52 InSTYLE FEBRUARY 2019The Gates Way
BADASS WOMEN
ward in the world.” With the largest private foundation on
earth, she and her husband have done just that by donating a
staggering $46 billion since its inception in 2000. Her proud-
est accomplishment is immunizing over 690 million kids for
diseases like measles through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
But Gates’s latest project tackles an issue even closer to her
heart: Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation com-
pany, partners with female- and minority-focused busi-
nesses li ke Fema le Fou nders Fu nd a nd A spect Vent u res to
propel more women into tech nolog y ca reers. “ Those a re
amazing jobs, and technology is only going to become more
pervasive,” she says. “I want women to have a seat at the table
and be the creators of that future.”
Gates owes her drive to a nun at her all-girls Catholic high
school, who encouraged her to learn to program before it was
popular. At Duke University, where Gates studied computer
science, economics, and then business, she often found herself
on all-male coding teams, but by junior year, she was running
them. And though asserting herself in the rough-and-tumble
ma le-centr ic tech industr y proved tr ick y at fi rst , Gates ma n-
aged just fine.“I know how to be persuasive, have a backbone. I
can play that game, but I didn’t really like it,” she says. “I had to
learn how to be myself in this culture and see if I could suc-
ceed.” She became a project manager in 1987 at Microsoft,
where she worked on Microsoft Bob, Microsoft Encarta, and
Expedia, and, of course, eventually met Bill.
These days Gates uses her voice, even when that means fac-
ing opposition from her inner circle. Much to the consterna-
tion of the Catholic Church, she has
overseen $1.2 billion in spending on
family planning, which includes im-
proving access to birth control. Gates
stands firm by supporting her beliefs
with data, which is also how she best
explains her vision for womankind
to her husband, who is open-minded
but occasionally struggles to relate
to certain women’s issues. “He doesn’t always take my word
as the gospel truth—that would be nice,” she laughs. “Some-
times I have to say, ‘I need you to trust me.’” And he does.
At her home outside Seattle, Gates recharges by ditching a
to-do list to focus on the present, a skill she learned from her
oldest. “[When] Jen was little, I’d flown off to God knows where
to meet women out in fields and do world-stage events—you
could come home a little full of yourself,” Gates says. “I showed
up at home in my suit, and Jen shunned me for a few hours.”
Gates realized she needed to reset, something she now man-
dates with a “shutting the doors” policy over the holidays. “Jen
would wait on our mudroom floor with a book, and if I sat down
in my yoga pants and read to her, then I was back in her world.”
The image of a billionaire in stretchy pants, huddled with
her child on the floor, may seem incongruous, but not for
Gates. She thrives on a nurturing, positive energy that suits
her poetic definition of success: “To know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived,” she says, smiling.
“This is to have succeeded.” —SHALAYNE PULIA
MELINDA GATES WAS BORN A BADASS. NOW SHE’S
OPENING DOORS FOR OTHER WOMEN TO SUCCEED
F
or someone whose schedule is planned to a tee a
yea r in adva nce, losing 18 minutes to New York
City traffic can feel like an eternity. But it’ll take
more tha n g r id lock to r u ffle Melinda Gates,
co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. In a bright orange blazer, black
pants, and pointy-toe kitten heels, she saunters into our
meeting at the Four Seasons and offers a quick handshake
while an aide checks her watch. Clock’s ticking.
The wife of Microsoft’s founder and mother of three (to Jen-
nifer, 22, Rory, 19, and Phoebe, 16) is the consummate multi-
tasker, balancing parent-teacher conferences and family
dinners with calls from world leaders to address issues like
polio and poverty. “That’s one of the things we underestimate
about women in the business world,” she says. “We spend our
whole lives juggling, which is badass or kick-ass—I like either.”
Gates, 54, has gotten good at being a badass, or, as she puts
it, “someone who goes for it, does what she thinks is right,
and uses her talents and voice to make those things come for-