- Billionaire Melinda French Gates is not immune to trials and tribulations in her career, but she often looks for advice in nonagenarian Warren Buffett, who once told her, “Find your bull’s-eye of what you’re working on, and let the other things fall away.”
Despite having over $14 billion to her name, Melinda French Gates, too, gets anxious and worried about the impact of her work.
But, just like the many Americans who look up to her for inspiration, she leans on others when times are tough. In fact, French Gates has revealed she likes to write down quotes and wise advice from her hugely successful friends so that she can “replay” it again later in her head—one of those voices being none other than fellow billionaire Warren Buffett.
“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,’’’ she said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Magazine.
When it comes to making strong business decisions, it’s no surprise French Gates listens to 94-year-old Buffett; he’s considered the most successful investor of the 20th century.
Even during this year’s market volatility, Buffett managed to grow his wealth by $20 billion, whereas others, including Bill and Melinda Gates, have lost hundreds of millions. Plus, he’s already given away $60 billion during his lifetime—and pledged to give away 99% of his wealth by his death. His net worth is still the fourth-largest in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates both lean on Buffett
Both Bill and Melinda Gates have expressed their appreciation of the impact Buffett has had on their lives by helping them center their attention on only what truly matters. Earlier this year, Melinda even admitted that early advice from Buffett has guided her entire philanthropic career.
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“Warren Buffett once said to us early in the [Gates] Foundation’s life, ‘Find your bull’s-eye of what you’re working on, and let the other things fall away. You’ll feel better if you keep your talents in that bull’s-eye, keep working those issues, and you’ll feel less bad about letting other things go,’” Melinda, who turned 60 last year, told LinkedIn. “And I think that’s true.”
Bill, who has a similar fortune to Buffett at $158 billion, admits he wished he had taken Buffett’s advice to heart sooner about prioritizing what’s most important in life.
“It took far too long for me to realize that you don’t have to fill every second of your schedule to be successful,” he wrote on Threads. “In hindsight, it’s a lesson I could have learned a lot sooner had I taken more peeks at Warren Buffett’s intentionally light calendar.”
Buffett believed in Bill and Melinda, too
Buffett was always a fan of Bill and Melinda, too, so much so that he is one of the largest contributors to their charity, the Gates Foundation. Through 2022, he had donated some $36 billion alone (for context, that’s greater than the entire annual GDP of Iceland).
Moreover, even in sensitive parts of the former couple’s lives, Buffett was top of their mind. In Melinda’s recently released book, The Next Day, she said that Buffett was one of the first calls she and Bill made before the public announcement of their divorce.
“I mean, he had made this enormous investment in the foundation,” French Gates told Fortune.
“And so whatever decision he would eventually need to make or not make about that was his. We both felt strongly he was one of the first people we needed to tell.”
