YouSaid · the spoken record

Melinda French Gates

lines on the record: 50
first: 2025-04-17
most recent: 2025-04-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Exactly what I'm doing now. Keep fighting on behalf of others. Make the world better for my granddaughters and hopefully other grandchildren maybe to come. But just to, you know, help repair the world. We all need it. And I'm doing that day in and day out. And I really love the work.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Focus on the local. Absolutely. Write to your senator, call, email your congressperson, like use your voice and tell them what you think about these policies. Protest if you feel like the right role for you is to protest also, but then focus locally. Find points of light and hope in your local community because there's so much still going on to help people who are homeless, to help the young kid who needs mentoring or needs help with their homework.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Quite frankly, the male suicide rates are just horrific, right? And even when you look at adolescent mental health, the numbers are going in the wrong direction for girls and boys. And that's tragic.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, because I think we're seeing through the research that boys are having trouble finding the male role models, the positive male role models in their life, the teacher, the coach, the other dad who cares about them. And as young men fall behind and are not graduating at the same rates at college and women are starting to accelerate past them in some fields, you're starting to see, okay, well, where do they go? They go to these toxic, more toxic places. And so I really applaud the work that Richard Reeve and Gary Barker doing where they're trying to say, okay, what do we need to do in society? How do we create these role models? How do we give men a different way of being in society so that we advance everybody in society? This shouldn't be a zero-sum game that men, women rise and men fall down. We want them to rise together.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know what my values are. My mom used to say to me as I was growing up, set your own agenda, or someone else will. I know society is better off. When women are in positions of power”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Either that or maybe they maybe it's that. I don't know. I haven't thought of it in that particular way or maybe it's the hey we will have the power in society. That's right.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You did, like, you actually put kind of the boys who've been coding for a long time, you move them into another class, and you have girls with a very supportive environment. They thrive and they keep going from there. So we can do that. We can do their organizations like Breakthrough AI who are doing more mentorship and sponsorship. We can help girls get their very first internship in AI. That makes an enormous difference in terms of the trajectory of their career.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not enough women going into tech, you're seeing not enough women go into artificial intelligence. And to me, that is tragic. And we have to change it because that's where society is being built. I mean, we are building the pipes now and we're baking the bias just like we did in the Constitution. We bake the bias into the system and look how long it did take for women to get the vote, right? and minorities in our country. So what can we do? There are lots of organizations who are gleaning the lessons, for instance, of the universities. If we miss a girl in tech, let's say in middle school or high school, there are universities that have learned lessons about how do you attract and keep them after that first freshman class. And so we can take those learnings, and our partners are, and spreading those to other universities and helping girls understand these are not only high paying fields, they're creative. You don't have to already know how to code, even though you may think.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so AI is look, tech change society profoundly. You know that. I know that. We all see it. AI is going to change society even more profound way to the point that we don't even know yet. But because the same types of workers who worked in tech are the same types of workers who worked in AI and there was already”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And she writes with fidelity, and it's beautiful. Who else do you look to in philanthropy that you say, wow, I like what they're doing”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And think about it. The other thing is she's an extraordinarily talented writer, extraordinarily. She's writing her own story in philanthropy. And when she wants to tell you what she's doing, rather than going out and doing all the media stuff, even like you and I are doing right now, she writes about it.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anybody on my team or I have all the best ideas. And I think people who are out closer to the work have a lot of the better ideas that can advance society”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are we seeing another child in school? You can never be completely data driven. You just can't because you can't measure every dollar that goes out the door. That I know. And quite frankly, on the data driven side, one of the things I've learned is that, look, for every data point, that's a human life. And so you do have to kind of decide what do you value. And so I'm somewhere kind of in between those two models, I would say. I'm certainly collecting data from people that I'm giving money to. But some of them, you know, I am letting them run pretty free. Like there are 12 people, global people that I gave $20 million each to. They can use $5 million on their own organization. But the other 15, they have to figure out who they're going to fund and what for what purpose. And believe me, I'm going to go back and understand what they funded and why they funded, but I don't believe sitting in Seattle or in the United States that”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you can do philanthropy in so many different ways. So, first of all, it's great, I think, whenever anybody's giving away money, even if it's $100 or $1,000, right? On sort of one end of the spectrum, people have sort of drawn it as trust-based philanthropy, which is more typical of what Mackenzie is doing. And I have great respect for her, which is she is saying, look, I see a broad set of leaders out there who've been doing these types of things for quite a while. And to me, she does have measurement tools that she's looking at how they're advancing society and the way she cares about. And then she funds them. And she trusts them to use those funds in the way they most see fit. The other end of the spectrum could be what you call, I mean, if it was purely, some people data-driven, which is, okay, for every grant or every, you know, $10,000, $500,000, are we getting a return? Are we seeing another life?”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not afraid. Here's the thing some people got to be at that particular deal table because they're afraid. Like, oh my God, what will it say if I'm not there? I'm just not afraid”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, this is a moment in time that doesn't look particularly good because of some of the people that you named. But look, I'm playing the long game here. We all have to play the long game.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You got to keep pushing forward, and you've got to just find the funders who are willing to fund you. And yes, it's not going to be that pack of people you just mentioned, but you got to push forward. And again, the best way to push back is to succeed in business. Like one of the reasons we're seeing this gigantic shift in women's sports all of a sudden is you're finally starting to see more women in more sports really making it and the difference between men and women in these sports is becoming more and more slim. That's when you see societal shift. And so it's why we have to invest in media that portrays lots of different types of people that look like society. We have to invest in sports for women. We have to invest in tech because that's changing society. We have to get more women, as I said, in politics and in state houses. We have to push forward on all those places.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are a lot of great ideas that are not being funded. And they're not being funded just because of the bias in the system or because we've gotten used to funding certain types of businesses. So what I'm looking forward to is absolutely I'm making a return and I want to make a return. But what I'm looking for is I'm on a long play here, a 10 or 15 year play because if I can prove out that this works, one thing I do know is nobody, especially guys, don't like to leave money on the table, as they say. And so I think once we make this a norm and people realize, oh, there are lots of businesses we should be looking at and funding, then other people will crowd in behind. So that's my thesis and we'll see if it plays out. But so far so good.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I learned that I would just try being myself. And the more I did that, one, the happier I was, and two, I could get developers. It was strange from all over the company to come work on my teams. And people would say, how did you get that developer from that other project over here? And I was like, I don't know, maybe they just want to work in a different culture. But it was hard and it was tough. And there were definitely times I thought about quitting.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I can say what it was like when I was at Microsoft. One, it was super exciting. I wanted to be there. We knew we were changing the world and we, by gosh, knew it, right? There were not very many technical women, and luckily I had enough of a grounding and a background and I knew I was a good manager. I had managed a lot of projects before I went to Microsoft in various parts of my time. And so I had enough strength to know I could manage developers and testers. So that part I loved a lot. The parts I didn't like were the boys debate club, which felt constant with management. Anytime I went into a meeting where there was a senior manager above me, it just felt like it was this just constant debate. And I learned to play that game, but I didn't like that game”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Necessarily, like, I had a background in computer science and economics, and here I am sitting at a foundation I created with a group of top scientists in malaria, tuberculosis, HIV. I don't know. I don't have a biology or medicine degree or global health, but I was dedicated and I learned and I learned deeply. I wasn't afraid to ask scary questions or dumb questions or good questions. I learned from people in the field. I talked to other scientists. Like you can learn. You just, as I say to my kids, you just have to get comfortable being very uncomfortable. It's like learning a new language. And the more you push yourself through those points in time, the easier it is to go through these transitions and these, as Walt calls them reinventions.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So towards question about making transitions, I think we should all try to look for places if we're lucky enough to reinvent ourselves because I think that's where we grow in life. That's where we learn new things. That's where we find openings in our life. Not everybody's lucky enough that they can reinvent themselves. A lot of times they get stuck in a career or they have to go in one direction. But I think some of the juiciest and best times of life are when you can reinvent yourself. And you have to not be afraid of it.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's the best. Okay, first of all, I want to say two things about Walt. One is to say he was brand new as a columnist at the Wall Street Journal so much so that I felt like they gave him a closet as his office. We were in the most tiny office and it was uncomfortable. There was no like personal space. I think I put my laptop on top of a box. But the second thing that I'm not sure he even knows is I was getting to know Catherine Graham at that time and I had gone to breakfast at her house. And all of a sudden I jumped up and I looked at the time and I said, oh my gosh, Mrs. Graham, I've got to go. I have to be at the Wall Street Journal. And she said, what time? And when I told her, she said, you'll never make it. And she said to somebody on our household staff, pull my car out of the garage. She drove me to the Wall Street Journal and dropped me off at the front door. And her son, Don, who I know quite well, says,”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And at the same time, I don't want to bring up things, look, it was painful for five of us, not one, not just me, five of us. And I don't want to bring up things that are painful for the kids, but I thought at least in writing through some of my story from my perspective, maybe people who go through divorce, they might see that there's growth and there's resilience and there's beauty that can come on the other side, even when you're in it and you do not think that you just kind of know I need to get this done and you're in a lot of pain, you know, holding out the perspective or having someone else hold out the perspective that you're going to not only be okay, but there's going to be beauty on the other side. I just thought that was important.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, I didn't feel like I could put a book out about transitions without talking about divorce because mine was public. People knew I went through it, right? And it would be disingenuous not to.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My role as a grandmother is one is to support my oldest daughter and remind her that she is a very good parent and she's good enough because she's in her residency and she has two little girls, you know, basically age two and under. So to remind her she's doing a great job, which she is and that they're thriving. And it's to just play with those grandchildren. And it's delightful in every possible way.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love this person so much I would give my life for them. And it changes you if you let having children change you and don't just say, oh, I'm going to live my life the way I've been living it, I think it can change you for the better as a person. I don't know why are you, why do people, are you surprised when they say that you say that's the best thing you've ever done?”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we don't, I will say I, and I would be interested in your point of view on this, I didn't know how primal it was until I had Jen. I write about this earthquake that happened and I'm screaming to my mother, you know, cover the baby, cover the baby. I have stitches. I've run from the bed. I don't even know that I'm at the top of the stairs screaming at my mom. Of course, my mom knew what to do in the middle of an earthquake, cover the baby, but I realized, oh my God, like.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if you think about that a lot, and then you work backwards from it and you say, my life needs to lead up, my last day, I hope people will say, you know, about me, she was loved by her family and friends. They loved her. She loved them. They all knew it. And she made some meaningful change in the world. And so if you say that's how you want to live your life and you have no idea that tomorrow is it 30 years from now, you start to back up from there and say, okay, I need to actually be part of creating change. And because I was raising children. As they got into middle school later, and I started to realize I'm telling them to use their voice, I'm telling them to stand up to the bullies, stand up for a friend. I realize if I want to be a whole integrated person, I need to also be using my voice”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think both having children, and when John died, our son Rory was just born, we named his middle name after our friend John Nielsen. You know, I realize, I mean, John, we lost John so young. He was in his late 30s. He left behind three very young children who I still know are now grown adults. And I realized, my gosh, you know, we just don't know how long we're here. And you can either just let that sort of roll past you in six months later you've just moved on, or you can decide to pause and that there are lessons to learn. And I decided to pause and say, wait a minute, what do I want my life to look like on the last day?”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In these fields and talking to women and talking to men and learning about people's lives around the world, somebody has got to speak up. Look, it would be so much easier for me to just go, I don't know, live my life somewhere where nobody knew where I was on a beach somewhere, I guess. Put it that way. But I believe in certain things and I believe that we will be better off in society when we make it easier for women to step into their full power. And part of me doing this book was to say, look, you may see me one way, maybe, you know, but here's actually who I am. So decide what you think of me after reading my book, right?”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the only way I know to fight back on that is to be myself and to be my most authentic self. And people can and to live, to state what my values are and to live my values. And people can decide they have different values than me. They don't like me. They do like me. But I'm at the point of my life. I'm 60 years old where I'm kind of like, take me or leave me. So I'm willing to take some criticism. But what I know to be true after spending so much time.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Create change. We can run experiments where you wouldn't want our government to use taxpayer dollars to take those kinds of risks. And once we prove something out and we've got good research, then it's really up to government to scale it up. And so that's how I see the sector, and I see it as part of a larger ecosystem that is government, private sector, philanthropy, and then NGOs and civil society.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, billionaires, yeah, aren't a monolith. We're not all the same. Some of us are philanthropic, some are not. Some wield their power in very unusual ways, I would say. Are where we are as a society, so and you can argue that we got here because of our tax policy. So really the tax policy probably needs to change. But given that we are where we are, I don't think it's worth vilifying billionaires and making them all seem like they're one category, right? But the other thing to know is that Philanthropic dollars can never, never fill the whole of government dollars. There just aren't enough, right? So the USAID rolled back with $75 billion, just one department, right? You roll back parts of Medicaid. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in various states. So philanthropic capital can't fill that gap. All the philanthropic”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The rollback of the Title X money makes no sense to me. I was down in Louisiana. I guess it was about eight weeks ago now, six weeks ago, talking to doctors and many people in the health care clinics and the chaos that's been caused and the uncertainty about what can we counsel a young girl on, where should we send her, what can we do? Will I lose my license? Am I even allowed to have mythopristine, right? I mean, these are just questions that we shouldn't be asking in this day and age”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I'm still putting a lot of money into reproductive rights across the board, but I'm much more focused now on the United States. I never thought I would need to be, but I am. And I really support the local on-the-ground work that's going on to make sure young girls know about their bodies, have rights to know about their rights, but also know where they can go to get contraceptives.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But most Americans believe that law should be left on the books, even Catholics. Over sixty percent of Americans believe we had a law that should have been stayed where it was.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right? And we could question the leaders in power, and even my parents petition the church at one point because they weren't bringing in the laws from Vatican II and implementing them in our parish. And so I felt I could put back on the hierarchy. But then as I was out traveling for so many years and talking to families, men and women who knew about contraceptives knew that if they space the births of their children, the woman was more likely to survive the childbirth and the children were likely to be more healthy because they could feed them, they could educate them. And so I just, I couldn't square that circle between my faith that didn't believe in contraceptives and what I knew to be true in the developing world. And I finally decided, you know, I need to speak what I know is true because I believe in the dignity of life and I believe that we shouldn't have.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I definitely grew up Catholic, went to Catholic school all the way K through 12th grade. Luckily in high school I had a set of liberal nuns Ursulan nuns who taught us.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I never thought I'd see the law rolled back. I mean, to have, I have two young granddaughters who are, you know, age two and under, to know that they have fewer rights than I have, that just makes no sense.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Paid family medical leave policy, the partners that I work with and I at the federal level, we missed it by one vote because of Joe Manchin. But when we couldn't get it there, we continue to advance our work at the state level. We now have 13 states in the District of Columbia with very good paid family medical leave policies. And they get better all the time because the states learn from one another. So I look at also the state houses as being places where You can affect change. These leaders can, and they're great training ground for the hill in D.C. And so making sure we bring down the barriers for women to get those positions in state houses and we help advance the causes that I look there.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I look for candidates who have similar values to me. And so one of the things I've been focused on now for five years and will continue to focus on and maybe even more so are the state houses. There are 7,000 seats in our state legislature. They move a ton of policy and a lot of money that affect people in those states. So I support candidates who are like-minded. For instance, when we couldn't get a”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It depends on which senator you talk to. Some of them have ideas and are really trying to, you know, play the game, but also push for what they believe is right for their state. And I respect that.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, but I think it's worth finding the places we do know, and I'm not going to name them, but which senators even on the Republican side still care about some of these family issues, the child tax credit, the potential, you know, it's not going to be now, paid family medical leave, the caregiving. I also talk to them about the cuts in Medicaid. Again, I'm sure there is room to make changes there, but drastic changes really quickly to me that makes no sense.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I interacted with him in the first administration and made an appeal on family planning that he made look like it was going to be changed in the direction I'd hoped for and in fact the opposite happened. The opposite. So no, I don't feel I could be effective there. But I feel like I can be effective on the hill. And it is worth me still calling congresspeople, which I do.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think some of the reforms that were needed in that particular department really had to do with there was probably about maybe 5%, 8% where you'd say, we haven't really measured that in a long time and I don't know if that's effective anymore. I think there could have been a lot more work done again on maternal health services and making sure that the system in these countries was working for women. Often we would go in as a government and make sure the supplies were there. But, you know, was the HR system working? Should we have bolstered up the HR system a little bit better so they had the right auxiliary nurse midwife working there, right? Or the healthcare worker. We had lots of learnings in global health, many, many, many. And it just would take USAID a little bit longer to implement than you would have liked. But my gosh, in terms of the good that was being done, I would say 90%.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Malaria came down. USAD was out there making sure malaria tests went out to people, making sure there were treatments in clinics. And again, the US brand was stamped on these things. People knew of the US and what we were doing.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I traveled with the Gates Foundation. I was lucky enough to travel for over 25 years. I was out in low income countries at least three times a year all over the world. Probably I was on the continent of Africa over 30 times. USAID would be there and people knew of the organization because there would be whole bags of grain and of food. And they knew that the U.S. was being generous or take PEPFAR, which was administered, is still administered. It's one of the things that's left of USAID. I was there when the first clinic Scott set up. Were they efficient at the beginning? No. Were they efficient five years in and integrated into the health system much more so? And we started to see the rates of HIV declining because of that. So these programs, the President's Malaria Initiative started by George W. Bush, cases of”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That believed in this. Yes, I agree that there were things that could have been trimmed at the edges and there were places that you should look. But to just flat out say we're ending that department, wow, just wow.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we're in turbulent times now and turbulent waters, you know, like I never, never would have guessed that USAID would essentially be folded. And that is an organization I know incredibly well and worked alongside of for 20 plus years. And it was endorsed by Republican and Democratic administrations because they saw that people could live where they were if they had good health and they had peace and some chance for prosperity. And so to see that, you know, 16 million women won't have access to maternal health services because of that pullback. How does that make us look better? How does that help us with peace? 17 million more cases of malaria, which also means, hey, our chances of getting malaria are just that much higher also. I mean, so to have all these administrations.”
2025-04-17 · On with Kara Swisher · Why Melinda French Gates is Betting On Women in Politics, Business and Tech · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT