On Monday, Melinda French Gates resigned She was involved in a philanthropy organization with her ex-husband Bill Gates.
Her departure is no less surprising than the fact that she stayed there for so long. The couple divorced in 2021. In August 2021, charity organizations told CNN She was doing a two-year trial period to see if the two of them could continue to work well together. He extended that period by almost a year.
French Gates will leave next month with an additional $12.5 billion, he said. She wants to dedicate the money to “a lifetime of work on behalf of women and families.”
The Gates Foundation works on projects to help poor people, especially in developing countries, such as fighting malaria, polio or improving sanitation.
But I am here to advocate for those who are considered pampered, not poor. Female engineers in the tech sector still face shocking levels of abuse, causing more than half of them to leave their companies and often the tech industry. According to a recent report by McKinsey.
Blame famous people in the tech industry “Fantastic Shock” Or “Brother Culture” An environment which is not good for a person of any gender, but especially grinds women to the ground.
And it was largely pioneered by prototypes such as Bill Gates, who was famously rude and impatient during his early years, so much so that GQ once compared him to “an office bully”. Gates’ nemesis, Steve Jobs, had his own famous reputation, as did other legendary billionaire founders with names like Larry and Charles.
Women are hurt in tech
one in 2024 Women in Tech Survey72% of women reported experiencing a prevalent “bro culture” in the workplace, ranging from talking over during meetings (64%) to being asked to “supply food” for meetings (11%) to subtle There was aggression. Other Research Quantifies Women, regardless of their seniority, are often treated equally junior level worker Yet they receive less support, are more likely to be fired, and less likely to be promoted, and so on.
Working in such an environment is painful! A woman who ran a hardware development team had tears in her eyes when she told me how she was kicked out of a meeting with her team’s biggest customer. She was expected to prepare her male boss for a meeting and he continued to approach her asking for information as she sat in his office near him but did not invite him to her literal table.
There’s a Reddit sub called r/womenintech, which has over 21,000 members, in which a constant theme is dealing with male coworkers who belittle their work; Or a constantly moving bar that blocks a promotion. “I have no expectations about my ‘career’ anymore. I love IT work but the perpetual boys club has killed my ambition and destroyed my mental health,” he wrote. a poster Explaining to Up why she is leaving the industry.
Many men feel the same way about tech industry culture. are routine Huge discussions on Hacker News About the misery that one can expect in a coding career.
To be fair, moving the tech industry (and corporate culture in general) beyond these deep, hostile roots is work that French Gates has been doing since at least 2017, when he began researching why so many women Why do you leave this profession?
Through Pivotal Ventures, her own organization that she ran for several years before parting ways with Bill, she is trying to address the root causes. Pivotal Part Venture Capital is a fund-of-funds, meaning it invests in other VC funds; Part philanthropist; partial lobbying efforts; The billionaire wants to do something else. (Pivotal Ventures declined comment.)
When French Gates said in her resignation letter that she was going to use her newfound billions to work in the service of women, she hinted at work on a broad spectrum: from body autonomy to more female leadership. Everything from investing in startups. For example, Pivotal partnered with Techstars future of longevity accelerator In which a roster of such startups was shown. She backs women-led VC funds like Miriam Rivera’s Ulu Ventures and Promise Phelan’s Growth Warrior Capital.
She is a vocal supporter of family leave policies and modern care systems; advocacy for mental health; Fund partners who are diversifying more into tech and AI; And now working on helping more women win elections.
in one Op-ed on that topic last year For Time (ironically owned by another male tech billionaire, Marc Benioff), he wrote, “Ultimately, though, we can’t keep pushing women into a broken system: We need to address the whole series. The system needs to fix the structural barriers that prevent our government from looking like the people it is meant to serve.
The same is true for corporate systems.
What else can Melinda French Gates do?
So what else can she – or any other aspiring billionaire – do with her extra serving of billions?
I believe it is time for some type of employee bill of rights that eliminates the harsh contracts that most tech workers must sign as a condition of employment, even in startups. Too.
Whereas Biden’s 2022 Federal Speak Out Act Making many non-disclosure, non-disparage agreements unenforceable for allegations of sexual assault or harassment, all non-disparage clauses must be eliminated. Individuals should be free to speak publicly about personal experiences, good or bad, at their job without fear of being sued or other retaliation by the company. Imagine how many more Susan Fowlers – Uber’s famous culture whistleblower – there would be if people felt free to speak out. Even better: Think how the threat of speaking out could push humans in powerful positions to create a culture that doesn’t require speaking out.
Another thing that needs to end: harsh non-disclosure, non-disparage agreements that laid-off workers are forced to sign as a condition of severance benefits.
And finally, I would like to see corporate America end secrecy regarding employee pay, which is another area that will empower women and all employees.
Yes, it’s a lot to ask a woman to do when she’s already doing everything else. And even $12.5 billion won’t be enough to make people kinder to each other at work because humans are what they are. But the more pressure a powerful person like Melinda Gates puts on to change structures, the better off we will all be.
Have you got any insight into the harsh tech company or startup culture you’ve experienced? Contact Julie Bort E-mail, X/Twitter Or Signal at 970-430-6112.
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