Me if my tie was fixed. I do not consider myself a journalist. No one would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tech . Tick . Ebody called thenew book moment of lift. What was that . Apollo my dad was an engineer on the Apollo Missions and it was when we would go watch that rocket launching and the earth would be shaking and the rocket was rumbling and it finally went to the moon. That is the same thing i have seen with 20 years of work through the foundation with women. If we can help lift up all women, we will change the world. David it is the largest foundation in the world. It has assets of how much now . Melinda 50 billion. David you created the foundation through the wealth made from microsoft. Then Warren Buffett called deal one day. Melinda morans plan was that his wife susie was very warrens plan was that his wife susie was very involved and philanthropy. She passed away unexpectedly and came to surprised at surprised to bill and i. Melinda david when someone calls you you 50, im giving billion more than you expected, what do you do . Melinda bill and i took a walk and cried. I think we cried both of us because to know warrens generosity and that we would be able to do so much more than we for doing already doing millions around the world, it was touching. David when you are doing work for the foundation, there is a lot of travel. Eventually you decided you wanted to focus more on womens issues and one of the first you thought about was contraception. You are a committed catholic. Was it difficult for you to say we should focus more of the foundations efforts on contraception . What was bills view . 100 da bill was supportive of this decision. He knew that i had learned so much in the developing world from talking to women. He knew that i had looked at the data. I looked at where we did not have data. He knew this was the greatest antipoverty tool we have. If you make sure that women have access all over the world 200 million women were asking the world for this tool and we were not delivering. I knew when i decided to take this on the reason we were not delivering it was political controversy in our own country and religious issues so it was a difficult decision for me because of my catholic roots. I am still catholic. And i met women all over the world that into they would discuss it with me that this was a literal life or death issue like i have five children, it is not fair to have another when i cannot feed them, i had to wrestle with my catholic faith. This was the right thing to do. David did you find that there were times when women would say, take my child . Melinda more than once. Settings aany rural woman from the west, a pair of khaki pants and a tshirt. I was in northern india and i visited a health clinic. By the time i was finished talking with a woman there, i asked her, what hope do you have . She cast her eyes down and i thought i had asked something inappropriate. She looked up and said the truth is i have no hope for feeding this child or that one or educating them. Please take them home with you. It was not the first time that had happened to me. A is heartbreaking to see woman who clearly loves her son but to be no they would be better off going home with a stranger, that is heartbreaking. David annually you have a letter that is reddened by the Foundation Heads, you and bill written by the Foundation Heads you and bill. It was originally written only by bill. Ton you said that she wanted focus more on womens issues, you wanted to focus more on womens issue, what did bill say . I do noti said, bill, have time to put pen to paper, and he said ok, i can do it. He got used to doing it alone. When i said i wanted to talk about right about the riteraceptive issue w about the contraceptive issue, he pushed back. We discussed it again before was put put to pen wrote half. I sometimes we have to have uncomfortable conversations. We believe in equality, but did we have it in our voice . Not yet. I can tell you my hide husband is 100 committed to making sure i have my voice in the world. David so like any married couple, you have disagreements from time to time . Melinda yes. That is how you move forward. David you talk about abusive relationships. Melinda the reason i mention being in an abusive relationship is i want people to know it can happen to anyone. It silences your voice and millions of women are being either harassed or abused in all kinds of places. He can go in and name it and recognize it and all commit to changing it everywhere in the world. You grew up in dallas. You went to an allgirls catholic school. You went to duke, where ousted you think of going . Else did youhere think of going . Melinda i wanted to go to notre dame but when we visited, they were phasing out Computer Science. I knew i wanted to study Computer Science. Duquette just got in a grant from ibm. A granthad just got from ibm. David you point out in your book that women were more involved in Computer Science years ago than today. Why was that . Melinda when i was in college in the late 1980s, 30 of undergrads in Computer Science were women. That has since dropped down to about 17 or 18 . We do not actually know why women have dropped out of Computer Science but there are some theories looking at the data we do have. Personal computers were promoted to boys as a home a gaming device and women and girls said i am out. Melinda you have a fiveyear david you did a five david you did a fiveyear program where you got your undergrad and your mba. There was a Small Company called microsoft interviewing at duke. Melinda i was one of the first tires. David was it as good as you thought . Theelinda i was one of first highers hires. David was it as good as you thought . The culture was of abrasive honestly. I could do the debate, i could stand up for my teams ideas, but i did not like myself and i did not like the way i was treating other people so i thought about leaving and then i thought to no, i will try being myself in this culture and see if it works and if not i will take some other job. I started to build teams that were collaborative and worked together more and were less abrasive and it turned out i could recruit people from all over the company from to my surprise to work on these teams. David when did you first meet bill . Melinda three weeks into my job, i had never been to new york city, microsoft sent me to near city. My female roommate said when youre are done with your business meeting, why dont you come to this dinner . I agreed. There were two chairs open because i came late from this meeting i was at. 10 minutes later, bill came in and sat next to me. That is when i met bill, three weeks into the job. Of us area bunch going out dancing tonight, why dont you come . I told him i had plans with someone else from Business School tonight. At microsoft a few months later, everyone used to work late on friday nights and late on saturday. My car was parked next to his in a parking lot and he struck up a conversation. We talked for a while and then he asked me if i would go out with him. Two weeks from friday night. I said two weeks from friday night . I was 22 years old. I have no idea what i am doing two weeks from friday night he could i could have my phone number. He called me later that night and said how about a glass of wine . Tonight i agreed to meet him for a glass of wine and that was our first date. David was it hard at the company with everyone knowing you were dating the founder . Melinda i thought i would go out with him maybe once or twice. Once i realized we were going to start dating more, i thought this is tricky and i am not sure i want to do this. I worked really hard. I studied economics and im not sure this will go well for me. I remember talking to parents on the phone. My mom was like, this is not a good idea. And i he has a big heart dont think many get to see that and im not sure why i got to see that. I dated him but i made it incredibly clear to the teams i was managing that i did not go home from microsoft and talk to bill about work because i am preparing teams to go into meetings with Senior Leadership and they are nervous. I am having to prepare them and prepare myself into the last thing i should do is go home and talk to him. They have to know i have their back in the meeting. We made it work. David its hard to believe on the first night that you met him i cant see bill going out and being a dancer. Melinda he likes to. [applause] [laughter] david you decided when your children came along that you wanted to spend more time with them and you left microsoft. Bills reaction was . Melinda really . He knew i had that part of my brain that liked to be working. David did you then go to the youration fulltime once children were older . I had it timed for when our kids would get older. I know until our last daughter went off to preschool i would not be fulltime. Once i knew she would be in preschool, my plan was david david to work fulltime. Was toalk my plan work fulltime. David in Subsaharan Africa and other places there are child marriages. Women are forced to marry at seven, eight years old. Why does that happen . Melinda families will marry daughters off because then they do not have to feed her and they also want to protect the familys honor. That is a cultural barrier that is horrible for girls because they often dont go to secondary school or if they are in secondary school, they are pulled out. They are moved to a village where they know no one. It is not even close to their home. She basically becomes the property of her husbands family or her motherinlaw. David what have you done to prevent some of this from occurring . Partnersyou go in with , then the community has to commit to it. David you talk about a situation in the book where you have female genital cutting. What is the purpose of that and how frequent is that done with young women around the world . Still a that is tradition, particularly and a lot of northern africa. It is horrific for a young girl. Young girls bleed to death. It is trauma, a traumatic event in their lives. Villagers do it for different reasons. They believe it protects a girls honor. Is that whennown education comes in, i talked to a village elder and a group of women who used it to cut their daughters and no longer do and a group of women who were the cutters and no longer do it, they said when people bring in education from the outside, it starts to change her mind and we start to question our path and then we create change. David another one you talk about his abusive relationships. To you point out in the book that you had an abusive relationship as well before you were married. Melinda the reason i give and write a page in the book about being in an abusive relationship is i want people to know it can happen to anyone. It silences your voice. It is a way of silencing a womans voice in a marriage, workplace, and community. Millions of women are being either harassed or abused in all kinds of places and it silences women. We have to talk about this barrier and we have to what we can do is collect data about it. Then we can go in and name it and recognize it and all commit to changing it everywhere in the world. Once Jackie Kennedy famously said, if you mess up raising your children, nothing else matters. Melinda my kids have always had an allowance. If they wanted something, had to buy it with their allowance or put it on their wish list for christmas. If there was something in the store that they really wanted, i would say just because i can doesnt mean i should. David a few years ago, you, bill and Warren Warren launched the giving pledge. What was the purpose and how many people have signed it . Melinda the giving pledge was to say if you are a billionaire in our country or anywhere in the world you can afford to give half away. That is the right thing for society. Bill and warren are clear that they could not have founded their businesses in mozambique or malawi. We benefit from what society gives us, the infrastructure. Those resources have to go back to society. You now have 190 families who have committed to the giving pledge in 22 countries around the world. David there is some reaction against rich people putting their money here or there. What is your reaction to that . Warren, and i agree we should not have this inequity in the u. S. What are lucky. So many people around the world would like to live in our but we, our democracy, have gaps and we need to do things to fix those gaps. Be thing bill and i tried to most cognizant of is what is the role of philanthropy . All philanthropy can be is a catalytic wedge. We can experiment with our own money where you would not want the government to experiment with taxpayer money but then we have to prove it out. Then it is up to government to scale it up. Philanthropy with a nongovernmental organization, partnerships in that ecosystem can do the best for the world. David many are wondering what it is like to be for it a long time what it is like to be the richest couple in the world. Can you go to a restaurant . Can you go to a movie . Melinda we are incredibly privileged to have the wealth we do from soft. Most people are incredibly respectful. Seattle is a lovely place to live. Bill grewup there up there. I try to look at those as moments of grace. We try to be out in the world. Bill and i still like to go out to movies, restaurants. David you told me a few stories about your life together. You told me about when you dropped your eldest daughter off at college. Like anyone who drops their kids off at college, they say you need this, you need that, so you went to lowes. I cannot picture ill gates going through lowes shopping. Bill gates going through lowes shopping. Melinda when the bill goes into a shop like that it is like he is in the a big laboratory. We had to keep dragging him say tting, stay focused david Jackie Kennedy once famously said that if you raise mess up raising your children, nothing else in life matters. The hardest thing to do is raise children. You have had to shield three children from the enormous wealth and publicity. Melinda i have tried with our Children First to know that they have our loved. First to know that they are loved. Never their talents are, we will support that. It is their job to bring those talents into the world no matter. Hat they want to be since they were young we have taken them out into the seattle community. Once they got to be 10 or 11 come out into the world to see what life is like on the ground. The last thing i will say because when you have great means, you do not have money as a buffer. I kids have always had an allowance. We have my kids have always had an allowance. Himre not i do not allow since they were young they have had an allowance that grew over time. If they wanted something, they would have to buy it with their allowance or put it on a wish list. If they saw something in a store that they absolutely had to have, i told them just because i can, does not mean i should. Melinda david what do you want your and bills legacy to be on this earth . Melinda that we helped everyone to advance. I hope people say about me that i helped lift up other women. David it is a very good book i highly recommend it. Thank you. There are times when our need to connect really matters. To keep customers and employees in the know. To keep business moving. Comcast business is prepared for times like these. Powered by the nations largest gigspeed network. To help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. Tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. And a team of experts here for you 24 7. Weve always believed in the power of working together. Thats why, when every connection counts. You can count on us. Francine redsoled shoes, an icon of fashion around the world, and signature of french designer christian louboutin. 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