The role of luck in his life isn’t just something he admits to me in private moments. It’s what he told Malcolm Gladwell when Malcolm asked Bill what accounted for his success. Bill said, “I had a better exposure to software development at a young age than I think anyone did in that period of time, and all because of an incredibly lucky series of events.”
So Bill has a sense of humility. Not all the time—I can give you counterexamples. But this is the path of his growth. When he reflects on life and connects with his deepest self, he knows he is not special; he knows his circumstances were special—and a man who can see that can see through hierarchy, honor equality, and express his tender heart.
If Bill was taken with me because of my enthusiasm for life, software, people, puzzles, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, I was taken with him because I saw the soft, tender man inside, hidden at first but clearly emerging—the man who is outraged that some lives are seen as worth saving and others aren’t. You can’t dedicate your life to the principle that all lives have equal value if you think you’re better than others. Bill, at his core, doesn’t think that way at all, and that is one of the qualities I love most in him.
I Wanted It
All these marks of temperament and background suited Bill for an equal partnership. Even so, I think we wouldn’t have moved very far in that direction if I hadn’t made it a priority. Sometimes I asked. Sometimes I had to push.
Let me tell you about the moment I knew I really wanted to be equal partners with Bill at the foundation.
In 2006, Warren Buffett announced the largest single gift anyone ever gave anybody for anything. He committed the bulk of his fortune to our foundation, doubling our endowment and opening up new opportunities for us to invest around the world. We were astounded by his generosity and humbled by his trust. Warren was leaving to Bill and me the decisions about how to spend the money. We were both very excited about what could be accomplished with Warren’s gift, but I also felt overwhelmed by the responsibility of deciding how we would invest his wealth and get a return in lives saved and improved.
The three of us were planning a press conference at the New York Public Library to announce the gift. At the time, Bill was running Microsoft, Warren was running Berkshire Hathaway, and I was focusing on the foundation, traveling extensively to see our programs but still not doing a lot of public speaking. This would be the first press conference I had ever done on behalf of the foundation, and I prepared for it intensely. I thought a lot about what I wanted to say and what I had learned and seen around the world. I wanted to honor Warren and be prepared to talk wisely about what we could do with his money.
At the press conference, Bill, Warren, and I answered a lot of questions in depth. When reporters asked how we planned to expand our work, I had answers. We wanted to invest in improving agricultural yields, I said. We wanted to invest in microlending and in fighting more infectious diseases. When reporters asked for specifics, I gave them, offering lessons from my travels.
That was a turning point for me. I honestly hadn’t realized how passionate I was about the work until I heard myself talking about it in public with Bill and Warren. It seemed obvious to me then that this needed to be an equal partnership. It wasn’t just that I needed it and Bill needed it; the foundation needed it. And that’s when I knew I really wanted it. I never told Warren the effect his gift had on me, but I should have, long ago. He is an incomparable mentor of mine, and his gift sparked a dramatic upturn in my growth.
That press conference had a similar effect on Bill. It made it clear to him, too, that we needed to be equal partners, and that meant I should be making more public speeches. Of course, that also meant that I would have to rely on Bill for guidance, because he had so much more experience as a public figure. He could have been patronizing about that, but he never was; he was always supportive. Frankly, I doubt Bill was very worried about the support I would need after the press conference—because he had met greater needs of mine years earlier when I was giving my first foundation speeches.
One of those early speeches was especially frightening to me. Bill and I were both scheduled to make remarks at the Convention Center in Seattle. I was very uncomfortable speaking about our foundation’s work in those early days, and especially uncomfortable speaking in front of Bill. So I told him, “Look, I really want to do this, but I’m super nervous and I don’t want to give my talk in front of you, so I need you to leave after you speak.”
I laugh when I think back on it, but I was not joking. I knew what I needed! So Bill gave his remarks, discreetly left the hall, got in the car, drove around for fifteen minutes, came back, picked me up, and drove us home. And he didn’t make me feel even a tiny bit embarrassed that I asked him to leave. I never made that request again, but sometimes I told him, “Look, no matter how badly I’m doing, I want you to look like you’re awed by every word.” I was very open with him about how vulnerable I felt, and he never teased me or took advantage of my insecurities. Bill never thought my early feelings of inadequacy had anything to do with my innate ability. He could see the person I was becoming, and he almost always gave me the support I asked for.
There was one time, though, when it wasn’t enough to ask for his help. I had to push.
A few years ago, Bill and I spent an afternoon with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter at their home in Plains, Georgia. A few days afterward, Bill and I were reading books on a beach vacation, and Bill was enjoying Jimmy’s A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety. He started chuckling, and I said, “What’s so funny?” Bill said, “You want to know what caused the biggest fight in their marriage in the last twenty years?” I said, “Yes, I do!” I was super eager to hear it because they’ve been married seventy years and I wanted to know all their secrets. Bill said, “Their biggest fight came when they tried to write a book together.”
I threw my head back in laughter and said, “That makes me feel so much better!” The first time Bill and I sat down to write our Annual Letter together, I thought we were going to kill each other. I felt, “Well, this just might end the marriage right here.”
It started in the fall of 2012, when Bill was beginning work on the Annual Letter that would come out in early 2013. Bill had begun writing an annual letter about the foundation’s work five years earlier. Warren had encouraged us both to do it, but I didn’t feel I had the time then, with three young kids still at home. In 2007, our daughter Phoebe was just getting started in school, Rory was 8, Jenn was 11, and I was busy with other foundation work, so I didn’t join Bill in writing the letter that first year or in the years that followed. He didn’t suggest it. I didn’t think of it. But by 2012, I had become much more active in the foundation, both behind the scenes and in public. That was the year of the London Family Planning Summit, the launch of our movement to increase access to contraceptives to 120 million more women. Naturally, as Bill began drawing up the topics he wanted to address in the letter, family planning was one of them.
I was feeling a keen sense of ownership over this issue, and Bill knew that and supported it. Although we’d agreed that we would not split our duties at the foundation and would both be engaged in all the issues, each of us would take the lead in certain areas based on our knowledge and interest. Family planning was something we agreed I would lead at the time. So if Bill was writing about that in the Annual Letter, shouldn’t we be writing the letter together, or shouldn’t I write that piece of it?
It’s true that the Annual Letter had become Bill’s project, but it was going out on foundation letterhead, through foundation channels, to foundation partners, and he was writing about a foundation project. So I could make a strong case that I should write it with him. There were arguments on his side as well, though, and I had to ask myself—“Do I want to make an issue of this?”
Eventually, I decided I had to bring it up. I didn’t know what would come of it. I didn’t even know what I was going to recommend, but it was bothering me enough that I knew it was wrong not to raise it. S
o Bill and I sat down to talk.
I told him I believed I understood things from his side. I listed all the reasons why he would feel he should write the letter on his own. But I also told him that a lot of the ideas he was going to be writing about were ideas that he and I had learned together, that had come about through the trial and error of the foundation’s work and the successes of our partners in the field. Then I made a more sensitive point. I told him that there are some issues where my voice can make an impact, and in those cases, I should be speaking—separately or along with him. It strengthens my voice, it enhances our partnership, and it advances our goals.
Those were the points I made in our discussion. (I probably didn’t raise them as calmly as I’m making it sound!) Bill said that the process we had for the Annual Letter had been working well for the foundation for years, and he didn’t see why it should change. It got hot. We both got angry. It was a big test for us—not about how you come to agreement, but about what you do when you can’t agree. And we took a long time to agree. Until then, we simmered.
In the end, Bill asked me to write a piece on contraceptives to be included in the letter. So the Annual Letter for 2013 was headlined “2013 Annual Letter from Bill Gates” and included an essay under my name covering my trip to Niger and Senegal and the London summit.
The next year’s Annual Letter was headlined “2014 Gates Annual Letter” and was about “Three Myths That Block Progress for the Poor.” Bill wrote about two of the myths. I wrote about one.
The next year’s Annual Letter was headlined “2015 Gates Annual Letter—Our Big Bet for the Future—Bill and Melinda Gates.”
That completed the evolution of the Annual Letter from his into ours.
There were so many things we did that helped us move forward, and the Annual Letter was a big one, but if I could point to one thing Bill said that captures his deep and intuitive support of an equal partnership, it came a number of years ago when a person close to us asked me if I was the “time cop” in the family. My answer was yes. I was the time cop. I had spent years making sure everything in the house got done, that the kids got dressed, did their homework, and showed up where they needed to be. But things had shifted a fair bit since the early days when that was my duty alone. The kids began to take more responsibility, and so did Bill. So I asked our friend to put that question to Bill to see what he’d say. His answer was subtler than mine, and wiser.
He said, “We try not to have anybody be the time cop for somebody else. We certainly talk about the calendar, but we never want to have something where one of us is cast in the carefree role and the other is in this bothersome role. Better to have it as a mutual challenge.”
That was one of the most affirming messages I’ve heard from Bill about equal partnership. We try to share the roles, especially the disagreeable ones. We try to make sure we don’t make one person do the dirty work. One of the defining features of hierarchy is that you take the powerful and exciting jobs for yourself and impose the crummy tasks on others. That’s a purpose of hierarchy. So when you come together to share the unpleasant work, it’s an attack on hierarchy. Because what’s the point of hierarchy if it’s not getting someone else to do what you don’t want to do? What is hierarchy but a way to escape your share of the responsibilities?
I’ve been surprised when I’ve sometimes found friends assuming that Bill’s and my marriage would have traditional gender roles because of Bill’s role at Microsoft, but he and I have worked hard to shed any hierarchy except for a natural, flexible, alternating hierarchy based on talent, interest, and experience. We’ve agreed that our various roles in life, past or present, should have no effect on an equal partnership in our marriage, or at the foundation.
I Take It Personally
This is the most personal chapter in the book for me, and I found it painful to write. I’m a private person, which I guess is another way of saying I’d rather keep some things to myself so I won’t be judged. There were times when I decided to include something in the book and then was alarmed when I printed it out and reread it. But I’ve left everything in—for two reasons. First, I believe that women gain equality not couple by couple but by changing the culture, and we can change the culture by sharing our stories. That’s why I’m sharing mine.
Second, I’m sharing my stories because it seems false to me to work on issues in the world while pretending I have them solved in my own life. I need to be open about my flaws or I may fall into the conceit of thinking I’m here on earth to solve other people’s problems.
My friend Killian is my teacher in this. I told you about Killian earlier. Her organization, Recovery Café, serves people suffering from homelessness and mental health challenges, and everyone at Recovery Café puts mutually liberating relationships at the heart of their work. Staff, volunteers, and members all participate in small groups that practice knowing and loving each other deeply.
Killian says, “To be known without being loved is terrifying. To be loved without being known has no power to change us. But to be deeply known and deeply loved transforms us.”
She writes about this in her book Descent into Love. Trying to help others while keeping them at a safe distance cannot truly help them or heal us. We have to open up to others. We have to give up the need to be separate and superior. Then we can help. Working on ourselves while working for others is the inner and outer work—where the effort to change the world and the effort to change ourselves come together.
Killian’s insight helped me realize that a big part of the work I do to support women and girls has to be my inner work—facing my own fears and flaws. She helped me see that I cannot stand for gender equality in the world unless I have it in my marriage.
I’ve never held the view that women are better than men, or that the best way to improve the world is for women to gain more power than men. I think male dominance is harmful to society because any dominance is harmful: It means society is governed by a false hierarchy where power and opportunity are awarded according to gender, age, wealth, and privilege—not according to skill, effort, talent, or accomplishments. When a culture of dominance is broken, it activates power in all of us. So the goal for me is not the rise of women and the fall of man. It is the rise of both women and men from a struggle for dominance to a state of partnership.
If the goal is partnership between women and men, why do I put so much emphasis on women’s empowerment and women’s groups? My answer is that we draw strength from each other, and we often have to convince ourselves that we deserve an equal partnership before we get one.
The initiative cannot come only from the man’s side. If it could, it would have already. A man who is dominant is probably not going to say, “Hey, let’s be equal, take some of my power.” But a man might respond to the changing views of other men, or to a woman who asserts her power. Change comes when men see the benefits of women’s power—not just what women can do that men cannot, but a quality of relationship that comes in an equal partnership that cannot come in a hierarchical relationship: a sense of bonding, of belonging, of community, solidarity, and wholeness born of a promise that I will help you when your burdens are high, and you will help me when your burdens are low. These forces create the most rewarding feelings in life—an experience of love and union that is not possible or available to partners who struggle alone. It can turn a hierarchical relationship into an equal one, and it comes from women asserting themselves. That is why we women have to lift each other up—not to replace men at the top of the hierarchy, but to become partners with men in ending hierarchy.
CHAPTER SIX
When a Girl Has No Voice
Child Marriage
On a trip I took nearly twenty years ago to see some of the harshest realities of poverty, I arrived by car at a train station in India. But I wasn’t there to catch a train; I had come to meet the head of a school. It seems a strange place to meet a school head, except that’s where the school was—in the train station, on the
platform. The school was called a train platform school because that’s where it held its classes.
Throughout India there are children who live in and around train stations. Most have run away from abusive homes, and all are very poor. They get money by collecting bottles, scavenging for coins, and picking pockets. Train platform schools are set up to offer an education to these children. The directors of this particular school also ran several shelters, trying to get the children back into their homes whenever possible, and arranging for medical help when the kids were sick. For me, meeting those kids who make their way through the day with very little money or food was a stinging rebuke to the old myth (sadly not yet dead) that the poor are not resourceful, creative, or energetic. These children and their teacher were among the most inventive people I’ve ever met.
The school head greeted me as I got out of the car, and I was immediately taken aback by her manner. She was very high-strung and talked in a high-pitched, fast-paced voice. She must have seen something in my response, because she said, “I’m sorry I’m so agitated. I’m not usually like this. I just got back from rescuing a girl whose family was selling her into prostitution.”
That morning she’d had a call from a man who heard a girl screaming in the house next door. The child was being badly beaten—not by her father but by her husband. She was a child bride who had been given to her husband in a forced marriage. The man who heard the screams then heard the girl’s husband saying that he planned to sell her. That’s why the neighbor had called the school head, and she had just gone to pick up the girl and bring her in.
I asked her why the husband was beating the girl. She explained to me that the girl’s family had given the dowry they had been asked to give, but the groom’s family decided that the dowry wasn’t enough, and they went back to ask for more. The bride’s family didn’t have more money, so the groom’s family got angry and began beating the daughter-in-law. “It happens all the time,” she said.
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