Things might have been different for Melinda French Gates if it weren't for a piece of advice she received from a hiring manager at IBM back in the 1980s. The advice, in many ways, determined the course of her professional and personal life.
In an interview with LinkedIn News on Tuesday, the philanthropist revealed that she had a job offer from IBM after she completed her two internships at the American tech giant. But a conversation changed everything.
When her hiring manager, a woman, asked if Ms Gates was ready to "accept the job offer", she recalled telling her, "Well, I have one more company to go interview. This little company, Microsoft. It was tiny.”
“And she said, 'If they give you an offer, you should take it.' And it dumbfounded me,” Ms Gates added.
“Here's this woman who's supposed to be my manager, giving me a piece of career advice,” she said.
The conversation eventually made Ms Gates go for Microsoft, a decision that shaped her life in all respects. Ms Gates joined Microsoft as a product manager following her graduation from Duke University's business school in 1987.
Ms Gates urged people to take similar risks in the job market, underlining the fact that taking chances could result in extraordinary success.
“I remind them all the time you can pivot careers. You can change. You can go over here,” she said.
The 60-year-old spent almost ten years at Microsoft and became the general manager of information products at the now $3.1 trillion computer behemoth.
At the same company, she met her now ex-husband, Bill Gates. The couple got married in 1994, and she left Microsoft in 1996. They co-founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.
The couple parted ways in 2021 after 27 years of marriage.
In May 2024, Ms Gates revealed she would leave the foundation and receive $12.5 billion for her own work to uplift women and families.
