Melinda French Gates on what billionaires with 'absurd' wealth owe back to society

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is Melinda French Gates. Five years ago, she stood at a crossroads. After 27 years of marriage to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, she decided to walk away, not only from a relationship that it defined much of her adult life, but eventually the philanthropic empire they built together. Last spring, Melinda left the Gates Foundation, the organization that had become the heartbeat of her professional identity. In her new book, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, And Moving Forward," Gates reflects on these seismic shifts, not just the end of her marriage or the reinvention of her public life, but the deeply personal evolution that came with those transitions. She takes us inside the moments that have defined her - becoming a mother, grieving the loss of one of her best friends, and grappling with the hard-earned lessons of philanthropy.

Melinda French Gates is the co-founder and former co-chair of the Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable organization. She's also the founder of Pivotal Ventures, which focuses on social progress for women and families in the United States. Melinda French Gates, welcome to FRESH AIR.

MELINDA FRENCH GATES: Thanks for having me, Tonya.

MOSLEY: Melinda, I want to talk for a moment about your philanthropic work because we all have been hearing about the ripple effects of the Trump administration's funding cuts. And I know that philanthropy is such a tightly interwoven web that often works in collaboration with the government to fund initiatives. How are these cuts affecting the work that you do?

FRENCH GATES: Well, the cuts of things like USAID are absolutely devastating for families all over the world. I mean, let's be honest - women will not have access to maternal health services because of these cuts. Everything, you know, that philanthropy does is we try and find catalytic wedges and ways to work. We take risk where government can't with taxpayer money and shouldn't, but then once we know something works, it's really up to government to scale it up. So to see that women won't have health services or there'll be more cases of malaria next year, it's just - it's almost unimaginable to me, especially given that, you know, both Republican and Democratic administrations really relied on USAID and not only saw the good work that it was doing but started to scale it up even more. It's why we actually have less death and disease in the world. So it just makes no sense to me.

MOSLEY: How are you thinking about where to focus your energy? I know that over the last few years with Pivotal Ventures, you've really been focusing on women's health and reproductive rights. And so this has to have an impact on the ways that you all are able to make impact.

FRENCH GATES: To know right now in the United States that my two beautiful little granddaughters will have fewer rights than I had growing up, that just doesn't make any sense to me. And so, in some ways, it makes my work all the more pressing. And I'm still doing what I have been doing. I'm putting more money, though, now into women's health. I made a billion-dollar commitment when I came out of the foundation that through Pivotal Ventures, we would try and really work on some of these places where organizations, for instance, in the United States, had been playing defense in terms of women's issues to help put them on the offense. But also we announced 250 million of that is for women's health fund, and we're taking proposals from all over the world to figure out what are ways that we can really advance women's health across the world.

MOSLEY: Is it a chaotic line of work in this moment? Because you're dealing with new information that's coming out, laws that are passed, changes, cuts. All of these things put so much of your work in flux.

FRENCH GATES: You know, where it's the most chaotic and devastating is when you go out on the ground. So I was down in Louisiana about a month ago, and to hear that doctors don't even know which services they can provide women, you know, what can they counsel on? What can they not counsel on? Women who are very concerned about their health, saying, I can't have another baby, but, you know, where am I going to get birth control? Or, wow, I show up at the system and the bias in the system - they're not even listening to what I know about my own body.

So to think that we are doing things from the highest level right now in the United States that are making things worse on the ground for moms and babies, it just - it's almost incomprehensible. I mean, to have a child - two children now - die of measles, measles in the United States - wow - when that is completely preventable, do you know how devastating that is for those families? That's where the chaos is, and that's where the saddest part of what's going on is happening.

MOSLEY: One of the things that is very clear in this book is it's a reminder that really no amount of wealth can really protect us from the human experiences of grief and divorce. And I'm sure you often encounter people who treat you like your money shields you from those life's hardships. I've just always wondered, how do you navigate that tension of what to share and what to withhold, knowing that someone like you is viewed that way?

FRENCH GATES: Well, I think we all want authentic, real connection with other human beings, right? And we can't - you know, we can't really know more than - I don't know, they say maybe a hundred people, hundred - some people say a hundred and fifty. But, you know, I know who my closest family and friends are. I treasure them. They treasure me. I know who's kind of in my next ring and my ring beyond that. But I do want audiences to see that, you know, great wealth does not shield you.

I have an absurd amount of wealth, and I'm doing my very best to give it away in the way that I think can benefit society from my lens on society. But what I want people to know is that I'm a human being, and they may put a label on me, but that label doesn't really define who I am. I know who I am. And so by being my authentic self, I hope they can see, OK, she's gone through struggles and hardship, too, but come out the other side, and so maybe I can, as well.

MOSLEY: You grew up in a middle-class family in Dallas, Texas. Your dad, what a role model for you. He was an aerospace engineer. Your mom stayed home to care for you and your siblings. Your father really had an influence on your career aspirations. You write about how this wasn't just conceptual. You all would get to see and hear conversations about his work through visitors who would come to your house. What memory sticks out to you the most?

FRENCH GATES: Well, one of - my dad would often talk at the dinner table about how his teams - he was working on the Apollo mission - and how his teams were better when they had females on them, female mathematicians. And so as the teams would change and be reconstructed, he was always trying to get women onto his team. And so for me, this played out because we would go in the summer to the company picnics. And my dad would make sure my sister and I met those women. So we met not only the men on his teams, but we met the women.

And I could see, literally see women in these roles, smart women that I admired and who I could talk to. And I would say, oh, OK, I guess my dad's right here. And so that played out for me as an influence of, oh, I could be like her if I wanted to be. And that was - having that role model, having both a father who believed in me and parents who were both determined that their children would all go to college and that they would take on the debt, which was, you know, a huge gift to us as siblings. But then to have these role models specifically in front of my eyes, that really had a huge influence on me.

MOSLEY: Your father - he showed you all role models, of course, but he also - he really invested in your - you and your sister's dreams in a way that - I mean, it really is somewhat novel for that timeframe in the '60s and '70s. What do you think was different about your dad and his outlook on what women do and what they could do?

FRENCH GATES: I think, again, because he had lived experience, he could see that, OK, this engineering project - like, putting a man on the moon - that is audacious, and he was a piece of it, right? But to see that his teams literally were better because these women were on it - he had a lived experience to say, this could be great for my daughters and for society. And my dad wasn't afraid to speak up. He encouraged us to speak up, even when he (ph) didn't necessarily agree with him.

But he also believed in us. And I think that - I cannot stress enough the importance a father's imprint makes on a daughter. Like, my dad, literally, I - we were walking as a family. We would often go out to lunch on a Sunday and then take a walk, and we were literally walking by this new IBM building at this sort of beautiful office park. And my dad, as we walked by, literally said, Melinda, you should put your resume up on that door. You should tape it up on the door. And I said, Dad, what are you talking about? He said, They would be silly not to hire you.

And he could see in me and my sister what I couldn't see myself, which was, OK, you're in college, you're getting a computer science degree. There aren't very many of you, and so they should want to hire you. And, guess what? He was right. I eventually did get hired by IBM.

MOSLEY: There's also these really small things that he did. You tell one story in particular in the book that really on the face of it - it's a very - like, a small story - meaning, like, it's a very day-to-day interaction you might have, a situation that might come up - that really had an imprint on you, though, and it involved nail polish in the Catholic school that you went to. Can you tell that story?

FRENCH GATES: (Laughter) Sure. We were quite involved as a family in our local parish, church and school, and they were attached to one another. And so the head of the school was a female, was a principal, a nun. The head of the church was a male. The priests were all males. And somewhat frequently, the priests would come over and make sure that all the rules were being followed. So, you know, our - our skirts as girls had to be, you know, so far from the floor when you knelt down. OK, fine.

But anyway, they had this rule that you couldn't have nail polish on, and I wasn't trying to be rebellious. I don't remember. But I put some sort of light, clear, pink nail polish on some point during the weekend, trying to look presentable. And so there we are. I think it's on a Monday or Tuesday, and they come around, and all the girls have to put - not the boys - all the girls have to put their hands on the table. And the priests come around and see who has nail polish on. And I literally didn't think I was going to be in trouble 'cause here I am...

MOSLEY: They couldn't see it. Yeah.

FRENCH GATES: ... with clear, pink nail polish on. And sure enough, I get tapped on the shoulder and sent to the principal's office. Well, principal, secretary, whatever, calls home to my mom, and the rule was that my mom - and the other moms - had to come to school with nail polish remover. Well, my mom had two young sons at home. So she had to get in the car, get them in the car, drive to the school, you know. We took care of it.

I go home that afternoon or that evening. And when my father comes home and he hears the story, he is incensed. Not at me - he's like, OK, what's the big deal about nail polish, clear nail polish? - but that the priests would have the audacity to pull the girls out of class for a rule infraction but have our - take our mom's time away to come to the school to take care of it. It's a different thing to say, go home and take the nail polish home at the end of the day - off, and come back the next day. And so my dad had my back and my mom's back and said just because these men - he's basically saying - have the power doesn't mean it's right.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Melinda French Gates. We're discussing her new book, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

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MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today we're talking to philanthropist Melinda French Gates. Her new book, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward," reflects on the defining moments of her life - motherhood, grief, philanthropy and her divorce after 27 years of marriage. She's the co-founder and former co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the founder of Pivotal Ventures, which focuses on advancing opportunities for women and families in the United States.

Your mom never got to go to college, but she wanted to.

FRENCH GATES: She did. And her parents just - she grew up in a day and age where her parents had two girls, and they just didn't see the need for her to go to college. She certainly could have gone, and - you know, and she ended up regretting that. She took some college classes later. My mom is plenty smart. And later, my parents start a family real estate business, and my mom is the one - I mean, they're both running it at night, but it's my mom running it during the day and making sure all the pieces come together of all the various properties they have and tenants and laws and all of that. So - but she and my dad were determined that both their two girls and their two boys would go through college 'cause they just thought it really was a ticket in life to go where you wanted.

MOSLEY: One of the things that you really admired about your mom, of course, is that she was a great mother. But she, through example, taught you also how to be a great mother. So you have these two big examples in your life of how to be as you move through the world. But one of the best pieces of advice you write that your mother gave you was to set your own agenda or someone else will do it for you. And I was wondering, what is a time when you had to really put that advice to the test?

FRENCH GATES: Well, I'll say, when I was working at the Foundation (laughter). You know, I started to see through all my travels the difference that - when a woman could space the births of her children, it made an enormous difference in the children's health and being able to go to school and then, ultimately, the wealth of the family. And yet, I would meet so many women around the world who knew about contraceptives but didn't have access.

And I - and as I started to learn and study about it and think - is this the right thing for us to do as a foundation? - I learned the history of contraceptives and when women had had them, and under what circumstances, and when they hadn't. And I realized we needed to do something about this as a foundation. And so I decided, on the global stage, I'm going to set the agenda, because for whatever reason this has fallen off the global health agenda, and yet it's vital for women and for babies. We were losing - we still are - too many moms in childbirth because their babies were coming too close and too often, particularly in these low-income countries, and then the babies were dying as well.

MOSLEY: It's really interesting in this moment that what was seen as a soft issue is now almost the opposite of that. You're fighting against many headwinds as divestment in women's issues is really, like, at the center of government funding cuts and lots of other cuts and laws.

FRENCH GATES: Yes, and I always say, you know, what is it that we value as society? Don't we value our children and our babies? If you value our children and our babies, don't their mothers need to be healthy? We know a mom is healthier when she can space the births of her children. So to me, it's that, you know, we are getting some of our values misaligned right now, and they aren't the values that I hold dear, and I don't think they're the values that most families hold dear. To me, we need to really think about our values and align our government funding with those values. And we seem to be headed in the wrong direction, in my point of view, on those issues right now.

MOSLEY: Speaking of values, earlier when you said you've been trying your best to give your money away, I chuckled at that. But I only chuckled because it just sounds funny, you know? But when you're a billionaire, right, you can't really ever give all your money away. And just a few days ago, Abigail Disney - she's the granddaughter of Walt Disney - she said in an interview that anyone who can't live off of 999 million is a sociopath. And of course, I thought about you because you've been saying this in not so many words for a really long time, that it's important to give your wealth away, that you could never really spend it in your lifetime, you or your family. But here's a question. You've been trying to convince other billionaires to give away the majority of their wealth for many years now, and I always wanted to know, how successful has that been?

FRENCH GATES: Well, it's interesting. You know, when we started out with the Giving Pledge, which was Warren Buffett's big idea that for society, it was right that if you had earned $1 billion - which I completely agree, if you have $1 billion, you have an absurd amount of wealth. And so you should give at least half of it back to society because you have benefited from society. You've benefited from those laws or those roads or the people that helped you along the way to get that scholarship into the college you wanted to go to. You have benefited from that society.

And so we set out to role model for society with the Giving Pledge - founded by Warren Buffett, my ex-husband Bill Gates and myself - to say if you're of this level of wealth, join us and commit to giving half away. Neither of us, none of the three of us would've thought that we would have, you know, over 240 families now that are part of the Giving Pledge. And we have not just first-generation givers, but now we have second- and some third-generation givers. And so they're also in countries - I think it's over 30 countries now from around the world. So we just didn't expect that it would grow that large.

And I will tell you, there are ripple effects and knock-on effects where they are also convincing others, even others who aren't of as substantial means, right? And what I always say to people is, no matter who you are - the nuns in my high school taught us this as girls - you have something to give back. You know, they sent us out in society to volunteer our time. My only point is we all have things to give back, our time, our energy, our intellect and/or our money. And I think that we should all look for ways to do that. And guess what? The funny thing is you also benefit from it. It's just an unbelievable kind of side benefit.

MOSLEY: Our guest today is Melinda French Gates. We'll continue after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

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MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. Today, we're joined by philanthropist Melinda French Gates, who has just released a new book titled, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward." In it, she reflects on the pivotal moments that have shaped her life - becoming a mother, mourning the loss of her best friend, and learning the complex truths of philanthropy, and navigating a public divorce after 27 years of marriage. Melinda French Gates is the co-founder and former co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private charitable organization in the world. She's also the founder of Pivotal Ventures, an initiative dedicated to advancing social progress for women and families across the U.S.

I know you get this question a lot, but how did you ground your children? You have three of them. They're all grown now. They're all in the world. How did you raise them not to be spoiled brats?

FRENCH GATES: Thank you for that question. It - you know, I knew when they were growing up that again, this was just, you know, a crazy amount of wealth and that they were, you know, going to grow up in this extraordinarily large house. And so the only thing I knew to do was to say, OK, what was my childhood? What were the middle-class values my parents had? What things did they - I really reflected on how they parented me, both the things that I wanted to repeat and a few things I didn't want to repeat, right? And in reflecting on that - it was in a parenting class that I was taught this - I could then say, OK, how should I raise these kids? If I'm going to raise them to the best of my ability, I wanted them to know they were loved. I wanted them to have deep values, and I wanted them to know they were lucky, right?

And so I purposely put them in schools. I didn't homeschool them because - or have them home schooled because I wanted to be part of the community. I thought it would benefit them, and they did go through some knocks. We did also as a family. Being in and out of different schools in and around Seattle, we were in and out of many different schools 'cause I believed in choosing the right school for the right kid.

But I also took them out into the community. And I took them out - even when they were lucky enough to travel to, you know, a place like Africa - we went out and saw what life was like for other kids. And even in the Seattle community, you know, we would go out and work with the homeless, work in a community shelter, be on the lines where they're feeding people. And so, my kids got to see, my gosh, are we lucky, and to really think about their role in society.

And as I would take them on trips, one of my daughters, my youngest one, actually worked in Rwanda for three or four, I think, summers, during her high - during her middle school and some of her high school years and lived with a family in Rwanda. And so, you know, my kids got to see what life was like and that Seattle was this tiny speck on the map. And so I tried to ground them in that, ground them with chores, ground them with an allowance, you know? And the people who were helping me in and around the house - you know, also people just with good values. So I did my best, and, yeah, I'm proud of all three of them. They're all in their 20s now.

MOSLEY: Your ex-husband, Bill, has said that the kids will receive less than 1% of the family fortune. Was that something that you all let them know early in their lives?

FRENCH GATES: OK, that quote, I literally just heard today 'cause I guess he said it on some podcast.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

FRENCH GATES: (Laughter) So I really don't have a comment on that 'cause I'm not even sure what his 1% of - what amount that is now.

MOSLEY: 'Cause there's so much there, huh? Yeah, it's like, what - what is he talking about?

FRENCH GATES: Well, I don't know.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

FRENCH GATES: I mean, I have no idea. Tariffs - I have no idea what his wealth is today or yesterday when he said that, so I'm just going to let that one sit.

MOSLEY: You know, I listened to your daughter Phoebe's new podcast about start-up life. Have you listened to it?

FRENCH GATES: Of course, "The Burnouts." I've listened to both episodes. (Laughter) Yeah.

MOSLEY: Well, one of the things that struck me was how grounded she seemed. And in the episode that I was listening to - I think it was actually the first one - she mentioned casually how she's a child of divorce. And hearing her say that, it was just a reminder, I mean, of the obvious, but it was a reminder of how divorce is actually a big life transition for everyone. How did your kids help you through the divorce?

FRENCH GATES: Well, what I'll say about divorce - and I wrote about it in the book because I felt it would be disingenuous of me not to. People knew we - I had been through it and we had been through it. You know, what I will say about divorce is it's just painful for everybody involved. There were five of us - right? - two adults and three children. And it's really not something I would wish on any family. You're pulling apart something that has been together. But the stories about how it affected my kids or they affected me, those are ones for us to keep in private between them and us because it just was a painful time. And I don't want to dig that back up for them because they had their own journeys through it, right?

MOSLEY: Yeah. I mean, something else that you touch on around this very dark period in your life - and it was just a reminder - is that sometimes these kinds of transitions are over years, you know? I think we learned about your divorce, of course, when it was announced. But you write about how you found that, about 10 years before your divorce, you lost your center, that you lost your inner voice in a way, that strong voice that you had when you were a young girl in Catholic school that you were talking about earlier, just sitting in that and sitting in the quiet and the answers coming to you. Why do you think that was and, and what did that look like during that time period when you couldn't hear yourself?

FRENCH GATES: Well, I started to regain my voice as - when I - we were talking earlier about traveling the world and meeting women and realizing, wow, I have something I really want to do here, which is contraceptives. And I gained my voice in pulling the Foundation together when the Foundation was on one trajectory, and I had to say, we're also going to do this, right? And pulling the people together, getting the data, doing the research, finding out where there was and wasn't research, and then leading this global charge - I realized in doing that, oh, I have regained my voice. And so then I had to kind of go back and look and say, well, what was it? Where did I not feel I could speak out? Where did I enter a room, and I was still put down, even though I was the head of a Foundation, right?

And I talk about this, too, and I have before publicly, where, you know, I'd go into a room with a prime minister or president, and they would immediately turn to my ex-husband as if he was the expert on the Foundation when, in fact, he was still working at Microsoft, and I'd been traveling more. So I think in all of those sort of moments that happen or those sleights, you start to lose - or I started to lose who I was. But then in doing the work and really stepping out and having the courage to step out for something that was hard because I was also Catholic, I started to regain my voice and say, no, no, no, no, no. This voice is really important. And it's something I want to use, and use it boldly, in the world.

MOSLEY: When you say you were Catholic and it was hard, what do you mean by that?

FRENCH GATES: Well, I grew up in a church that was extraordinarily hierarchical, as I said earlier, run by priests. The women were all nuns. But, you know, the Catholic Church does not believe in birth control, and yet I do (laughter). I know the difference it makes for women all over the world. And so I had to really wrestle with my faith, this faith that has, as I came to, you know, really wrestle with it, these man-made rules. You know, a woman should not use a contraceptive? So does that outweigh the fact that she might die or her child might die?

Like, I had to really spend time in quiet and wrestle with that. And I read a lot of different theologians. I literally had a couple of scholars from Notre Dame come teach me how had the Catholic Church gotten to this position over time. I read a lot and listened a lot to Richard Rohr, who is a quite liberal Catholic priest, and had to form my own point of view because I knew what I felt was right. But I was living in a religion that was telling me, you know, thou shalt not use contraceptives, and yet I was using them, and I believed in them, and I believed other women should absolutely have access to them. So I had to, what I call, wrestle with my own faith and those rules.

MOSLEY: What's your relationship with Catholicism today? What's your relationship with the church?

FRENCH GATES: I still go to church some, certainly not as frequently as I did when I was growing up. But for me, really what I've come to learn is that there are different religions around the world, but really they come down to do you have a spirituality? Do you have a sense of values? Do you have a morality that you believe in? To me that's the essence really, is the spirituality. And then, OK, the rules are, you know, somewhat man-made by other people.

And so I am today in two different spiritual groups - I write about these in the book - one that I've been with for over 20 years. We go on silent retreats together. We meet monthly. I just met with them yesterday. We'll go on silent retreat in May. And then another, smaller spiritual group that's a little bit more new. But we are - both are nondenominational groups, but we're all reading the same texts, reading different books that we bring, talking about topics that help us explore our own spirituality, and quite frankly, even our own mortality because that's important to do as well. And I've really benefited from those groups.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Melinda French Gates. We're discussing her new book "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, And Moving Forward." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

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MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, we're talking to Melinda French Gates about her new book, "The Next Day," which is a reflection on motherhood, grief, philanthropy and life after divorce. Gates is the former cochair of the Gates Foundation and founder of Pivotal Ventures, which is focused on advancing women and families.

I want to go back to your childhood because growing up middle class in Dallas, Texas, you were pretty far into adulthood when you became wealthy, so you remember a very significant time period in your life when you were not wealthy. What was your relationship like, growing up, to money and material things?

FRENCH GATES: Well, luckily, I knew a lot about money because my parents were running this real estate business, as I said, which was our college fund, to put us four kids through college. My dad and mom had bought this Apple III computer for our house, and we used the spreadsheet, and my sister and I put in all the entries. We could see what rent was coming in. We could see what money was going out the door for repairs. We could see where my parents, you know, had lost a deposit. And so I totally knew the flows of money, and I could see when they were going to have trouble, meaning that I knew what their loan that they'd taken out on some of these places were.

So I could see the months it was going to be tough for them to meet that loan payment, right? But we didn't, certainly - and as a family, we worked really, really hard. Like, I was told that when by my parents - all of us were, as siblings - that the day you cross stage and you're done with college, you're on your own. Like, that's it (laughter). So, you know, buying your first car, that's going to be up to you. You know, getting your first apartment, we'll help you find it, but you got to pay the rent, not us. And so I was always earning money in high school and in college in preparation for that. And I was earning money to my own spending money in college, and that just felt great.

And then, you know, if I wanted something nice, you know, I had - let's say I wanted a new dress or a nice dress, I really had to wait for Christmas or birthdays. And there's nothing wrong in waiting. I taught that to my kids, too. They didn't just get things they wanted. They had to put it on their Christmas wish list. And maybe they'd get it from their grandparents or their parents or their aunts and uncles, or maybe they wouldn't. And same for their birthday. You know, it wasn't just, oh, you always got these new things.

MOSLEY: That's so interesting because, you know, like, for people who don't have a lot of money, like, they can actually say something like, well, we can't afford this. And that would be enough to then shut it down. But you could never say that to your kids. So you had to set up another set of, like, parameters to make sure that they understood that they just couldn't buy anything they wanted, even though they really could.

FRENCH GATES: Right. And I remember a very specific time that first came up. It was with my oldest daughter, and she was in middle school. And she saw this purse, you know, in the window of a store that she just had to have. Had to have. And she said to me, why won't you buy it? Like, you can clearly afford it. And I came up with this phrase - just because you can, doesn't mean you should. And I said, you know, if you show up at school with that particular branded purse, what are the other girls going to think of you? How will they think of you? Like, it's my job as your mom - I know you want it - but to think through those things with you and for you. And, you know, those are not easy conversations, but they're really important ones to have.

And then the other thing I'll just say about money is, you know, I was incredibly fortunate. I joined Microsoft when it was a very young company, less than, you know, 1,500 employees. And so I felt really good about earning my own money. I remember my first furniture set for my apartment. I put one piece back then on lay-away 'cause I didn't want to, like, put all my money out...

MOSLEY: Yes.

FRENCH GATES: ... for the furniture right away, but I felt good about earning my own money. And then, again, because the company rose up so quickly, and they gave us stock options back then, you know, I had my own wealth before I got married, and that was also just an incredibly good feeling. And I was very proud of that. And I managed that money quite well. I ended up, you know, buying a small house for myself and buying - my first car was a Honda Prelude, which - and then my second car was a bit nicer, right? And that just feels good when you're - as a woman - managing your own independent wealth.

MOSLEY: What's a belief you held at the start of your journey as a philanthropist that maybe now you understand to be completely wrong?

FRENCH GATES: I mistakenly thought that philanthropy could change things more than it could. I didn't realize that it takes philanthropy in concert with civil society and government - massive government funding to change things. So if you want to, you know - if you really want to affect children's lives around the world and get vaccines out, that takes enormous government funding. Philanthropy cannot do it on its own. If you want to affect, you know, maternal health around the world, you really have to have philanthropy, again, taking on the experiments, trying things, figuring out what works, doing the research, But then it really takes government funding to scale those things up.

So I learned that, and I learned also very much the power of the collective. Like, I just did not understand how much power there is when a group bands together to stand up for something that's wrong. And I learned that being out in many, many situations with women that, when they banded together as a group, they could stand for their rights. They could demand the government come in and build the health clinic. It was just something I had never understood or known before. And I don't - I think it would have taken me longer to learn that had I not been in philanthropy and, again, gone to travel and see it in action in so many different cultures around the world.

MOSLEY: Melinda, I really appreciate your time and this book. Thank you so much.

FRENCH GATES: Thanks for having me, Tonya.

MOSLEY: Melinda French Gates is the founder of Pivotal Ventures. Her new book is "The Next Day."

Coming up, our TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new season of "Black Mirror." This is FRESH AIR.

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TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. "Black Mirror," the futuristic anthology series, presented its seventh season last week, streaming all six new episodes, including a feature-length sequel to one of the most popular episodes. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: The more I see of "Black Mirror," the more episodes that arrive season after season, the more I think of creator Charlie Brooker's futuristic fantasy series as a TV miracle. I look forward to every new batch of episodes, but because of my pessimistic personality flaw, I always start watching with trepidation that this new season is the one that finally will let me down. Well, Season 7 just dropped on Netflix last week, and once again, "Black Mirror" didn't let me down. In fact, it lifted me up.

"Black Mirror" is an anthology series, which means virtually anything can happen in any episode because the main character doesn't have to come back for the next one. And when I say virtually anything, I mean that literally, because several episodes of "Black Mirror" involve virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other high-tech, borderline futuristic concerns. "Black Mirror" is our modern day "Twilight Zone," a much better and more consistent version of Rod Serling's classic series than the recent Jordan Peele reboot ever was. But it's also a modern callback to the 1960s series "Outer Limits" and to Kurt Vonnegut's stories adapted by Showtime cable a generation ago.

Charlie Brooker and his team love twist endings and nonconformist characters and new technology, but they also love old movies and television shows. And in this new season of "Black Mirror," that's more apparent than ever. There's one episode, "Eulogy," in which Paul Giamatti plays a man who searches for clues in a series of photographs, like the photographer in Antonioni's classic '60s movie "Blow-Up," except new technology allows Giamatti's character to step inside the photographs and explore them from within.

Similarly, in another episode, "Hotel Reverie," Issa Rae plays a movie star who's cast in a remake of a vintage British film, except, thanks to a sophisticated artificial intelligence program, she's inserted into the existing old movie to interact directly with those characters. It's a new tech twist on the step-into-the-screen premise explored previously by Woody Allen in "The Purple Rose Of Cairo" 40 years ago and by Buster Keaton in "Sherlock Jr." more than a hundred years ago.

And the first-ever sequel to a "Black Mirror" episode arrives this season with a new chapter of "USS Callister," a delightful yet chilling story about a computer programmer who creates his own artificial universe based on a TV series very, very much like the original "Star Trek." But my favorite installment of this new season, "Common People," doesn't draw from old movies or TV for inspiration. Instead, it draws from our shared experiences in real life with real technology. "Black Mirror" has been around since 2011, and by now, it's built up its own familiar technology and look. So when it sets a show in the near present, just a few years away, it doesn't have to keep reinventing the futuristic wheel.

Characters in many different episodes use the same immersive technology to play games or step into movies and photos. And there's even a streaming company like Netflix that pops up under a different name, as it did last season. "Common People" stars Chris O'Dowd and Rashida Jones as Mike and Amanda, a happily married couple. Happily, that is, until a medical trauma leaves her brain-dead. Tracee Ellis Ross, a sales representative for a new high-tech company, offers him a chance to revive his wife's brain functions by connecting her to a cloud-based service that can use its massive database to keep her functioning.

Of course, he signs up, especially since the lifesaving service is offered at a low introductory rate. Things seem wonderful at first. But when the couple goes on a road trip, Amanda blacks out suddenly and almost dies because the company has revised its coverage patterns. As the company spokesperson politely explains, the couple will have to pay extra to rise to a higher tier of service. Sound familiar? Of course it does, to anyone who's subscribed to just about any streaming network. But in this new medical context, it also sounds both wryly comic and extremely chilling.

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TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: (As Gaynor) As you can see, we will be extending our coverage all over North America.

CHRIS O'DOWD: (As Mike) So we can travel?

RASHIDA JONES: (As Amanda) Yeah.

ROSS: (As Gaynor) Yes, if you upgrade, then absolutely you can travel.

JONES: (As Amanda) And if we don't?

ROSS: (As Gaynor) Then you just stay within your existing coverage range.

JONES: (As Amanda) So you're saying that we have to upgrade to plus if we want to leave the county?

ROSS: (As Gaynor) Right, yep.

O'DOWD: (As Mike) That's not what you said when we signed up. You said it was just going to roll out everywhere.

ROSS: (As Gaynor) Yes, it is, with Rivermind+. That's what this is. This is the rollout.

O'DOWD: (As Mike) How much is the plus?

ROSS: (As Gaynor) So it is $500 a month on top of the existing package, so $800 in total.

JONES: (As Amanda) Eight hundred bucks a month?

ROSS: (As Gaynor) Yeah.

JONES: (As Amanda) We can't afford that. That's not - we can't...

ROSS: (As Gaynor) You don't have to worry about that. I mean, if you choose not to upgrade, you'll just stay on Rivermind Common.

JONES: (As Amanda) Common?

ROSS: (As Gaynor) And you will continue to enjoy experiencing the services that you already have at the current price point.

BIANCULLI: TV this good is a joy to watch. And TV this thought-provoking that has you remembering and relishing it for days and weeks afterward, that's not just a joy, "Black Mirror" is a treasure.

MOSLEY: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new season of "Black Mirror," now streaming on Netflix.

If you watched the TV series "The Americans," you just might wonder if your neighbor is really a Russian spy. Well, on the next FRESH AIR, Shaun Walker describes the real-life program the Soviet Union developed to train agents to embed for years as citizens in foreign countries. The program fell apart with the collapse of the Soviet Union but has been revived by Putin. I hope you can join us.

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MOSLEY: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF DICK HYMAN'S "JUBILEE STOMP")

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.