Melinda French Gates almost didn't join Bill Gates' Microsoft— Until THIS unexpected comment changed her life forever

Tech billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates might have divorced and gone their separate ways, but anecdotes from their personal lives continues to gain people's attention and make the headlines. It is noted that when Melinda French Gates joined Bill Gates' Microsoft back in the 1980s, the tech company was just a "little" company. So, what made Melinda take up a job at Microsoft back then, a decision through which she met her now ex-husband Bill Gates and which changed her life forever?


Talking about this, Melinda revealed in an interview with LinkedIn News earlier this year that it was an unexpected comment that made her changed her mind-- and the rest, as they say, is history!

When Melinda chose to join Bill Gates' "little company" Microsoft

Things could have turned out very differently for Melinda French Gates— if not for one unexpected piece of advice that changed the course of her life. Back in the 1980s, fresh out of Duke University’s business school, Melinda had just wrapped up two internships at IBM and received a promising job offer from the tech giant. But a conversation with her hiring manager took an unexpected turn.


During the interview, the manager asked Melinda if she was ready to accept the offer. Melinda replied that she had one last interview—with a small, relatively unknown company at the time called Microsoft. "'Well, I have one more company to go interview. This little company, Microsoft. It was tiny,'” Melinda recalled saying to her then manager at IBM. “And she said, 'If they give you an offer, you should take it.' And it dumbfounded me,” Melinda French Gates added.


That advice, coming from someone who was supposed to hire her, left Melinda stunned. But she took it to heart— and that decision would shape her entire future.


Melinda joined Microsoft in 1987 as a product manager. Over the next decade, she climbed the ranks to become the general manager of information products at what would become one of the most valuable companies in the world.


But it wasn't just her career that flourished at Microsoft. It’s also where she met Bill Gates. The duo got married in 1994, co-founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, and went on to become one of the most influential philanthropic couples in history before separating in 2021 after 27 years of marriage and having three children together.


Looking back, Melinda often reminds others to take bold chances in their careers. “You can pivot. You can change. You can go in a whole new direction,” she says.


One small nudge from a hiring manager— one simple sentence— was all it took to change everything.







One step to a healthier you—join Times Health+ Yoga and feel the change