Melinda French Gates shares the advice she got from Bill Gates' best friend Warren Buffet: Don't be so ...

Bill Gates' ex-wife Melinda French Gates has been in the spotlight recently. The reason is her new memoir, 'The Next Day', which is out this month. Melinda Gates has been giving a series of interviews to promote her memoir. In her new memoir, she shares insights on navigating life’s transitions, emphasizing the importance of pausing during change to learn and grow. She recently spoke to Wall Street Journal (WSJ). In the WSJ interview, Melinda Gates talked about a range of issues including advice from world's richest and most popular investor Warren Buffett and how she stopped having panic attacks.
Incidentally, Warren Buffett is also a very close friend of her ex-husband Microsoft founder Bill Gates. When asked who do you go to for advice? Melinda Gates replied: "I write down a lot of quotes that people tell me over time so I can replay them in my head. Like if I get tough on myself about philanthropy, I remember what Warren Buffett said to us originally, which is, “You’re working on the problems society left behind, and they left them behind for a reason. They are hard, right? So don’t be so tough on yourself.”

Melinda Gates, who co-founded the Gates Foundation in 2000 with then-husband Bill Gates, stepped away from her full-time mom role after leaving Microsoft in 1996. Following her 2021 divorce, she chose to chart her own path, saying, “It was the right time for me to set out on my own.” Pivotal combines philanthropy with venture capital to advance women’s rights globally and domestically.
In The Next Day, French Gates describes the “clearing”—the space between leaving one chapter and starting another—as a time for reflection and learning. “In that time between when you’re leaving something and you’re starting the next thing, there’s a space. I call it a clearing,” she says. “There is an enormous amount to learn when you’re sitting in that clearing.”
Melinda Gates lives in Seattle. Here she discusses advice from Warren Buffett, how she thinks about her legacy and her love of kayaking.