Monday, Melinda French Gates resigned She got it from a charity she ran with her ex-husband Bill Gates.
That she left is less surprising than that she stayed for so long. The couple divorced in 2021. In August 2021, the charity told CNN it was setting up a two-year trial period to see if the pair could continue to work together. They lasted almost a year beyond that period.
Mr. French Gates plans to leave the company next month with an additional $12.5 billion, he said. She wants to dedicate the money to her “lifelong work for women and families,” she said.
The Gates Foundation is known for its work on projects that help poor people, especially in developing countries, such as fighting malaria and polio and improving sanitation.
But I'm here to lobby for people who are considered spoiled, not poor. A recent McKinsey report found that female engineers in the tech industry continue to face shocking levels of abuse, leading to more than half of them leaving their companies and, in many cases, leaving the industry.
Blame is the tech industry's famous “brilliant sarcasm” or “bro culture” atmosphere, which is not good for anyone of any gender, but is particularly crushing on women. .
And it was largely led by prototypes like Bill Gates, who in his early days was famously harsh and impatient, with GQ once likening him to an “office bully.” There was something that happened. Gates' nemesis, Steve Jobs, like other legendary billionaire founders with names like Larry and Charles, had a famous reputation of his own.
Women in tech are hurting
In the 2024 Women in Tech survey, 72% of women say a “bro culture” is prevalent in the workplace, ranging from verbal abuse during meetings (64%) to being asked to “provide food” during meetings. (11%) reported that it led to microaggressions. ). Other studies have quantified how, regardless of seniority, women are often treated like lower-level workers, yet receive less support, are more likely to be fired, and are less likely to be promoted. It has turned into.
Working in such an environment takes its toll. A woman who runs a hardware development team tearfully describes how she was removed from a meeting with the team's biggest customer. She was expected to prepare her male boss for her meeting, but while she was sitting in an office near her, her boss kept contacting her to ask for information. But she didn't invite him to the literal table.
A subchannel on Reddit called r/womenintech, which has more than 21,000 members, has a constant theme of dealing with male colleagues who disrespect their work. Or a bar that keeps moving that prevents promotion. “I don't feel any hope about my 'career' anymore. I love my job in IT, but Perpetual Boys Club has killed my ambitions and destroyed my mental health. ” one poster wrote to Submarine, explaining his reasons for leaving the industry.
Many men feel the same way about the culture in the tech industry. Hacker News regularly has huge discussions about the misery you can expect in a coding career.
To be fair, moving the tech industry (and corporate culture in general) away from these deeply adversarial roots is one of the reasons French Gates has been asking why so many women are leaving the industry since at least 2017. This is the work I have been working on since I started researching this.
She has sought to address the root causes through her own organization, Pivotal Ventures, which she ran for many years before parting ways with Bill. Pivotal is part of a venture capital fund of funds, meaning it invests in other her VC funds. Some of it is charity work. Part of lobbying activities. Whatever billionaires want to do. (Pivotal Ventures declined to comment.)
When French Gates resigned, he said he would use his new billions to support women in a broader range of areas, from bodily autonomy to investing in women-led startups. hinted. For example, Pivotal partnered with Techstars for the Future of Longevity Accelerator, which featured a roster of such startups. She has backed female-led VC funds such as Miriam Rivera's Ur Ventures and Promise Ferron's Growth Warrior Capital.
She is a vocal advocate for family leave policies and the modern care system. Lobbying for mental health. We fund partners who bring more diversity to technology and AI. And now she's focused on helping more women win elections.
In an op-ed on the subject last year in Time magazine (which, ironically, is owned by another male tech billionaire, Marc Benioff), she wrote: We need to fix the system and address all the structural barriers that prevent our government from serving the people it is meant to serve. ”
The same goes for corporate systems.
What more can Melinda French Gates do?
So what more could she, or any other interested billionaire, do with the extra billions?
I believe it's time to enact some kind of employee bill of rights that eliminates the rigid contracts that most tech workers, even at startups, must sign as a condition of employment.
Biden's federal Speak Out Act of 2022 makes many non-disclosure and non-defamation agreements unenforceable for sexual assault and harassment allegations, but all non-defamation provisions should be repealed It is. Individuals should be able to speak freely and publicly about their personal experiences at work, good or bad, without fear of lawsuits or other retaliation from the company. Just think how many more Susan Fowlers, Uber's famous culture whistleblower, would emerge if people were free to speak out. Better yet, consider how the threat of abuse can propel humans into positions of power and build a culture where they don't have to go out.
Another thing that should be abolished are the strict confidentiality and non-discrimination agreements that fired workers are forced to sign as a condition of their severance pay.
And finally, I want Corporate America to end employee pay secrecy as another area to empower women and all employees.
Yes, this is a lot to do for one woman considering what she's already done. And even $12.5 billion isn't enough to make people be kinder to each other in the workplace, because humans are humans. But the more pressure powerful figures like Melinda French Gates can put on to change structures, the better off we'll all be.
Do you have any tips for the tough tech company or startup culture you're experiencing? To contact Julie Bolt: Email, X/Twitter Or text us at 970-430-6112.