, be better
in the work environment, but that helps you work through
(16:47):
the very difficult feelings that you have when you have
to make a change like that. And it's and it's
not something that comes right away. It's something that comes
over time, at least in my experience. And sometimes you
go back to it for a while and then you
come out of it and you might go back to
it and you come out of it. It's like any
kind of, of feeling. Um, and that is another reason
(17:07):
why I felt like it was so important to be
honest about therapy in my life. Like it has really
made a fundamental difference. Um, in terms of, I think,
who I am in the world and remaining true to
my inner voice. Right. And that's work you can only
really do on yourself. It's not the other person is is, uh,
(17:30):
making decisions at all for you, but you're it's in
that relation in that room that you can name your
truth of what's really happening and then ultimately make some
decisions for yourself.
S2 (17:42):
Yeah. There was a great sense, um, of, of freedom
and just enjoyment in the book. And I thought how
it really seemed to express that, um, you know, return
to or the real sense of sort of you being
just able to be unafraid and authentic in the way
(18:04):
that you you could just speak your truth as you say.
I think that is that is such a wonderful thing
to grip on to in your own life. And it's
a wonderful thing to see in another person, you know,
even even at such a remove, just reading a book
about them. Um, and that must be a I don't
want to say reward, but it must be a lovely
(18:26):
place to reach, um, after that, that, you know, really
long and hard journey, I guess.
S3 (18:33):
And partly I wrote about some of that in a
limited way, one because people knew I had been through that.
But two, I also wanted to know I wanted people
to know that there can be beauty on the other side.
There there was an opening for me on the other
side that I just never expected. I had no idea. Right?
(18:53):
Just like I write about having grandchildren in the book,
that is just a gigantic opening of joy for me. Right.
The fact that I have these two little granddaughters, I
didn't expect it, that by this age, you know, I
kind of thought I'd be a little older, but. Okay, great. I'm,
you know, young enough that I can get down on
the ground and do silly things and pick them up
(19:14):
and jump around and go down the slide. And so, yeah,
I want people to know that in any transition you're making,
when you expect, when you don't expect one that's exhilarating,
one that's scary, that, you know, if you pause in
that in-between space and you garner as many lessons as
you can in that space, there is beauty and there
(19:35):
are openings on the other side that are completely unexpected,
and they will come. But sometimes you need other people
like your friends to hold out that perspective for you.
Or you need to go to a spiritual writer, you know,
and pull their book off the shelf and go, okay,
wait a minute. Here's some perspective on the situation.
S2 (19:52):
Yeah. That was one of the really surprising parts of
your book, actually. It was a concept I hadn't ever
heard of, this notion of The Clearing and that, you know,
(20:12):
when you go through really hard times or even just
really dramatic moments of transition in your life, you come
to this space where you have the opportunity to to
do something different or to to look around at the
opportunities or, and the, the, the possibilities that might be there.
So just describe for people what, what that how you
(20:34):
can kind of reach that clearing or what what it
what it feels like to be there. How we can
kind of open ourselves up to those possibilities. Because I
guess the irony is that they come often at very
difficult moments in life. Right. Right.
S3 (20:49):
And and that's part of the reason I named the
book the next day is you make this transition. And
so something definitely ends, right? You close a chapter, you've
ended a chapter, you're ending a chapter. And I think
in our haste or sometimes our anxiety, we want to
rush to the next thing. Like, let me know what
(21:10):
I'm doing. We want that certainty. We want that control. Right.
Because it feels very uncomfortable to be in this in-between space.
And yet in that in-between space, there is there can
be so much personal learning and growth. And even for me,
you know, I started writing this book when I was
(21:31):
in a transitional phase. And guess what? I'm still in
a transitional phase. Like I only left the foundation less
than a year ago. So I'm still transitioning. I'm certainly
doing my work through pivotal, but I still have a
lot to figure out about that. And so I need
to not be afraid of that. I need to say, okay,
you know, who are the people that I need to
(21:52):
gather around me? Who might I listen to? Maybe I
run into somebody that gives me a new idea, or
I visit somebody or I get I read something. So
we have to be open to those possibilities and and
be willing to be. Some spiritual leaders call it liminal space,
that liminal space between when something is now and then
(22:14):
not known. Um, and the more you practice being in
that space, I think it is easier the next time
a transition comes up. I give you the really small example.
One of my friends got, um, a pretty bad medical
diagnosis on something or something that looked pretty badly, and
(22:35):
she needed another set of tests. But, you know, the
health system is busy, and they couldn't get her in
for all the tests. And so it was going to
be over the course of, you know, whatever, ten weeks.
S4 (22:44):
And yeah.
S3 (22:45):
She was the type of person where she absolutely could
have tried to, you know, elbow her way in and
jam herself into the system and maybe get that time
down to two weeks. Right. And she said, you know,
the difference between whatever the diagnosis is going to be
in ten weeks versus now in two weeks. Like if
I lose eight weeks, it's not going to change the course,
(23:05):
the outcome of what this is. And she said out loud,
she's part of my truth council. She said, I just
need to be comfortable being in this uncomfortable place of
not knowing what the outcome is right now.
S4 (23:17):
And I was like, wow.
S3 (23:18):
That is.
S4 (23:19):
A powerful.
S3 (23:20):
Example.
S2 (23:21):
It sure is, because we all know that feeling and your, your,
your strong impulse is to try to sort it out
as quickly as you can, right? Definitely get it over
with so that you know what you're dealing with. Totally.
But I guess it's so I see exactly what you're saying,
because then in that that extra eight weeks, you have
the chance to really think, well, what are the options
and how will that play out? How might I think
(23:44):
about the potential paths forward.
S3 (23:46):
Yeah, right. And what if it's the worst? What if
it's the worst diagnosis? What if it's the best outcome?
What if it's somewhere in between? Because guess what? At
the end of the day, we are all going to
die and we don't know when it's going to happen.
Hopefully it's not sooner, it's later. But practicing that, she
(24:07):
literally said, you know, me practicing this will be good
practice for later in my life. When the end does come.
And she has she has a lot of wisdom because
she's lost some family members in the last ten years,
and she's seen some of them go more easily and
some of them go less easily. And she's like, you know,
this actually kind of gives me a chance to practice.
(24:28):
And I thought, wow, that's courage. That's sitting in liminal space.
S2 (24:32):
That's exactly what I was thinking. That's a it does
require so that that space in those clearings do require courage. Right.
To to kind of engage with it and think, okay, I'm,
I'm actually going to be, you know, I let people
talk about this, don't they? Sitting with the the uncertainty
is it's hard. Yeah.
S3 (24:53):
Terrifying sometimes. Absolutely terrifying. I mean, even sometimes when you
leave a job, it's terrifying to think if you don't
know what your next one is going to be or
just the idea of disappointing certain people or, you know,
all of that stuff, it can literally be terrifying. And yet,
(25:13):
if you can sit with that, you start to realize, oh,
I can get through this. And if you can get
through this, you can probably get through almost anything.
S2 (25:21):
Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of jobs, tell us about Pivotal Ventures,
because of course, we all know about, um, the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation as it was for so long. Um,
but but describe what motivated you, uh, to engage more fully.
I know pivotal existed prior to to your sort of
(25:43):
taking it on in this way. Um, but describe what
it is and and what you hope to achieve and
what's happening with it.
S3 (25:50):
Sure. I started Pivotal Ventures in 2015, but I felt
that the foundation is in such a good place. I
am so proud of the work that it's done. It
has the right CEO and leader, it has a board.
It's just in a really great place. And I felt
like with me turning 60, this was the year to
(26:10):
step out on my own. And because of many of
the things that have happened in the United States in
the last few years, my granddaughter will not have as
many rights as I had that, and that just shouldn't be.
And so I felt like by me moving to pivotal
full time, I could really focus on some of the
domestic issues in the United States that women face in
(26:32):
terms of equality. I'm still doing some international work, but
the balance shifts. The balance is more on domestic. The
United States, just to give you an example, has if
you are a mom giving birth in the United States today,
you're three times more likely to die than you are
(26:53):
in any other high income country. That just should not be.
S2 (26:57):
That is an extraordinary statistic, isn't it?
S3 (27:00):
It's sad. It's deeply sad. And depending on where you
live in the US, those statistics are either slightly worse
or slightly better. And so that's one example. Another example
is we are the only the only high income country
in the world that does not have paid family medical leave.
You can take leave, but you don't necessarily get paid.
(27:23):
And that has profound effects for working moms and dads,
especially the ones cobbling two jobs together. And they have
a child and they can only figure out how to
get three days off and they take vacation. I mean,
it's just it's senseless. So I'm working on these sort
of systemic barriers that hold women back because we've underinvested
(27:47):
in them in the United States. And I believe there
are ways to move these issues forward.
S2 (27:52):
Let's talk about that. I mean, you've spent a long
time in the philanthropic space. How have you come to
understand the best ways for philanthropy to operate? What are
the what are the what are the strategies you've developed?
S3 (28:06):
Well, I believe philanthropy is part of an ecosystem. And
it's it's one part. So you have philanthropy, you have government,
you have the private sector, and then you have the civil,
civil society. And all of them need to work together.
They all have differing roles. But what philanthropy can do
is it can take risks that the taxpayers wouldn't want
(28:28):
their government to take with their money. It can take risks.
It can prove things out. It can fail at some things,
but the things that get proven out, then you get
civil society to use their voice and say, hey, government
really should scale these things up. Let's say it's a
good piece of legislation or public policy. You can also
(28:49):
stimulate the private sector. They might be more likely to, um,
let's say in the US this is a true example.
They've invested more in men's health than in women's health. Well,
you can do certain things. You can put certain research
dollars in, come alongside them and do partnerships so that
we invest more in women's health. And so I see
(29:11):
ultimately the role of philanthropy is to render itself useless
and not needed. Right. If I do my job well,
we will have paid family medical leave in all of
the United States. Right now. We've gotten it to where
we have it in 13 states and Washington, DC, and
we have it for military families. We have a long
way to go, but we are making progress. Yeah. And
(29:33):
eventually I can get out of that work, which would
be lovely, right? But with Pivotal Ventures, I feel like
it's my job to use every tool in my toolbox,
whether that's philanthropic dollars, whether that's my voice around public policy,
whether that's investments. So I'm investing in women and people
(29:53):
of color's businesses because I believe they have great ideas.
And yet less than 4% of VC funding goes towards
their ideas venture capital. So I'm investing directly in some
of those businesses, and I'm direct. I'm investing in other
venture capitalists who are investing in them. So I'm trying
to create that flywheel in society to help get women
(30:15):
moving forward, take down the barriers and help move them forward.
S2 (30:19):
It's so interesting that you say venture capital, because when
you describe that idea of philanthropy as a sort of,
in some senses, a risk taking venture, like an opportunity
to take risks. Well, that's a very VC model, isn't it?
S3 (30:31):
Yeah. And Warren Buffett told us years ago when we
were setting up the foundation, he just gave us some
great advice. And one of the things he said was, okay,
don't be too tough on yourself because you're working on
the problems that society is left behind because they are hard.
But also don't be afraid to take big swings. And
(30:53):
he said, you're going to miss sometimes. Um, and you know, yes,
you'll have some dollars that don't turn out do anything good,
but every now and then you're going to get a
home run. And that is really going to change things.
So I always keep that in the back of my
head because it is some of the things we do.
You have to take risks with the capital.
S2 (31:10):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great reference to Warren. You know
who's work in that in generosity, you know, is something
that we everybody kind of knows about. I think one
of the loveliest bits of the book is when you
talk about your own father and the way that he
encouraged you and instilled in you a real sense of
self-worth and power, you know, that you could kind of
(31:34):
go and have an awesome career in tech and, um,
you know, that that he was going to stand beside
you when you had your clear nail polish on. Totally.
For um, and and I it made me it made
me reflect on the the space that you're in at
the moment in the States and, you know, remarks like, uh, well,
(31:57):
you know, just to pick one at random. But, you know,
things like Mark Zuckerberg said recently, how the tech space,
which I know is a space you think about a
lot and, you know, are very interested in that, that
that needs a more masculine energy. And, you know, I
think men have such an opportunity to be a force
for good, you know, and to inspire everyone, but especially women. Um,
(32:21):
I wonder how you feel about are American men stepping
up in this moment? Do you find that you have,
you know, good American partners that you're working with?
S3 (32:29):
The men I know, the men I work with are. No.
There are some amazing partners, and I know some amazing
male spouses out there. They're just really, you know, pulling
their weight at home and at work. So I just
I don't like anything that pits masculine versus feminism, women
(32:50):
versus men. It's it's it's a useless narrative. We all
rise together. And so when women rise, men don't fall back.
The pie gets bigger, it doesn't get smaller. So I
just find those conversations just. Just not very not fruitful
at all. And I try to work with the partners
(33:11):
who I know have great values and are trying to
move society forward for women and for men. Because guess what?
Our society is better off when men and women are thriving.
Our families are better off. So yeah.
S2 (33:27):
Tell tell me a little bit about women in AI
and women in tech. You wrote about it. I can't
remember now whether it was in your most recent book
or in the moment of lift, but you talked about
this extraordinary thing of women having not, and especially women
of color having not been part of I in its
sort of early development. Tell me a little bit about
that space.
S3 (33:45):
It is really important that women have a seat at
the table because, you know, first of all, technology has
changed our society and it is pervasive. And AI is
going to change society even more is and will change
it even more swiftly than what we've seen with the internet.
I mean, it is just literally I feel like every
(34:07):
two days it's like, whoa, whoa, another new thing, right?
And it can be very beneficial to society. But you
have to have women at the table so their issues
are represented, right? I feel like no matter what the
space is, whether it's AI, whether it's our storytelling through
movies and television, you have to have everybody's stories represented,
(34:31):
not just one view of society. I mean, women have
a different lens on society than men do. It's not
that one is right and one is wrong, or one's
wrong and one's right. It's that we just have different lenses.
We have different lenses based on what part of the
country we're born in, right? You do in Australia based
on where you're born or not born, right. And so
(34:53):
I feel that society that our business places, that our politics,
that our storytelling, it should look like and represent society. Right.
And if it doesn't, if you don't have enough brown
or black people at the table, or you don't have
enough women at the table, there is a way to
fix that. And it's not all that hard. We make
(35:14):
a lot of excuses about why it's hard. It's not.
The problem is society was set up, by and large,
for white men. And so we are sending women and
people of color into a workforce. Just take one example
that was set up for a different era. And so
what happens is there are all these barriers in the
(35:36):
system and we need to go in and break those down.
So I made $1 billion commitment as part of my, uh,
stepping out on Pivotal Ventures when I left the foundation
in 150 million of that billion is to try and
work on the workplace so that it is more welcoming
to women so that we continue to get more women
in tech, but even more women in artificial intelligence. To me,
(36:00):
it's just vital.
S2 (36:01):
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about a project. Maybe
you want to expand a bit on that, but. But
tell me about a project that pivotal is is engaged
in at the moment that's, you know, really thrilling to you.
S3 (36:11):
Well, one that's really thrilling is still unknown in a
certain sense. I'll explain what I mean. Which is, um,
I announced last year $250 million as part of this
billion dollar commitment through an organization called lever for change.
And what they're doing is they're taking proposals from all
over the world related to women's health and well-being. And
(36:33):
what are solutions people are using to help women with
their health and wellbeing. Those will all be vetted and
sifted through, and then we will award a set of
winners that you'll hear more about in the fall. So
to me, that's really exciting because you're bringing forward lots
of ideas in society. There is no chance that my
team or I have anything close to all the good
(36:56):
ideas about how to help women's health and wellbeing. We'll
be lucky if we have 2% of our ideas are good. Right.
But I think there are a lot of examples out
there that we need to unearth, and then we can
fund and we can showcase them and they will change
things for women.
S2 (37:10):
Melinda, do you would you yourself kind of be looking
through those proposals? Would you be like, I love this
this one, you know, or are you do you take
a more hands off role in that in that selection procedure?
S3 (37:22):
I have a chosen council of people who've signed up
to go through all of the proposals and then rate them,
and I will see them more, much more close to
the final, not the final, but much closer to the final. Again,
I'm trusting that the people that I choose that are,
you know, going to vet these proposals that we've chosen
(37:43):
to be part of that, that they'll make sound judgments. Right?
And again, some of them will have views, lenses on
society that I just won't have because I grew up
in Dallas and went to school on the East Coast
and then moved to Seattle, somebody else might have grown up,
you know, in the north and moved south and gone
somewhere else. So I want a range of people vetting proposals.
S2 (38:05):
What do you think you were speaking earlier about? You know,
some of the headwinds that women and girls and families
are facing at the moment in relation? Well, in in
all sorts of ways, you know, and I guess your
focus is especially in the US, how how do you
maintain your sort of sense of hope and positivity and
(38:26):
optimism in, in, in difficult times or, you know, in
times of where, where you do feel there are sort
of strong headwinds against what you're trying to do in
other sectors of society. You know, you talked about your
the different parts of society and how they all need
to work together. How do you stay positive about what
you're doing in your in your sector when others maybe
(38:48):
are not, are not moving in the same direction?
S3 (38:52):
When I see, for instance, more females going into state legislatures,
that's something I've been behind in. In the US, there
are 7000 legislative seats at the state level. They have
immense power to create policy and to move state dollars.
And so as I see that number ticking up, I
(39:13):
see more women. I see some places, a couple of
states now where we have literally equality in terms of
male and female legislatures. That keeps me hopeful, even if
things look, you know, at the national level, much, much
more difficult. Um, I also stay hopeful when I see
change happening at the community level because ultimately, you know,
(39:36):
communities change. And then hopefully those good ideas bubble up
and you start to fund them in other places. But
when I see great work going on at the community
level or even just small acts of kindness, I don't
know those all give me hope. I think of them
as even a small act of kindness. I think of
them as drops in the bucket, right? You can put
(39:58):
drops in the bucket, drops in the bucket, but over time,
guess what? You fill up your bucket, right? It does happen.
So and sometimes the change comes more slowly. Sometimes, you know, okay,
I'm adding a cup of water to the bucket on
that day.
S5 (40:12):
That's a good day, right?
S3 (40:13):
But it does add up over time.
S2 (40:16):
Yeah I think that's yeah, we all have to cling
to that don't we? The drops in the bucket. Melinda,
thank you so much for this chat. Um, it's been
really illuminating and and and a wonderful, a wonderful talk.
S3 (40:29):
I'm so glad we could do this, Amanda.
S2 (40:31):
Thank you.
S1 (40:34):
That was philanthropist Melinda Gates talking with Good Weekend senior
writer Amanda Hooton on the latest Good Weekend talks coming soon.
We chat with Kos Samaras, the political commentator and pollster
and former Victorian ALP secretary, about the Labor Party and
working class voters. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember
(40:55):
to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts
and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations. Good Weekend
Talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age proud newsrooms, powered by subscriptions to support
independent journalism. Search. Subscribe to Sydney Morning Herald or The Age.
This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Konrad
(41:16):
Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery, with technical assistance from
Josh towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick
is head of audio and Greg Callahan is the acting
editor of Good Weekend.
Hi, I'm Konrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age. Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine
for your ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from
sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Every week,
you can download new episodes in which top journalists from
across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive
(00:31):
stories of the day. In this episode, we talk to
Melinda Gates, famous as one half of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic outfits in
the world. Melinda spent 20 years overseeing the giving away
of more than 77 billion USD. Then in 2021, she
and Bill divorced after 27 years of marriage, and Melinda
(00:54):
began to chart a new path for her life. This
path is the subject of a feature profile in this
week's magazine, the gigantic Joy of a Fresh Start, in
which gates discusses the end of her marriage, the hard
won pleasures of personal growth and philanthropy in Trump's America.
She joins us today to chat about all that and
more with Good Weekend senior writer Amanda Hooton.
S2 (01:18):
Congratulations on the book. I really enjoyed it. I actually
wanted it to be longer. I kept thinking, oh no,
I seem to be getting towards the end on my
electronic copy. Um, but it was, it was a really
thoughtful and and and and at times really beautiful, um,
reflection and I was I really enjoyed it. Oh.
S3 (01:38):
Thanks, Amanda. That's so good to hear. Thanks.
S2 (01:40):
Yeah. Well done. It's a massive achievement. So congratulations. Yeah.
So let's jump right in. Um, with perfectionism.
S3 (01:49):
Okay.
S2 (01:49):
Um, the reason I was thinking about this was it's
the first after that lovely first chapter about your dad.
It's the first, um, of your own sort of personality
traits that you sort of choose to reflect on. And, um,
and I wondered, I thought that might be significant in
some ways. Obviously, the connection with your own children, you know, is,
(02:11):
is a really profound one. Um, but I wondered if
you could talk a little bit about where you think
perfectionism comes from in your own life, whether you were
was it something you were born with, or did you
develop it as a child or a young adult and
and how you feel it, it perhaps both helped and
hampered you as you sort of move through your life.
S3 (02:32):
Yeah. I chose to, um, reflect on perfectionism so early
in the book because it's one of those things that
I think I didn't really drop soon enough in my life,
and I wished if I had known it earlier, that
I needed to drop it and had tools for letting
(02:54):
go of things. I think I would have just relaxed
into life more, and I think I definitely was not
born with it. I don't think anybody's born with a
trait particularly like that.
S2 (03:07):
Um.
S3 (03:08):
But I think society puts it on us as women
and I'll say, or put it on me as a
young girl and as a woman. And I, um, for
sure there's something about growing up in Texas, you know,
your makeup needed to look right, your hair needed to
look right. I mean, but I bought into that. So
I have to admit that. Right. Um, and there was
(03:29):
kind of this ideal also, uh, when I went to
school at Duke University, this came out later, actually, when
I was on the board at Duke, they surveyed young
women on campus, and there was this idea which definitely
existed when I was there, which is you had to
look like you hadn't worked too hard to look good
that day. So here I am studying computer science and
(03:51):
trying to look good enough, you know, as you walk
up and down the campus, which is just ridiculous and
silly and then for sure in society when you go
out in society, I think many I know, many women
face this. We're supposed to be able to kind of
do it all and still, you know, look like we're
not under pressure when we are, look good when we're
not feeling good. And it's just ridiculous. Um, and I
(04:15):
actually naively thought it would get better when social media
came along, especially for moms. I thought, oh, you know,
they'll share more of their stories and the hardships and
the oh my, you know, my playroom is completely messy today,
which it is almost every day. You have a child. Um,
but in fact, it made it worse, which is just sad, actually.
(04:38):
And so I also put it very early in the
book because I thought it was an important message that, again,
had I learned it earlier, would have helped me. So
maybe if other women can learn it earlier, maybe it's
helpful to them in some way.
S2 (04:51):
Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's so true, isn't it? That
sort of curated life, that perfectionism that is sort of
delivered to us on our screens all the time, that
it absolutely makes things worse. It's one of the really
toxic parts of social media, certainly for young women, I think.
And so how did you address it in your own life? Um,
you know, you talked about it in relation to your children.
(05:13):
I don't know if you want to address it in
that lovely Winnicott, you know, good.
S3 (05:16):
Enough.
S2 (05:17):
Way which she that, that, that sort of philosophy of Mr.
Winnicott has helped me a lot in my own parenting journey.
S3 (05:25):
Definitely.
S2 (05:26):
But how did you. Yeah. How did you get on top? Yeah.
When I learned.
S3 (05:29):
About being a good enough parent, someone said it to
me and I said, you know, can you write me
more about that? Like, where does the concept come from?
Can you share more? And when they did, I was
just it just sort of like opened my mind. I
was like, oh my gosh, if that's the bar, a
(05:52):
good enough parent I was immediately I was like, I've
cleared that bar like I am clearing that bar, right?
And I don't have to be perfect. And and the
other thing is, the more you reflect on it, the
more you think, wait a minute. There is no such
thing as a perfect parent who can define whether a
mom doing this or that, or working or not working
(06:15):
or putting on the birthday party, or not putting on
the birthday party. There is no such thing. And so
I just it really helped me relax more into my parenting.
And quite frankly, it took the pressure down on the house.
The kids even say so. Oh, mom, it just things
got easier. Right? I wasn't on them so much either. Like, oh,
I've got to raise these children that, you know.
S2 (06:37):
Yes.
S3 (06:37):
Their manners are perfect. Or, you know, they they exactly
know how to do their laundry really well before they
go to college. No, it can come out. They could
have mixed the reds and the whites and somehow they're
going to still be okay, you know.
S2 (06:48):
Exactly. And they don't have to look perfect walking down
the corridors. So that's a good thing. Yes. When they're
at when they're at college, I mean, and the other
wonderful thing about Winnicott, I always think, is, is that
reflection that in fact, being a good enough parent is
really important for children, that you know, that it helps
them be the best version of themselves. I think that's
(07:10):
a really wonderful thought as a mother, isn't it? It's
kind of reassuring.
S3 (07:14):
Definitely, because we want to be good role models for
our children. Right. So if I'm I realized if I'm
role modeling, they have to be that I have to
be perfect. My God, what are they picking up? Right.
That's not fair to them. Um, there's also a meditation
teacher who I used to listen to a lot of
his lectures, James Burroughs, and one of his lectures was about, um,
(07:38):
really thinking about all these different parts of yourself and
accepting the parts that you don't like, because we all
have those parts. And part of perfectionism is actually kind
of pushing those away and going, no, I don't have that. No,
I mean, but if you invite those in to sit
at the table with you and you look at them
and go, yeah, okay. I'm that, you know. Okay. Yeah.
(07:59):
I don't quite know enough. Oh yeah. That was me
on that day, you know. Yeah. It just it just
frees us up in life. And then I could also
laugh at myself more. And it allowed me as a
mom for my kids to laugh at me. Right. You know,
and to bring up jokes. They still bring up jokes. Oh,
remember when mom called so-and-so the wrong name? Or, you know,
(08:20):
which I did all the time with their friends all
the time?
S2 (08:25):
Oh, well, you know, I loved that little joke that
you told in the book where you would talk about
being grateful for something around the dinner table, and, and
the children had to kind of bite down when you
were talking about the beautiful little wren you'd seen in
a bush, only they're like.
S3 (08:39):
All right, mom, really?
S2 (08:41):
Oh my goodness, mom, another romantic gesture. Yeah, I that's
very true to my own life too. Yes. And and
that's that we can all have those laughs with each other.
It doesn't always have to be, you know, completely serious
and hardcore. I think that's a real relief, isn't it?
S3 (08:57):
Yeah, yeah, we have to be able to laugh at ourselves,
and our kids have to be able to laugh at themselves.
And there are funny things that happen in life. And
if you can accept those and you can even be
humble about them and sometimes bring them up, it leads
to people being more authentic, even, that you're just getting
to know, right?
S2 (09:15):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So how do you find being a
grandparent in this context? Do you need to worry about
being a good enough grandparent, or is that just a
completely different, um, you know, are we in a different
world there where you just get to be? I just
totally I.
S3 (09:33):
Get to.
S2 (09:33):
Be just totally team.
S3 (09:35):
Totally funny, silly laughing, show up, get down on the
ground as soon as I come in the door crawling around,
you know, um, if I was tough on myself as
a grandparent, it would be, oh, why am I not
seeing the grandkids more? And of course, I would love
to see them more, but they are on the East
Coast and I live in Seattle, right. So I see
(09:57):
them as much as I can. And when I'm there
and I do get the, you know, hours on this
day or hours on that day with them in between
naps and feedings. I'm very, very present to them. And
it's just it's very joyful. Yeah.
S2 (10:12):
Oh, yeah. That's lovely. It seems like a trait for
or an experience for lots of women that I've talked
to about it, that it's, you know, it the, the
kind of concerns and worries and the sense of responsibility
we feel as parents sort of lessens. We get to
just be the the completely loving and, um, you know,
(10:36):
positive grandparent where everything the child does is fantastic. We
don't have to do any of the kind of bad
or the not the bad stuff, but the hardest stuff,
the hard stuff.
S3 (10:45):
Wrestling him into bed when they're overtired or, you know.
S2 (10:49):
Disciplining.
S3 (10:50):
Disciplining them. Exactly. You kind of just get to be
the the fun person in their life.
S2 (10:55):
Yeah, exactly. How lovely. Um, reflecting on that idea of
of traits that we have in our life or characteristics
that we have, and you were talking about one of
the traits of perfectionism is that maybe we tend to
push those away. And I wanted to talk to you
about your writing, about the inner voice or your own
inner voice. And I thought it was really striking that
(11:18):
you described, in the years leading up to your the
breakdown of your marriage to Bill, um, that you feel
you lost that inner voice. And so I guess the
first my first question is, what do you think that
inner voice really is? And and why is it so important?
I mean, is it the expression of our sort of
(11:39):
most deeply held values? Is it our kind of uncensored
opinions about the world? Is it our survival instinct? What
what what what are the components of that? First of all.
S4 (11:50):
I could just speak.
S3 (11:52):
For myself, but my inner voice is my truest, most
authentic self. One of the things I really, really try
to do is lead an integrated life, right? That hopefully
the way I show up professionally is the way I
show up personally and, um, to not have those things,
(12:13):
to not have those things separated. So it's that most,
the truest sense of who you are and how you
want to be in the world. And I think your
inner voice, if you listen to it, it it calls
you to be, at least for me, my best self
or whispers to me. Okay, you're a little off here,
you know, you got mad at that person. Okay, try
(12:33):
not to be too tough on yourself. But how are
you going to change that, right? I talk about in
my book, my Monday morning walking group, My Truth Council.
Like I need to show up and be able to
say to them, um, I did this thing, especially when
I had younger kids. Ooh, I did this thing over
the weekend that, you know, I wished, you know, to
my kids that I wished I hadn't said to them
(12:55):
or I got I lost my temper. Right. And same
with them. And so that helps you stay on your
truest self. But sometimes you don't want to see things,
you know, you want to push them away because it's inconvenient. Um,
it might disrupt your life. And so, yeah, but it's
really important to to know and cultivate who your inner
(13:16):
self is.
S2 (13:17):
How do you think, um, you why do you. I mean,
you talk in a beautiful way about your being encouraged
to sort of be able to hear that voice and,
and actually in a way, kind of being trained to
listen for it and understand it when you heard it
as a, as a young, as a even as a child,
I think, but certainly as a young woman, a teenager
(13:38):
and a young woman. So how do you think you lost?
You lost it in your sort of adulthood? Is it
is it a function, perhaps, of when when things get
difficult and you maybe parts of your life are not
You can't afford to hear that voice because. Because parts
of your life are in conflict with it. What what
what was happening?
S3 (13:58):
Well, when you're in a relationship with somebody else, let's
call it a let's just say even a trusted friend, right?
S2 (14:04):
Yes.
S3 (14:05):
You want to have the same values. You want to
be able to move forward the same. And so when
you enter a marriage, at least in our case, we
certainly had agreed on our values. Right. And you can
think for a long time you're living those values. But
if you start to find that one partner is veering off,
you have to ask yourself, well, am I veering off too?
(14:27):
You know, and not even not even big things, but
even people that come into your life that you think, hmm,
maybe that person's not such a great person, you know?
Or maybe you start going to too many events where
you know, you wish you had drinking less at a
particular event. You know, you just you can veer off
in these small ways, right? But over time, they can
(14:51):
become bigger. Or maybe that person really veers off. And
so you might try and repair and repair. And if
the person says they'll change but they don't, then you
have to say, can I stay true to my values
and be in deep, intimate relation with this person? And
that was what I was feeling and needed to really
listen to.
S2 (15:12):
Yeah. And and that's what you need to sort of
kind of get to grips with, isn't it? Because there's
lots of competing values there. You know, obviously, you know,
there's the, the the time and the investment and the,
the strong, um, bonds that you have with somebody. And,
and I think it's, it's, it's a very interesting reflection
when you think especially in small ways, there's always a
(15:34):
sort of, um, a sense of, well, just how important
is this compared to the enormity of a life with
someone or a family with somebody or even a really
deep friendship? Um, and I and I guess that's why we,
we sort of tend to think, I think for a
long time. Well, let's just, you know, this is okay.
We can manage this. This isn't. This doesn't involve a
(15:55):
fundamental shift. Yeah, but what struck me in, in your
book was the real absence of resentment or anger or
or sort of conflict. I mean, maybe it's still there,
but if so, it was not evident to me. Um,
in your relationship today with Bill and I, I wondered
(16:16):
if you would reflect a little on what finding that
inner voice, how that changed the way you were able
to interact with with Bill.
S3 (16:25):
Well, finding my inner voice ultimately led to what I
needed to do, which was to end my marriage. And
then I'm very honest in the book about, you know,
I've been through a lot of therapy, right? And it's
helped me in so many ways. It's helped me be
a better parent. It's helped me, I hope, be better
in the work environment, but that helps you work through
(16:47):
the very difficult feelings that you have when you have
to make a change like that. And it's and it's
not something that comes right away. It's something that comes
over time, at least in my experience. And sometimes you
go back to it for a while and then you
come out of it and you might go back to
it and you come out of it. It's like any
kind of, of feeling. Um, and that is another reason
(17:07):
why I felt like it was so important to be
honest about therapy in my life. Like it has really
made a fundamental difference. Um, in terms of, I think,
who I am in the world and remaining true to
my inner voice. Right. And that's work you can only
really do on yourself. It's not the other person is is, uh,
(17:30):
making decisions at all for you, but you're it's in
that relation in that room that you can name your
truth of what's really happening and then ultimately make some
decisions for yourself.
S2 (17:42):
Yeah. There was a great sense, um, of, of freedom
and just enjoyment in the book. And I thought how
it really seemed to express that, um, you know, return
to or the real sense of sort of you being
just able to be unafraid and authentic in the way
(18:04):
that you you could just speak your truth as you say.
I think that is that is such a wonderful thing
to grip on to in your own life. And it's
a wonderful thing to see in another person, you know,
even even at such a remove, just reading a book
about them. Um, and that must be a I don't
want to say reward, but it must be a lovely
(18:26):
place to reach, um, after that, that, you know, really
long and hard journey, I guess.
S3 (18:33):
And partly I wrote about some of that in a
limited way, one because people knew I had been through that.
But two, I also wanted to know I wanted people
to know that there can be beauty on the other side.
There there was an opening for me on the other
side that I just never expected. I had no idea. Right?
(18:53):
Just like I write about having grandchildren in the book,
that is just a gigantic opening of joy for me. Right.
The fact that I have these two little granddaughters, I
didn't expect it, that by this age, you know, I
kind of thought I'd be a little older, but. Okay, great. I'm,
you know, young enough that I can get down on
the ground and do silly things and pick them up
(19:14):
and jump around and go down the slide. And so, yeah,
I want people to know that in any transition you're making,
when you expect, when you don't expect one that's exhilarating,
one that's scary, that, you know, if you pause in
that in-between space and you garner as many lessons as
you can in that space, there is beauty and there
(19:35):
are openings on the other side that are completely unexpected,
and they will come. But sometimes you need other people
like your friends to hold out that perspective for you.
Or you need to go to a spiritual writer, you know,
and pull their book off the shelf and go, okay,
wait a minute. Here's some perspective on the situation.
S2 (19:52):
Yeah. That was one of the really surprising parts of
your book, actually. It was a concept I hadn't ever
heard of, this notion of The Clearing and that, you know,
(20:12):
when you go through really hard times or even just
really dramatic moments of transition in your life, you come
to this space where you have the opportunity to to
do something different or to to look around at the
opportunities or, and the, the, the possibilities that might be there.
So just describe for people what, what that how you
(20:34):
can kind of reach that clearing or what what it
what it feels like to be there. How we can
kind of open ourselves up to those possibilities. Because I
guess the irony is that they come often at very
difficult moments in life. Right. Right.
S3 (20:49):
And and that's part of the reason I named the
book the next day is you make this transition. And
so something definitely ends, right? You close a chapter, you've
ended a chapter, you're ending a chapter. And I think
in our haste or sometimes our anxiety, we want to
rush to the next thing. Like, let me know what
(21:10):
I'm doing. We want that certainty. We want that control. Right.
Because it feels very uncomfortable to be in this in-between space.
And yet in that in-between space, there is there can
be so much personal learning and growth. And even for me,
you know, I started writing this book when I was
(21:31):
in a transitional phase. And guess what? I'm still in
a transitional phase. Like I only left the foundation less
than a year ago. So I'm still transitioning. I'm certainly
doing my work through pivotal, but I still have a
lot to figure out about that. And so I need
to not be afraid of that. I need to say, okay,
you know, who are the people that I need to
(21:52):
gather around me? Who might I listen to? Maybe I
run into somebody that gives me a new idea, or
I visit somebody or I get I read something. So
we have to be open to those possibilities and and
be willing to be. Some spiritual leaders call it liminal space,
that liminal space between when something is now and then
(22:14):
not known. Um, and the more you practice being in
that space, I think it is easier the next time
a transition comes up. I give you the really small example.
One of my friends got, um, a pretty bad medical
diagnosis on something or something that looked pretty badly, and
(22:35):
she needed another set of tests. But, you know, the
health system is busy, and they couldn't get her in
for all the tests. And so it was going to
be over the course of, you know, whatever, ten weeks.
S4 (22:44):
And yeah.
S3 (22:45):
She was the type of person where she absolutely could
have tried to, you know, elbow her way in and
jam herself into the system and maybe get that time
down to two weeks. Right. And she said, you know,
the difference between whatever the diagnosis is going to be
in ten weeks versus now in two weeks. Like if
I lose eight weeks, it's not going to change the course,
(23:05):
the outcome of what this is. And she said out loud,
she's part of my truth council. She said, I just
need to be comfortable being in this uncomfortable place of
not knowing what the outcome is right now.
S4 (23:17):
And I was like, wow.
S3 (23:18):
That is.
S4 (23:19):
A powerful.
S3 (23:20):
Example.
S2 (23:21):
It sure is, because we all know that feeling and your, your,
your strong impulse is to try to sort it out
as quickly as you can, right? Definitely get it over
with so that you know what you're dealing with. Totally.
But I guess it's so I see exactly what you're saying,
because then in that that extra eight weeks, you have
the chance to really think, well, what are the options
and how will that play out? How might I think
(23:44):
about the potential paths forward.
S3 (23:46):
Yeah, right. And what if it's the worst? What if
it's the worst diagnosis? What if it's the best outcome?
What if it's somewhere in between? Because guess what? At
the end of the day, we are all going to
die and we don't know when it's going to happen.
Hopefully it's not sooner, it's later. But practicing that, she
(24:07):
literally said, you know, me practicing this will be good
practice for later in my life. When the end does come.
And she has she has a lot of wisdom because
she's lost some family members in the last ten years,
and she's seen some of them go more easily and
some of them go less easily. And she's like, you know,
this actually kind of gives me a chance to practice.
(24:28):
And I thought, wow, that's courage. That's sitting in liminal space.
S2 (24:32):
That's exactly what I was thinking. That's a it does
require so that that space in those clearings do require courage. Right.
To to kind of engage with it and think, okay, I'm,
I'm actually going to be, you know, I let people
talk about this, don't they? Sitting with the the uncertainty
is it's hard. Yeah.
S3 (24:53):
Terrifying sometimes. Absolutely terrifying. I mean, even sometimes when you
leave a job, it's terrifying to think if you don't
know what your next one is going to be or
just the idea of disappointing certain people or, you know,
all of that stuff, it can literally be terrifying. And yet,
(25:13):
if you can sit with that, you start to realize, oh,
I can get through this. And if you can get
through this, you can probably get through almost anything.
S2 (25:21):
Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of jobs, tell us about Pivotal Ventures,
because of course, we all know about, um, the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation as it was for so long. Um,
but but describe what motivated you, uh, to engage more fully.
I know pivotal existed prior to to your sort of
(25:43):
taking it on in this way. Um, but describe what
it is and and what you hope to achieve and
what's happening with it.
S3 (25:50):
Sure. I started Pivotal Ventures in 2015, but I felt
that the foundation is in such a good place. I
am so proud of the work that it's done. It
has the right CEO and leader, it has a board.
It's just in a really great place. And I felt
like with me turning 60, this was the year to
(26:10):
step out on my own. And because of many of
the things that have happened in the United States in
the last few years, my granddaughter will not have as
many rights as I had that, and that just shouldn't be.
And so I felt like by me moving to pivotal
full time, I could really focus on some of the
domestic issues in the United States that women face in
(26:32):
terms of equality. I'm still doing some international work, but
the balance shifts. The balance is more on domestic. The
United States, just to give you an example, has if
you are a mom giving birth in the United States today,
you're three times more likely to die than you are
(26:53):
in any other high income country. That just should not be.
S2 (26:57):
That is an extraordinary statistic, isn't it?
S3 (27:00):
It's sad. It's deeply sad. And depending on where you
live in the US, those statistics are either slightly worse
or slightly better. And so that's one example. Another example
is we are the only the only high income country
in the world that does not have paid family medical leave.
You can take leave, but you don't necessarily get paid.
(27:23):
And that has profound effects for working moms and dads,
especially the ones cobbling two jobs together. And they have
a child and they can only figure out how to
get three days off and they take vacation. I mean,
it's just it's senseless. So I'm working on these sort
of systemic barriers that hold women back because we've underinvested
(27:47):
in them in the United States. And I believe there
are ways to move these issues forward.
S2 (27:52):
Let's talk about that. I mean, you've spent a long
time in the philanthropic space. How have you come to
understand the best ways for philanthropy to operate? What are
the what are the what are the strategies you've developed?
S3 (28:06):
Well, I believe philanthropy is part of an ecosystem. And
it's it's one part. So you have philanthropy, you have government,
you have the private sector, and then you have the civil,
civil society. And all of them need to work together.
They all have differing roles. But what philanthropy can do
is it can take risks that the taxpayers wouldn't want
(28:28):
their government to take with their money. It can take risks.
It can prove things out. It can fail at some things,
but the things that get proven out, then you get
civil society to use their voice and say, hey, government
really should scale these things up. Let's say it's a
good piece of legislation or public policy. You can also
(28:49):
stimulate the private sector. They might be more likely to, um,
let's say in the US this is a true example.
They've invested more in men's health than in women's health. Well,
you can do certain things. You can put certain research
dollars in, come alongside them and do partnerships so that
we invest more in women's health. And so I see
(29:11):
ultimately the role of philanthropy is to render itself useless
and not needed. Right. If I do my job well,
we will have paid family medical leave in all of
the United States. Right now. We've gotten it to where
we have it in 13 states and Washington, DC, and
we have it for military families. We have a long
way to go, but we are making progress. Yeah. And
(29:33):
eventually I can get out of that work, which would
be lovely, right? But with Pivotal Ventures, I feel like
it's my job to use every tool in my toolbox,
whether that's philanthropic dollars, whether that's my voice around public policy,
whether that's investments. So I'm investing in women and people
(29:53):
of color's businesses because I believe they have great ideas.
And yet less than 4% of VC funding goes towards
their ideas venture capital. So I'm investing directly in some
of those businesses, and I'm direct. I'm investing in other
venture capitalists who are investing in them. So I'm trying
to create that flywheel in society to help get women
(30:15):
moving forward, take down the barriers and help move them forward.
S2 (30:19):
It's so interesting that you say venture capital, because when
you describe that idea of philanthropy as a sort of,
in some senses, a risk taking venture, like an opportunity
to take risks. Well, that's a very VC model, isn't it?
S3 (30:31):
Yeah. And Warren Buffett told us years ago when we
were setting up the foundation, he just gave us some
great advice. And one of the things he said was, okay,
don't be too tough on yourself because you're working on
the problems that society is left behind because they are hard.
But also don't be afraid to take big swings. And
(30:53):
he said, you're going to miss sometimes. Um, and you know, yes,
you'll have some dollars that don't turn out do anything good,
but every now and then you're going to get a
home run. And that is really going to change things.
So I always keep that in the back of my
head because it is some of the things we do.
You have to take risks with the capital.
S2 (31:10):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great reference to Warren. You know
who's work in that in generosity, you know, is something
that we everybody kind of knows about. I think one
of the loveliest bits of the book is when you
talk about your own father and the way that he
encouraged you and instilled in you a real sense of
self-worth and power, you know, that you could kind of
(31:34):
go and have an awesome career in tech and, um,
you know, that that he was going to stand beside
you when you had your clear nail polish on. Totally.
For um, and and I it made me it made
me reflect on the the space that you're in at
the moment in the States and, you know, remarks like, uh, well,
(31:57):
you know, just to pick one at random. But, you know,
things like Mark Zuckerberg said recently, how the tech space,
which I know is a space you think about a
lot and, you know, are very interested in that, that
that needs a more masculine energy. And, you know, I
think men have such an opportunity to be a force
for good, you know, and to inspire everyone, but especially women. Um,
(32:21):
I wonder how you feel about are American men stepping
up in this moment? Do you find that you have,
you know, good American partners that you're working with?
S3 (32:29):
The men I know, the men I work with are. No.
There are some amazing partners, and I know some amazing
male spouses out there. They're just really, you know, pulling
their weight at home and at work. So I just
I don't like anything that pits masculine versus feminism, women
(32:50):
versus men. It's it's it's a useless narrative. We all
rise together. And so when women rise, men don't fall back.
The pie gets bigger, it doesn't get smaller. So I
just find those conversations just. Just not very not fruitful
at all. And I try to work with the partners
(33:11):
who I know have great values and are trying to
move society forward for women and for men. Because guess what?
Our society is better off when men and women are thriving.
Our families are better off. So yeah.
S2 (33:27):
Tell tell me a little bit about women in AI
and women in tech. You wrote about it. I can't
remember now whether it was in your most recent book
or in the moment of lift, but you talked about
this extraordinary thing of women having not, and especially women
of color having not been part of I in its
sort of early development. Tell me a little bit about
that space.
S3 (33:45):
It is really important that women have a seat at
the table because, you know, first of all, technology has
changed our society and it is pervasive. And AI is
going to change society even more is and will change
it even more swiftly than what we've seen with the internet.
I mean, it is just literally I feel like every
(34:07):
two days it's like, whoa, whoa, another new thing, right?
And it can be very beneficial to society. But you
have to have women at the table so their issues
are represented, right? I feel like no matter what the
space is, whether it's AI, whether it's our storytelling through
movies and television, you have to have everybody's stories represented,
(34:31):
not just one view of society. I mean, women have
a different lens on society than men do. It's not
that one is right and one is wrong, or one's
wrong and one's right. It's that we just have different lenses.
We have different lenses based on what part of the
country we're born in, right? You do in Australia based
on where you're born or not born, right. And so
(34:53):
I feel that society that our business places, that our politics,
that our storytelling, it should look like and represent society. Right.
And if it doesn't, if you don't have enough brown
or black people at the table, or you don't have
enough women at the table, there is a way to
fix that. And it's not all that hard. We make
(35:14):
a lot of excuses about why it's hard. It's not.
The problem is society was set up, by and large,
for white men. And so we are sending women and
people of color into a workforce. Just take one example
that was set up for a different era. And so
what happens is there are all these barriers in the
(35:36):
system and we need to go in and break those down.
So I made $1 billion commitment as part of my, uh,
stepping out on Pivotal Ventures when I left the foundation
in 150 million of that billion is to try and
work on the workplace so that it is more welcoming
to women so that we continue to get more women
in tech, but even more women in artificial intelligence. To me,
(36:00):
it's just vital.
S2 (36:01):
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about a project. Maybe
you want to expand a bit on that, but. But
tell me about a project that pivotal is is engaged
in at the moment that's, you know, really thrilling to you.
S3 (36:11):
Well, one that's really thrilling is still unknown in a
certain sense. I'll explain what I mean. Which is, um,
I announced last year $250 million as part of this
billion dollar commitment through an organization called lever for change.
And what they're doing is they're taking proposals from all
over the world related to women's health and well-being. And
(36:33):
what are solutions people are using to help women with
their health and wellbeing. Those will all be vetted and
sifted through, and then we will award a set of
winners that you'll hear more about in the fall. So
to me, that's really exciting because you're bringing forward lots
of ideas in society. There is no chance that my
team or I have anything close to all the good
(36:56):
ideas about how to help women's health and wellbeing. We'll
be lucky if we have 2% of our ideas are good. Right.
But I think there are a lot of examples out
there that we need to unearth, and then we can
fund and we can showcase them and they will change
things for women.
S2 (37:10):
Melinda, do you would you yourself kind of be looking
through those proposals? Would you be like, I love this
this one, you know, or are you do you take
a more hands off role in that in that selection procedure?
S3 (37:22):
I have a chosen council of people who've signed up
to go through all of the proposals and then rate them,
and I will see them more, much more close to
the final, not the final, but much closer to the final. Again,
I'm trusting that the people that I choose that are,
you know, going to vet these proposals that we've chosen
(37:43):
to be part of that, that they'll make sound judgments. Right?
And again, some of them will have views, lenses on
society that I just won't have because I grew up
in Dallas and went to school on the East Coast
and then moved to Seattle, somebody else might have grown up,
you know, in the north and moved south and gone
somewhere else. So I want a range of people vetting proposals.
S2 (38:05):
What do you think you were speaking earlier about? You know,
some of the headwinds that women and girls and families
are facing at the moment in relation? Well, in in
all sorts of ways, you know, and I guess your
focus is especially in the US, how how do you
maintain your sort of sense of hope and positivity and
(38:26):
optimism in, in, in difficult times or, you know, in
times of where, where you do feel there are sort
of strong headwinds against what you're trying to do in
other sectors of society. You know, you talked about your
the different parts of society and how they all need
to work together. How do you stay positive about what
you're doing in your in your sector when others maybe
(38:48):
are not, are not moving in the same direction?
S3 (38:52):
When I see, for instance, more females going into state legislatures,
that's something I've been behind in. In the US, there
are 7000 legislative seats at the state level. They have
immense power to create policy and to move state dollars.
And so as I see that number ticking up, I
(39:13):
see more women. I see some places, a couple of
states now where we have literally equality in terms of
male and female legislatures. That keeps me hopeful, even if
things look, you know, at the national level, much, much
more difficult. Um, I also stay hopeful when I see
change happening at the community level because ultimately, you know,
(39:36):
communities change. And then hopefully those good ideas bubble up
and you start to fund them in other places. But
when I see great work going on at the community
level or even just small acts of kindness, I don't
know those all give me hope. I think of them
as even a small act of kindness. I think of
them as drops in the bucket, right? You can put
(39:58):
drops in the bucket, drops in the bucket, but over time,
guess what? You fill up your bucket, right? It does happen.
So and sometimes the change comes more slowly. Sometimes, you know, okay,
I'm adding a cup of water to the bucket on
that day.
S5 (40:12):
That's a good day, right?
S3 (40:13):
But it does add up over time.
S2 (40:16):
Yeah I think that's yeah, we all have to cling
to that don't we? The drops in the bucket. Melinda,
thank you so much for this chat. Um, it's been
really illuminating and and and a wonderful, a wonderful talk.
S3 (40:29):
I'm so glad we could do this, Amanda.
S2 (40:31):
Thank you.
S1 (40:34):
That was philanthropist Melinda Gates talking with Good Weekend senior
writer Amanda Hooton on the latest Good Weekend talks coming soon.
We chat with Kos Samaras, the political commentator and pollster
and former Victorian ALP secretary, about the Labor Party and
working class voters. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember
(40:55):
to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts
and keep tuning in for more compelling conversations. Good Weekend
Talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald
and The Age proud newsrooms, powered by subscriptions to support
independent journalism. Search. Subscribe to Sydney Morning Herald or The Age.
This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Konrad
(41:16):
Marshall and edited by Tim Mummery, with technical assistance from
Josh towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Tom McKendrick
is head of audio and Greg Callahan is the acting
editor of Good Weekend.
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