Melinda French Gates on life transitions, tech, and speaking her truth
GeekWire
GeekWire
4.4 • 116 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, Melinda French Gates joins us to discuss her new book, The Next Day, a personal and philosophical reflection on life’s transitions. French Gates opens up about her emotional and spiritual journey of the past few years, the lessons she’s learned from therapy and motherhood, and how she’s now using her full voice through her company, Pivotal Ventures. We talk about her billion-dollar commitment to women’s advancement, the promise and pitfalls of AI, and what it means to pause, reflect, and take action — especially in uncertain times.
Hosted by GeekWire reporter Lisa Stiffler. Audio editing by Curt Milton.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This Geekwire podcast is brought to you by BECU. Stay tuned to the break as Brian Westbrook |
| 0:06.0 | interviews BECU's Stacey Black for today's money hack about strategies for financial planning when your income is irregular. |
| 0:14.0 | For more money hacks, check out geekwire.com slash BECU. |
| 0:20.8 | In computer science and artificial intelligence, we actually have doubled the number of women graduating with computer science degrees since 2017. |
| 0:29.6 | That was something I, with a whole series of partners, set out to do. So we have made progress. |
| 0:36.6 | Now, I have to say to myself, |
| 0:38.1 | what's realistic? How much more progress do I expect, right? But I just know when I leave this |
| 0:43.6 | earth, I want the world to somehow be better for women, for my grandchildren than it is today. |
| 0:58.6 | Thank you. children than it is today. Welcome to Geekwire. I'm Geekwire reporter Lisa Stifler. |
| 1:02.5 | Melinda French Gates's new book, The Next Day, is a personal journey through the hard times |
| 1:07.5 | and challenges that she has faced in life and how she managed and the |
| 1:11.3 | truths that she discovered from the experiences. Melinda starts with a small hurdle, getting reprimanded |
| 1:17.5 | by a priest for wearing pink nail polish in her Catholic elementary school. She shares her journey |
| 1:23.0 | through motherhood and her professional life. A particularly emotional chapter describes the loss of a close |
| 1:29.2 | friend to cancer. She also writes about coming to her decision to divorce Bill Gates and the |
| 1:35.2 | importance that meditation and therapy played in finding her way. And the book ends with ruminations |
| 1:41.7 | on how to live well. |
| 1:49.9 | Melinda French Gates was educated as a computer scientist, and as the head of Pivotal Ventures is a philanthropist, investor, and advocate for equity for women. |
| 1:55.4 | The next day is Melinda's second book, after her 2019 publication of The Moment of Lift. I spoke with her recently in advance of |
| 2:03.3 | the release of her new book. Melinda French Gates, thank you so much for taking the time for chatting |
| 2:08.8 | about your new book the next day. I really enjoyed it. I really found that this book was much more |
| 2:13.9 | personally revealing than the moment of Lyft, which I also really enjoyed. |
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