Melinda French Gates says IBM manager’s advice led her to take a chance on a ‘little company’ - Microsoft

In an interview with LinkedIn News in March, Melinda recalled receiving a full-time job offer from IBM after completing two summer internships there, according to Business Insider.

"My hiring manager at IBM, a female, said to me, 'OK, are you ready to accept the job offer?' I was in person with her, and I said: 'Well, I have one more company to go interview. This little company, Microsoft.' It was tiny," she said.

"And she said, 'If they give you an offer, you should take it.' And it dumbfounded me. Here's this woman who's supposed to be my manager, giving me a piece of career advice, and so when I did get that offer from Microsoft, I really took that to heart," she added.

Bill Gates and ex-wife Melinda French Gates. Photo courtesy of Melinda's Instagram

Melinda joined Microsoft as a product manager in 1987 after graduating from Duke University's business school.

"This is going to be a bit scary. I didn't know anybody in Seattle. It was moving to the West Coast, but I was so excited about what they were doing. I was like, 'I want to be part of that,’" the 60-year-old philanthropist said.

She worked at the company for nearly a decade, eventually becoming general manager overseeing Microsoft’s information products.

She met Bill Gates, then Microsoft’s CEO, at a sales meeting in New York City in 1987, where he later asked her out in a parking lot. The couple dated for six years before Gates proposed in 1993. They married in Hawaii the following year.

In 1996, she left Microsoft to become a stay-at-home mother, a decision she said "surprised" the tech mogul, as reported by People magazine.

The couple divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage. They have three children: Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe Gates.

Melinda now focuses on philanthropy through Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company she launched in 2015 to promote women’s rights and gender equality.