From the birth of their first child in 1996 to their youngest starting
full-time school a decade later, Melinda Gates kept a low public profile.
She makes stay-at-home motherhood sound a little like a start-up company she
needed to get on track before she expanded: “I had to know they were well
protected and we were on our way as a family.” But then she seems a
formidably focused parent. She and Bill hold six-monthly strategy meetings
to decide goals, plan family trips and list things they want the children to
learn. She even produces a written report. I remark that she must be the
most organised mother on earth. “Maybe over-organised!” she says and laughs
heartily. Now, with her zeal and glow, she reminds me of many alpha mothers
who, after a long stint at home, are delirious to be back in the challenge
and thrust of work.
Even before they married, the Gateses had discussed dispersing Bill’s fortune.
It was always just a matter of when. Bill believed he would be in his
sixties before he got around to it (he is now 53). But they felt a rolling
momentum to act sooner. “We were getting thousands of requests,” says
Melinda. “Heartbreaking requests – cancer patients, a child needing a
kidney… And you feel horrible turning those down. So we said to ourselves,
my gosh, if we’re going to get going, we should work out what we stand for
and target it.”
And Melinda had never forgotten her first visit to Africa in 1993 on safari.
“As we went along in our nice shiny vehicles, I kept asking, ‘What’s going
on here?’ The very few people who had shoes were men. The women were walking
barefoot with bundles of sticks on their head and a baby in their belly and
a baby on their back.” She returned home thinking, “I cannot turn away from
what I saw.” Later, when the couple read a report about how millions of
children were dying in the developing world from diarrhoea – a figure they
initially thought must be a mistake – they set about applying themselves to
the most intractable global problems.
The Gates Foundation approach is often dubbed “venture philanthropy”: they
fund and shape projects, but leave agencies on the ground to do the work.
Like the great American philanthropists – Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon –
they see it as the duty of individuals, rather than governments, to address
social ills. As entrepreneurs, they lack the knee-jerk aversion to the
marketplace common among British liberals. Melinda cites the (RED) campaign,
launched by Bono – which has persuaded Armani, Apple, Gap, American Express
et al to create special products, the profits from which will be donated to
fight Aids – as a beacon of caring capitalism. Bono is happy to return the
compliment: “Melinda has supported (RED) since it was an embryonic idea. She
and Bill helped birth it. What the Gates Foundation has done already is
mind-boggling, and when the history books are written, it will be found to
be responsible for having saved literally millions of lives.”
And the Gateses apply those same business principles that grew Microsoft to
their new charitable empire. It is the opposite of conventional
philanthropy, they have said, which sprinkles a thin layer of money on a
problem to little lasting effect. Instead, they work out where they can make
the most difference and get the maximum return. “We’ve just had a meeting to
discuss where we are on the international partnership on microbicides,” she
says. “What have we learnt? Why have some trials not been working? We’re
reviewing the strategies at a high level. If they weren’t getting the
results, we wouldn’t have reinvested.”
Other Microsoft girls may have worn T-shirts saying, “Marry me, Bill!”, but,
although she is not the perfectly groomed arm candy favoured by most
plutocrats, there is no doubt why he chose Melinda. She shares his
relentless curiosity and the belief that no problem is too big or small, too
global or too domestic to be solved – it just needs to be dissected, then
exposed to the laser beams of intellect and knowledge. While mostly she is
reluctant to discuss her private life, fearing any trivia will distract from
the foundation’s mission, she is openly adoring when she talks about Bill.
It is only six months since Gates “transitioned” – as Melinda calls it – from
Microsoft, handing over day-to-day running to concentrate on his
philanthropic work. It was a joke among his co-founders that you could ring
Bill late any Friday night and he’d still be at his desk. She says they see
each other more now, travel together, and last night were both helping with
their children’s homework. “Bill is a night owl. He thinks best at night. He
reads deeply on all these foundation topics and he’ll get very engaged in a
book and keep going until he’s done, even if that’s 2am.”
But clearly she is delighted that their relationship is no longer Mr Microsoft
and his silent wife, but Bill and Melinda, running their foundation,
lobbying governments, forging strategies, solving the insoluble hand in
hand. “Bill and I are having a tremendous amount of fun working together,”
she says. “It’s a very deep connection to be able to work with your spouse
on something that your hearts are completely engaged in. I couldn’t think of
anything better.”
The prince of geeks who ploughs through textbooks on epidemiology has in
Melinda a sounding board, an intellectual partner. The couple thrash out
differences on foundation priorities (more nuances, she says, than major
issues) taking long walks near their home on the shores of Lake Washington,
outside Seattle.
“Bill just came back from a trip to India with his dad. And the first thing he
wanted to do was tell me all the things he’d learnt. When I return from
Africa, the first person I want to talk to is Bill. I’ll say, ‘Oh, my
gosh!’, and all these light bulbs go off. One of us will throw out a
statistic and the other will say, ‘Are you sure that’s right?’ The other
will say, ‘The team was mentioning this…’ And the other will say, ‘But that
doesn’t really match what we saw in the field the other day.’ It’s a really
nice way to work.”
Protective of his perception in the world, the cynics who say the foundation
is just a means for Microsoft to soften its aggressive, monopolistic image,
Melinda hopes the world will now see the other dimensions to Bill’s
personality besides the hard-ass entrepreneur. “He has an incredible
intellect and everyone knows that. But he also has a huge heart. You don’t
do the foundation work with your head. You’re not moved to give your
resources away just because the data shows some number. You’re moved because
of caring and concern.” On field trips, she says, he frequently weeps at the
stories of suffering. And, she adds, he is far funnier than people ever
imagine.
When I ask if she has, despite her obvious disapproval of flash and flaunt,
any personal extravagances, she squirms, then says finally, “We do have a
very nice house.” The Gates mansion (estimated to be worth $113 million)
looks in photos more like a software company’s industrial compound. Indeed,
it was a legendary geek bachelor pad, a temple to high-tech gadgetry, until
Melinda brought in the architects and transformed it into a family home,
albeit one with a domed library, trampoline room and private cinema. Melinda
still feels the need to justify it: “It allows us to have a family life and
at the same time do the work we want to do on the world stage. When we go
inside our house, it’s just us – there isn’t some gargantuan number of
people around.”
