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- [00:01]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at Capella. Edu.
- [00:15]
Rachel Martin
Are you good at forgiveness?
- [00:17]
Melinda French Gates
Yes. Yes, I think I am. If you can't eventually forgive somebody, then you hurt yourself, I think. Right. And I don't want to live my life hurting myself.
- [00:34]
Rachel Martin
I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me. My guest this week is Melinda French Gates.
- [00:52]
Melinda French Gates
I've learned that love absolutely takes trust, absolute trust. And if you have that deep trust, both partners can grow individually and together.
- [01:05]
Rachel Martin
Melinda French Gates has lived through some very high profile turning points, including ending her marriage to Bill Gates and starting her own separate philanthropic work. She wrote beautifully about all of it in a memoir that was published last year called the Next Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward. And it is my great pleasure to welcome Melinda French Gates to Wildcard. Hi.
- [01:26]
Melinda French Gates
Hi. Thanks for having me, Rachel.
- [01:28]
Rachel Martin
I'm so pleased that we could make this work, too. We're gonna do round one Memories. Are you ready?
- [01:39]
Melinda French Gates
I'm ready.
- [01:40]
Rachel Martin
Okay, let's go. Three cards, three questions. You pick one, two or three?
- [01:49]
Melinda French Gates
Three.
- [01:50]
Rachel Martin
Three. What's a routine from your childhood that you miss?
- [01:56]
Melinda French Gates
Oh, gosh, I guess getting ready in the morning with my sister. So I have an older sister who's 22 months older than me, Susan, and then two much younger brothers. But we just. Even when we were in grade school, we shared a bathroom and we would get ready together in the morning and curl our hair and talk about the day ahead. And then when we were in high school, you know, the whole thing. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, so the big. Whole big hair thing, you know, so
- [02:26]
Rachel Martin
there was some time. There was an investment.
- [02:29]
Melinda French Gates
There was a lot of time. Maybe an hour before we went out, hairspray. So you had a lot of time to, like, talk about your day and visit and say, well, what do you think of this color? What do you think of that ribbon? What should I do here? And so I just. We're still very close, but we live in different states. And so I just miss that. Like, that. I hadn't even thought about it, that sweet routine we had together. Do you still.
- [02:53]
Rachel Martin
I don't know if you ever have occasion to be in a hotel room with her, like, have you found yourself as adults, falling back into that. That has happened to with my sister, where circumstances will mean we're in the same place with the same bathroom, and all of a sudden we're getting ready together at the same time. And I have a similar kind of nostalgic flashback.
- [03:10]
Melinda French Gates
Well, I'm not sure. I can't think of a recent time where we've been in a hotel room doing that. But I will say that I have it with my daughters. So I have two adult daughters now, 29 and 23. And as they were coming up, you know, I would go in their bathroom in the mornings when they're getting ready and sometimes just sit there while they're getting ready. And a lot of times would come in my bathroom. And of course, girls borrow things. My sister and I borrowed things from each other, makeup, et cetera. But I also miss. So I've had that tradition also with my own girls. And when we're back together in a hotel room, the three of us, we get together, we get together and, you know, talk and get ready to go out and, oh, do these shoes work? I'm not sure.
- [03:52]
Rachel Martin
You know, Yeah, I have boys, so it's just different. It's just. They're just. They don't care what hair product I'm using or if I'm gonna curl my hair or not. So I am envious of that. Three more cards still in memories. One two or three? Two. Two. What's a place that shaped you just as much as any person did?
- [04:13]
Melinda French Gates
Mm. I would say working at Microsoft in the early years. I worked there for nine years. I was a computer science undergraduate. Went straight to business school and then, boom, straight to Microsoft. And I was quite young when I started. There were very few women in tech.
- [04:32]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
I.
- [04:33]
Melinda French Gates
And I, because I had this computer science background and this business background, it was a natural fit. And I was a part of a class of MBAs, the first class that was there. There were 10 of us, nine guys and me.
- [04:48]
Rachel Martin
Is that right?
- [04:49]
Melinda French Gates
Oh, yeah. And, you know, I learned a lot about how I did and didn't want to be in a work environment. Like, I loved the fast paced nature of it. I'm very competitive even when I play games with my K, kids are at home. I love that. Competitive that we knew we were creating new products. It was. I joined back in 1987. There were only, you know, there were like 1800 employees. It was tiny still. We knew we were changing the world. And I loved all of that and that creativity and being around smart people. So I Learned that I like to work in that type of environment, but I also learned that I didn't like that sort of rough and tumble, elbow each other, be the smartest person in the room, the boys debate club. And so as I moved up, which cause there weren't many women there and I was a good manager. I had managed people in high school and in college and in business school. As I moved up the ranks I realized I no longer wanted to play that game. I would leave work and at the end of the day I'd go to the grocery store and I just wasn't a very nice person anymore. And I thought that's not who I want to be. I and so I thought I'll leave, I'll go get another job. But maybe before I do that I'll just try being myself. I knew I'd fall flat on my face, whatever. And as I started to be more myself and because I was managing large teams, people started flocking to my groups around the company and others would say to me how did you get that developer, that hard charging developer from that other project to come work in the consumer division? And I started to realize it was the culture I was creating.
- [06:36]
Rachel Martin
Which is so interesting because you learned the question was what place shaped you more than any person. Your answer was your experience at Microsoft, but it was almost in opposition to that culture. You learned and were shaped by that place as you developed in opposition to the mainstream culture. Which is so interesting.
- [06:53]
Melinda French Gates
And this is one thing I've learned about myself over the many years is that I work against the N o t s, the knots who do I not want to be? So and it's true when I go back and look at who were I, who was I friends with in college and I would see some of these, I went to Duke University, I came from a very middle class family in Dallas, Texas. But as I would see some of these kids who were more of wealth and of means and sort of acted like they were all that because of coming from a family with a name or wealth. I thought I do not ever want to act like that. And if I'm ever lucky enough to be in that situation, absolutely not. I would never want to raise kids that way. So I learned over time I work against that opposition to see it helps shape who I don't want to be.
- [07:45]
Rachel Martin
Totally.
- [07:46]
Melinda French Gates
The last thing I'll say about this is just I also work against the knots in life, the K N O T s. So sometimes when something's really hard and gnarly and you can't figure it out and it's bothering you and stuff, that's where the biggest growth is. And I need to look at that and sort of try and relax the pressure on myself and say, this is tough, but I'm gonna figure out my way through it. And that's where I've grown and learned also the most.
- [08:14]
Rachel Martin
You know what I love about the idea of defining yourself in opposition to what or based on what you don't want to be. It's like a sculpture. It's like you're handed this big block called life and the people in it. And you're just like chipping away. You don't know what you're sculpting even. You don't know who you are actually. But what happens is when you take away all the other stuff, you know, I don't wanna be this. I don't wanna be this. I don't wanna be this. And then Melinda showed up. Then there you were as a result
- [08:43]
Melinda French Gates
of that, and you find out who your essence is. And a lot of those things for me were baked in. In high school, I went to an amazing all girls Catholic high school and just a few amazing lay teachers and the values they put in us and taught us and how they taught us to learn. And that's why I first, back in the day when there were hardly anywhere had computers, we had computers. It's where I learned I could be good in computer science, good in math. So I knew who I was when I went out in the world. And I think I've learned this happens to a lot of women. We know who we are, but we go into college or we go into the workplace or we go into that environment and people start to chip away at us and say, you can't be that. You can't do that. And at least for me, I sort of built up almost forgetting who I was in my core, in my essence. But as I would see these different groups, I could remember, not that, not that, not that. And so maybe to your point, I was able to chisel my way back to who I am in my essence. And it was always there, and I always held onto it. I didn't let go of it. But I had to see other things to go, mm, mm, not that. Yeah.
- [09:58]
Rachel Martin
Okay, let's move. We're moving. Last one in this round. Memory still 1, 2 or 3.
- [10:05]
Melinda French Gates
I'll go for one.
- [10:06]
Rachel Martin
Okay, what's a piece of advice? You were smart to ignore my freshman
- [10:13]
Melinda French Gates
advisor, who was also the college counselor for our all girls school. I Won't say her name. When I went in to start talking to her about colleges and where I wanted to go and what my dreams were, and she said, oh, no, no, no, no, those aren't for you. You know, when I said things like Notre Dame and Stanford or Duke. Oh, no. I mean, maybe we should consider maybe, like a local community college. Or maybe we should think about Texas Tech and again, talk about that oppositional. So I can also rise up sometimes. I have to have something. And I left, and I was so angry. I was like, she sees me like that. Who is she to see me like that? Are you kidding? I'm gonna show her. And I went back once she said that. I went back and looked at the transcripts of the girls from our school who'd preceded me. And I realized the only ones who ever got into the colleges I wanted to get into were the valedictorians. And I was like, oh, boy, I've gotta be valedictorian.
- [11:24]
Rachel Martin
Is that right?
- [11:25]
Melinda French Gates
And so I had to then get A's in all my classes, even the honors. So I put a lot of pressure on myself. But ultimately I went to Duke. And I had at a time when they had a brand. Two new. Brand new computer labs. I had very good classes. Yeah, it ended up being fantastic.
- [11:44]
Rachel Martin
Did you send a little letter to that high school guidance counselor being like, greetings from Duke University, period. Love, Melinda.
- [11:54]
Melinda French Gates
She knew where I ended up. And luckily, luckily, she was the only one that saw me that way. Like, my math teacher saw the potential. And, boy, was my math teacher phenomenal for me or my English teacher. And again, I say this often to people now. I've seen, using my own experience, the difference one person can make in someone else's life.
- [12:19]
Rachel Martin
And people have to remember that, because it's not just the positive stuff you say that can have a positive impact. It's the negative stuff that might eat out of you that can have a detrimental effect on the kids, the young people in your care under your tutelage.
- [12:32]
Melinda French Gates
Absolutely. And, you know, there's a saying, I think, in the meditation and spiritual community that, you know, our brains are like Teflon and Velcro. The beautiful things people say or the inspiring things. They're kind of like Teflon. If you get a compliment, you kind of like, let it go. But the Velcro is like the sticky ones, the ones that aren't so nice, those stick. And you gotta work through those. Right? And I certainly have some of those in my life, too.
- [13:10]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
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- [13:42]
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- [14:39]
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- [15:13]
Rachel Martin
I want to pull back from the game and talk about Pivotal Ventures, which is your foundation that works on social issues for women, including women's health. Can you just talk to me a little bit about how you focus there because you, Melinda French Gates, could have focused your money and effort and bandwidth anywhere.
- [15:33]
Melinda French Gates
Well, I was lucky enough to form the Gates foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. And I traveled for over 25 years to so many different countries in Africa and Southeast Asia. And what I came to see is we don't focus on women's health. We just as a world like if you I started to look at the data about women and women's lives and what do we collect, you know, because the foundation we often worked off of data and I realized the data on Women's health was very sparse. We knew a little bit about their reproductive health and we knew a little bit about their maternal mortality at the time they gave birth or died in childbirth, but we knew very little. And if less than 1% of all global health and research funding goes towards women's health, and yet we're 50% of the population, there's a problem there. Right. And so I started to say to myself, wow, as I form pivotal ventures, which I did in 2015, I really studied the barriers of what holds women back in our own country, the United States and around the world. And it's because where we've done research and where we have funded around health, we've assumed the man's body as the default body and then hers kind of comes next. But now we're learning that when you invest in women's healths, we, our bodies work very differently than men.
- [17:04]
Rachel Martin
Right.
- [17:04]
Melinda French Gates
And so I'm really investing in lots of ways now in women's health to make sure we can find good solutions, break through the barriers for women that's so big.
- [17:17]
Rachel Martin
Melinda, Women's health is what I mean, it's everything from like menopause to birth control, like where education, how do you begin to focus your resources so that they make the biggest impact?
- [17:31]
Melinda French Gates
Yeah. So I know from long standing health research when I was at the Gates foundation, is that reproductive health is the number one most important thing. You have to at least do that because when a woman has access to a contraceptive, a contraceptive of her choice, she will space the births of her children. She is healthier, she doesn't lose her life, she doesn't get a fistula. And the babies are healthier because they need to be spaced so she has enough time and energy to feed them and they get what they need. So we know that is a bare minimum, but way above that. When I now am focusing on health because I feel like the foundation's doing that, I'm doing some of that at pivotal, but I'm now looking at what are the biggest killers of women. Well, here's the biggest one, cardiovascular disease. 35% of women's death is from cardiovascular disease. And yet a woman goes into the health system even in our own country, and the chance she is diagnosed with having a heart attack is very low. 50% of cases for women are missed. And it's because we think of cardiovascular disease as a man's disease. Men get totally. So with welcome leap, I'm putting in, we're together putting in 100 million to study cardiovascular disease in women. And where should we intervene sooner? What should we look at? What are the biomarkers? And what can we bring forward more quickly for women's cardiovascular disease? At the end of 2026, we will pick another very large topic, and we're looking at potentially either mental health for women or autoimmune diseases, because those are the two that really disproportionate amount of autoimmune diseases women are affected by compared to men. So that's where I'm starting then. I'm finding partners to partner with me who believe in putting in money for women's health.
- [19:38]
Rachel Martin
So I want to pivot to talk about your book, which came out last year, and you detail how important obviously your philanthropic work has been, especially in your later life. But, I mean, you have lived this exceptional life, right? In so many ways. What is profound about the book is that money doesn't protect you fully from grief and pain and profound disappointment. And I wonder if you could share what hesitations, if any, you had about putting all that stuff out into the public domain.
- [20:17]
Melinda French Gates
Yeah, so I wrote a book that came out last year called the Next Day, and it's about transitions in life. You don't get to age 60 without having made all of us lots of transitions in life. Some you wanted to make, some you didn't expect, some that were easy, some that were really hard. And so I decided to put this book out because what I realized was in those transitions are the biggest moments of growth. And if you can look at them that way and you can have the courage to go through them, you can pick these lessons out for yourself. And so it felt extraordinarily vulnerable to do that book. I have lived an incredible, just a very privileged life. You know, I don't take that for granted at all. But in the end of the day, life is about the relationships you have and the family and the friends and what you make of it, how you make meaning out of it. So I've tried to take this unbelievable wealth I never thought I would have and. And plow it back into society in ways to make it better. So, yeah, that's what the book is about, is growth in transitions.
- [21:41]
Rachel Martin
So you talk about knots and how that's where we learn things about ourselves as we untangle them. I wonder if you are in one of those moments again. Now I have to acknowledge the elephant in the room at this moment. Your ex husband, Bill, is named in the newest tranche of Epstein files, and there are a new alleged details about his past behavior and I want to give you the opportunity to respond in whatever way you want to.
- [22:16]
Melinda French Gates
Well, let me say this. I think we're having a reckoning as a society, right? No girl, no girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him. No girl. I mean, it's just. It's beyond heartbreaking, right? I remember being those ages those girls were. I remember my daughters being those ages, right? So for me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage. But I have moved on from that. I purposely pushed it away and I moved on. And I'm actually not in a knot in my life anymore. I'm in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life. So whatever questions remain there of what I can't even begin to know all of it, those questions are for those people and for even my ex husband. They need to answer to those things, not me. And I am so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.
- [23:40]
Rachel Martin
I have to put more words to the muck for context for our listeners. The emails in the files suggest that Bill Gates had additional affairs and that he tried to get medication to treat a sexually transmitted infection and that he was going to give you the medicine without you knowing. His representative has said all of this is false. It is not on you to have to respond to the details of that alleged behavior. But I wonder what your dominant emotion is when you read these news articles with these details.
- [24:17]
Melinda French Gates
Sad. Just unbelievable sadness. Unbelievable sadness, right? And again, I'm able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, my God, how did they. How did that happen to those girls? Right? And so for me, it's just sadness. Sadness for, you know, I. I've left. I had to. I left my marriage. I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I had to leave the. I felt I needed eventually leave the foundation. So it's just sad. That's the truth, right? And it's kind of like, at least for me, I've been able to move on in life. And I hope there's some justice for those. Now women, right? We see them standing up in front of microphones in D.C. what they went through is just unimaginable, I think.
- [25:10]
Rachel Martin
Thank you for that. In the book, you talk about a new practice you started a few years ago where you designate a word to define your year instead of resolutions, which I think is a lovely thing. So what's your word for 2026, if I can ask?
- [25:28]
Melinda French Gates
Sure. It's build, build and build. Yeah, I'm building the life I want to have. I've been doing that the last few years. But, you know, again, to this topic of women's health, you know, I'm thinking about my own health. I'm post 60 now. I've always been a big exerciser, et cetera. I. You know, I had a ski accident that many people have had who ski. I have an ACL injury. I'm rebuilding from that. And so I'm like, three weeks away from being able to get back on my spin bike. Right. And I'm just chomping at the bit, but I want to use it as an opportunity to build the strength and healthy body that I would like to have. And luckily, I was healthy coming into it for the rest of my life, but also just build my life in the way I want it. I have three adult children now who are all out of the house. They're 29, 26, and 23. Right. And how do I want my relationships to continue to grow and be with them? So, yeah, I get to build this beautiful life that I'm part of and build my philanthropy that I'm doing at Pivotal Ventures and build the right team around me who can carry out this work in the world.
- [26:42]
Rachel Martin
Good for you, lady. You don't need me to tell you that, but good for you.
- [26:45]
Melinda French Gates
Thank you.
- [26:50]
Rachel Martin
Round two. You ready to keep going?
- [26:52]
Melinda French Gates
I'm ready.
- [26:53]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Okay.
- [26:54]
Rachel Martin
Round two. Insights. Insights. Three new cards. One, two or three? Two, two. What has age taught you about love?
- [27:08]
Melinda French Gates
Oh. Oh, gosh. So much. Right. It can extend time. You know, it can go over, what I mean is a span of years.
- [27:22]
Rachel Martin
Right.
- [27:23]
Melinda French Gates
I have people now who I've loved for so long. My parents. I was just with my parents in southern California. They're 87 and 85. Right. I love them. They're very healthy. And, you know, I have adult children who I've loved over a long period. I have new granddaughters who are 1 and 3, and I love them. And they're like. They're these new little people. And so. And I think of friendships, you know, I have friendships still. My best friend from high school, from the first day of high school, is still one of my closest friends. I've learned that love is. Can be very, very mature, too, if you know yourself deeply and your partner knows themselves deeply and. And you can admit your faults and be willing to let the other person hold up the mirror as a reflection to you. Right. And I've learned that love absolutely takes trust, absolute trust. And if you have that deep trust, both partners can grow individually and together. And then also trust leads to intimacy. And so, you know, I don't believe there's anything called perfect love. I believe that we all make mistakes, and it's important to, you know, have. Say if you've made a mistake and then be held accountable. I said something to my youngest daughter this weekend. We were talking on the phone that afterwards, I just kind of regretted. It was actually more of a sort of a suggestion, but it wasn't my lane. She's not 16 anymore.
- [28:56]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Right.
- [28:56]
Melinda French Gates
She's 23. She's got a career. She's living her life. She's building a business. Not my lane. So to go back to her and say, you know, I regret even saying that, that's up to you. Whatever you decide to do, you know,
- [29:08]
Rachel Martin
did it take you more than a minute to learn to trust again? Because that had been broken in your marriage? Of course.
- [29:15]
Melinda French Gates
Of course. I thought it might never happen again for me, and that was okay, too. Like, I trusted myself, though. And if you trust yourself and you love yourself. I have lots of friends, male, female, kids. You know, I thought I was gonna live my life possibly by myself, but with all those amazing people in my life. So I didn't know if I would ever trust again. Right. But I have learned that. That with the right person, you can. And it's baby steps at first, and you build on that, and you see it and you test it, and then you can find it.
- [29:48]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Right.
- [29:49]
Melinda French Gates
There are lots of good people in the world. I have been so lucky with so many amazing people in my life. And look, even after I left the foundation, there are lots there that I worked with, that I keep in touch with who are beautiful souls and who are incredible. Right. And I still trust them even though I'm not there anymore. Right. I trust they're carrying out the work in whatever way they think is right.
- [30:14]
Rachel Martin
Right. Okay. Three new cards. 1, 2 or 3?
- [30:22]
Melinda French Gates
I will go with one.
- [30:25]
Rachel Martin
Are you good at forgiveness?
- [30:28]
Melinda French Gates
Yes. Yes, I think I am. I think I am. But I've learned that forgiveness can take a long time, and you can't rush it. Like, you have to go through every piece. I'll take a friendship in particular, without naming names, but a close girlfriend where I've known this person a long time. They're a truth teller. I'm a truth teller to her. But we just, you know, we bungle some things. Sometimes we hurt one another. And it takes me time to kind of process what happened there. How do I forgive that? How do I tell her what I need? How do I own my part of it? And it takes time to do that. Right. And time alone, sometimes away from them while you stay in touch with them. But ultimately I really seek forgiveness with. With everybody. Because if you can't eventually forgive somebody, then you hurt yourself, I think. Right. And I don't want to live my life hurting myself, so.
- [31:36]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Right.
- [31:36]
Melinda French Gates
So there's some people in my life I can even think from my way past you. They did some things to really hurt me. Let's just say early 20s. But I forgive them, but I don't need to be in touch with them anymore.
- [31:47]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Right.
- [31:47]
Melinda French Gates
Just because I forgive doesn't mean I need to be close to them or in my life. But if I can forgive what happened and also try a little bit and see their side of it, then I can move on. That's part of healing. Right. And being truthful with yourself and owning up to your side of the road. I always say keep your own side of the road clean if you can. Right. Because we do. We bump through life and we do hurt other people by things we say or inadvertently say, or ways that we feel. You know, you talk about needing to
- [32:15]
Rachel Martin
forgive for yourself because you don't want to live in that place. Have you forgiven your ex husband?
- [32:27]
Melinda French Gates
I think I'm going to keep that one to myself. That's a work in progress. I think I'm getting there.
- [32:32]
Rachel Martin
Yeah. Enough said. Three more cards. 1, 2 or 3?
- [32:42]
Melinda French Gates
2.
- [32:45]
Rachel Martin
What's something you still feel you need to prove to people you meet?
- [32:51]
Melinda French Gates
Oh, gosh. What do I have to prove these days? It's funny because I finally am at a place where I don't have to prove anything. I am so comfortable now being myself. And even when I first started sort of dating again, I was kind of like, take it or leave it. You either like me or don't. Okay, so what? Not everybody's for me, but even when I walk in a room, I think maybe it's a little bit better to go back just a tiny bit and say. If I say to myself, 10 years ago, what did I think I had to prove to myself when I entered the room? Oh, my gosh. It was always, I'm smart enough, I know enough. I deserve to have this role of the chair, you know, co chair of this foundation.
- [33:40]
Rachel Martin
Even 10 years ago you felt like
- [33:41]
Melinda French Gates
that because people kind of put that on you, right? Or I put it on myself. I never Felt I knew enough. It was this whole perfectionism thing. I never knew enough. I couldn't be enough. You can't know everything. Take global health. My God, it's 20 different topics in different places in the world. We're still learning. We're learning the science. But somehow I felt I never knew enough. Now I walk into a room and go, hmm, I'm plenty smart enough to do this. I may not know everything. That's okay. I'll ask some people here. Or I'll say, I'll admit, oh, I haven't read that. Nope, I'm not up on that. Latest article in the news that you saw two hours ago. Or, no, I actually don't know that much about that particular rocket that just got shot in space. Tell me more.
- [34:25]
Rachel Martin
I hadn't thought of that pressure, because when you are in charge of billions of dollars to give to charities and different organizations doing good work, you would feel like you need to know what these organizations are really doing, because is it worth your investment? And there would be a lot of pressure to prove that you were making a smart choice with this money and that this is why you choose X over Y. And that would be a lot.
- [34:56]
Melinda French Gates
Or there's scientists who come in the room, you're working on a new medicine, let's say for malaria. And I don't know all the biology of exactly. I know malaria's been here with us since the time of the Egyptians. I know how it produces in the liver. I know what it does to red blood cells.
- [35:14]
Rachel Martin
Okay, let's be clear.
- [35:15]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
That's a lot.
- [35:15]
Rachel Martin
That's more than people know.
- [35:17]
Melinda French Gates
Right. And it's a parasite, so that's why it's hard to get a vaccine for it. Okay, we finally got one, but that's one disease. And so you're in these rooms with these scientists who are working on this, and they are on the cutting edge of science. So feeling like I knew enough to ask the right questions, and I finally just had to, again, kind of be willing to be myself. Like I said about when I worked at Microsoft, is okay. I might fall in my face, but it's all right. I've just learned to be myself and ask the question, have you read John
- [35:50]
Rachel Martin
Green's book on tuberculosis?
- [35:52]
Melinda French Gates
I love it. Isn't it so good? I mean, I love it.
- [35:56]
Rachel Martin
I love him so much. He was on our show. I love that book. I love him. I knew he would love it.
- [36:01]
Melinda French Gates
I had read with my daughters, Phoebe and Jen, when they were younger, all of his teenage novels for teens and Then I read Ann Patchett is a friend of mine. She told me to read that I love.
- [36:11]
Rachel Martin
She's also been on the show.
- [36:13]
Melinda French Gates
Oh, she I met her only because of my first book. We became fast friends when I went and toured about my first book.
- [36:21]
Rachel Martin
She's wonderful. You know all the best people.
- [36:32]
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- [38:02]
Rachel Martin
Round three beliefs 12 or 3 3. Have your feelings about God changed over time?
- [38:12]
Melinda French Gates
Yes, definitely. You know, I grew up in in the Catholic Church, went to K through 12 to Catholic school. And in grade school, we went to church Monday, Wednesday, Friday, before we went to class. And then of course you went on Sunday, of course, family on Sundays. And I'm saying that because when you're a little kid and you have that much time in church, you have a lot of time to think.
- [38:43]
Rachel Martin
Not necessarily, not necessarily about what's being said at the pulpit.
- [38:45]
Melinda French Gates
It's just you're sitting right and some of it did, but also some of what was being said at the pulpit just didn't make sense to me as a little kid. I just, it was like they said that, but then I see them act that way, like, you know, some of the priests were actually really mean to the kids. And so anyway, long story short, just in the arc of my life, I've come to feel more that God is Definitely. There's no one God. My gosh. And even when I was a kid, I was like, okay, but people who are Indians believe in these native spirits, but we have a God, and only our God is the right one. How can that be? I knew other kids who were Jewish who thought different beliefs, and I'm like, so they're wrong. Like, our church thought they were wrong.
- [39:35]
Rachel Martin
And not only are they wrong, they're going to hell.
- [39:37]
Melinda French Gates
Yes.
- [39:38]
Rachel Martin
Right.
- [39:40]
Melinda French Gates
You just started to realize, no, no, no. There's absolutely a universal spirituality. But whatever it is and wherever it is, it also is in connection to one another and people. And you see it. You see it often in the goodness of people or in some person in very difficult, difficult circumstances helping somebody else. Right. They have very little meager means themselves, and yet they're giving a dollar to that other family. Or you see it, you know, with a family who's caring for a loved one who's dying. And so I've come to believe that. That not there's not one God. There's a spirituality, a spiritual force in the universe, whatever it is. And when we tap into it, some of the most beautiful things in life happen. And one of my favorite musicals is Les Miserables. And at the end of it, it says. And I didn't ever see it until I was, like, in my early 20s. And at the end of it, I think the music is so beautiful. It says, to love another person is to see the face of God. And I thought, oh, that's it. You know, God or spirit is here between all of us, and it's up to all of us to figure out, you know, how are you in keep community or a connection with others that helps you lift that from yourself and from others. Because it touch. We touch one another through those places. That's my belief.
- [41:12]
Rachel Martin
I love that, that it requires that Divinity actually requires us as humans. It requires us. We are how divinity is manifested. Right?
- [41:23]
Melinda French Gates
Yeah.
- [41:24]
Rachel Martin
I love that.
- [41:26]
Melinda French Gates
Okay.
- [41:26]
Rachel Martin
Okay. Three more. One, two or three, two, two. Have you ever had a premonition about something that came true?
- [41:39]
Melinda French Gates
Yes, but I would like to keep it to myself, as you are allowed.
- [41:44]
Rachel Martin
I'm going to ask another one randomly from the deck.
- [41:46]
Melinda French Gates
Okay.
- [41:47]
Rachel Martin
When do you feel connected to the people you've lost?
- [41:51]
Melinda French Gates
Oh, when I walk in nature, I take time and quiet almost every morning. So sometimes then. And when I do, I like to sit outside, even if it's cold. In Seattle, I'll try and sit out with a coffee, you know, or go out and walk, get my feet in the Grass walk in the yard. But there are places, like when you're in a forest and you're walking in a forest, there's a place north of Seattle I like to go. There's a set of islands, the San Juan Islands. Yeah. And when I'm up there, oh, my gosh, it just. There's just a grounding. And like, those islands are rocks. They've been there, you know, for centuries before us. And other humans have walked those paths long before I did, you know, hundreds of years ago. And I just. You just feel a grounding at, a settledness. And that's when I feel like I can sort of feel some of these people that I've known or who've come before me.
- [42:44]
Rachel Martin
Last question. Okay, 1, 2 or 3.
- [42:50]
Melinda French Gates
1.
- [42:52]
Rachel Martin
What is your best defense against despair? Hope.
- [42:58]
Melinda French Gates
Always hope. And when I'm really in despair is probably some of the best times to go out and see community work, either in the United States or in another country. When you see people helping one another and you see people saying, you know what, I can make sure this kid gets on this path, or I'm gonna tutor that kid, or I'm gonna show up and serve in the food line on a cold day. Right. It just reminds you that our humanity, there's so much hope in the world. There's so much goodness. And so a lot of times, you know, I have to get off my screen, as we all do these days, and I need to go out and see hope in the world. And that really, really lifts me up and helps me.
- [43:44]
Rachel Martin
And I love what you said, because it can be. We can get lost in the bigness and the vastness of the darkness in the world. And if you can just go outside and help, like find a way to just do a thing that is in service of one other person, that. That's where hope lives for me too.
- [44:07]
Melinda French Gates
Totally. And we all have it. We have time, we have resources, we have skills, all of those things. Think about tutoring a kid an hour. You spend an hour a week or a couple hours a month, you can change a kid's life, help their self esteem. Right. I mean, they're just. There are a million ways to help. So I always tell people, start in your backyard, right. Find something local that you want to do or that you believe in. But that's where I find hope.
- [44:33]
Rachel Martin
And you are hopeful right now?
- [44:34]
Melinda French Gates
Very. I am very, very hopeful, yes. I think we are in a. Don't get me wrong, we are in a very difficult time right now in the United States and in the world. But in the arc of time. I'm very hopeful. Yes.
- [44:54]
Rachel Martin
So we end the show the same way every time.
- [44:56]
Melinda French Gates
Okay.
- [44:57]
Rachel Martin
With a trip in our memory. Time machine. In the time machine, you get to revisit one moment from your past. It's not a moment you would change one thing about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. Which moment do you choose?
- [45:15]
Melinda French Gates
Laying under the Christmas tree with my sister. When we were little girls in our little quilted padded robes and after, you know, the whole house, we'd all worked all day to decorate the house. Then we had all those days between then and Christmas where at night we'd get our jammies on, we'd get our little padded robes on, and we lay under the Christmas tree and just watch the tinkling and twinkling lights on the ceiling and bounce off the windows. And it just was this. And we'd be sometimes head to head or shoulder to shoulder. It's just that, ah, that sort of like innocence of the world. I just. I love that memory and magic.
- [45:55]
Rachel Martin
There's so much magic in that memory. I love that. Melinda French gates. Her 2025 memoir is called the Next Day Transition, Change, and Moving Forward. Melinda, thank you so much for talking with me.
- [46:11]
Melinda French Gates
Thanks for having me, Rachel. This is fun.
- [46:17]
Rachel Martin
Thank you so much for listening. Melinda and I mentioned our mutual admiration for the author, John Green. I would highly recommend checking out the episode that I did with him. It's also worth a revisit if you've already listened. Trust me. And a reminder, you can watch a video of my interview with Melinda and many others on our YouTube page. It's NPRWildcard. This episode was produced by Alicia Zhang and Lee Hale. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei. You can reach out to us@wildcardpr.org we will shuffle the deck and be back
- [46:55]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
with more next week.
- [46:56]
Rachel Martin
Talk to you then.
- [47:00]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
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- [47:32]
Melinda French Gates
AI NPR today, this message comes from DAF Giving360.
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