4 ms·
Not to take anything away from Bill, but why isn't Melinda mentioned just as much in these types of conversations?
by HiroshiSan 6y ago
Not to take anything away from Bill, but why isn't Melinda mentioned just as much in these types of conversations?
- zapdrive 6y agoWhy should she be?
- pm90 6y agoHe is the public face of the foundation, giving ted talks and tweeting about it etc.
- JamesBarney 6y agoAre you really curious? It's the same reason that if Oprah took her billions to try and solve some global problem with her husband Stedman, many mentions of the work they were doing would not mention Stedman. One is a famous individual who built up an obscene fortune, and the other person is married to them. And despite how involved their partner is deploying that wealth for the good of the world, people are just not going to mention the less famous one who didn't build up the fortune as often.
- blnqr 6y agoOprah Winfrey is not married to Stedman Graham
- JamesBarney 6y agoWhoops, I misremembered.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt's the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, so it would be apt to credit them both; erasing her does not do her, her work and her achievements justice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates#Awards_and_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates#Awards_and_recog...).
- JamesBarney 6y agoThe question was "Why isn't she mentioned?" He did not ask "Would it be apt to mention her?" "Should you also mention Melinda when referring to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation?" The answers is yes to both of these questions. She is an impressive person who has accomplished much in her life. He did this (I assume) to imply the reason she was not mentioned was because she was a woman and not because of the large and obvious disparity in fame.
- HiroshiSan 6y agoJust to clarify I didn't mention it because she was a woman but because she seemed to be an equal and important partner in the foundation but the accomplishments always seemed to land in Bills corner.
- graeme 6y agoThere are many reasons, but one specific to Hacker News is that Bill Gates writes articles that are posted on Hacker News. Bill Gates also regularly gives speeches. I checked and Melinda doesn’t have any on youtube since 2013. So Bill is very much the public face of the foundation, even though Melinda is equally active and her name is in its name. Not the only reason, but worth pointing out a prominent benign one. For instance, a parallel example is how ycombinator is often mentioned as being founded by Paul Graham, and Jessica Livingstone is left out. Why? Partly sexism of course. But Paul also was the public face of YC with his essays. And we have evidence it’s not just sexism, because YC had four founders > by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell, and Robert Tappan Morris. I think the second two are even less well known than Jessica Livingstone, and this correlates with how much public writing and speaking she’s done as the face of YC and about startups. (There’s a whole other discussion to be had about whether women are chased out of the public sphere, but this comment is long enough)
- gowld 6y agoHow is it sexism at all? What "ism" is the reason reason Warren Buffett is more famous than Charlie Munger?
- Miraste 6y agoChar-ism-a?
- Simon_says 6y agoOh, Robert Morris is quite notorious, rivaling PG.
- loco5niner 6y agoNever heard of him
- Simon_says 6y agoGet off my lawn.
- pacaro 6y agoThis is a reasonable question, and my understanding is that Melinda was the prime mover behind starting the foundation and pushing Bill to look outward. But that notwithstanding Bill has almost always been the public face, and one has to suppose that is an intentional choice