The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Why Women Still Struggle for Real Power — with Melinda French Gates
Thu, 24 Apr 2025
Melinda French Gates, a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls, joins Scott to discuss her new book The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward. They also get into Melinda’s philanthropic efforts, what she’s learned from raising a son, and why women still face barriers to claiming “real power” today. Follow Melinda French Gates, @melindafrenchgates. Algebra of Happiness: Morning Phase by Beck. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Who is Melinda French Gates and what is this episode about?
Absolutely. And I actually think I crossed this when I turned 50. I said to myself outright, I'm on the back half of life now at 50. And I knew it.
Hopefully.
Yeah. And so I said to myself at 60, if I'm not living my life the way I want to live it now, something is wrong. Like, I am fortunate enough that I don't have to work, right? That's an enormous privilege. And that... Look, I get to organize my time. And somebody once said to me, you have to paint on the canvas of your own life. And I thought, isn't that true? No one else can paint on my canvas.
So if I'm not organizing my life in the way I want to see my parents or to see my children or my two now granddaughters and do the work that I believe in in the world, that's on me. And, you know, you enter a point where I think you, I hope, I hope I'm in this generative stage of life, right? And really thinking about my adult children. What have I passed on to them?
What would I like to continue to pass on? Are there words I haven't sent to them or things, regrets I have that I'd like to go back and tell them I'm sorry that on that particular day I wasn't my best self with you? But look, if we don't do it now, we could be gone easily tomorrow. So easily.
So you've checked a lot of boxes, right? You're professionally hugely successful. You've aggregated huge wealth. It sounds as if you have nice kids and a good relationship with them. It sounds as if you have good friends. Go five years out. What does success look like for you in five years? And what boxes that aren't checked are you looking to check?
Well, I really set my horizons on a 10-year horizon because, look, we are taking – I'm trying to take big swings at what Warren Buffett would say are the hard problems society has left behind, for better or for worse. And so those will take 10 years to play out. But I certainly, in a five-year horizon, hope to see far more states with a paid family medical leave policy.
We are beginning to turn the crank on that and change the momentum on that. I hope we are doing far more basic science on women's health so that we can come out with more drugs that help women over time, both in the U.S. and globally. And I do hope that we can see more women in state legislatures in five years because that will signal that we're on our way to getting more women up on Capitol Hill.
If I could accomplish those three big things and see progress on those, I will feel like, wow, we're on the right track.
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