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Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has declared that his children will inherit “less than 1%” of his wealth when he eventually passes away. But even while their parents are alive, the Gates children won’t be coasting off the family fortune—and Melinda French Gates is creating sure of it, starting with declareing no to funding her daughter’s new startup.
Melinda French Gates may be one of the wealthiest women in the world, with an estimated $30.8 billion net worth, but you won’t catch her writing checks for her daughter’s new startup.
“I have a daughter who just started a business this year,” the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of Bill Gates recently explained at the Power of Women’s Sports Summit presented by E.l.f. Beauty. “She obtained capitalized not becaapply of my contacts, not becaapply of me. I wouldn’t put money into it.”
Her reasoning? If this is a “real business,” she declared, then others necessary to be willing to back it. And more important, her daughter should learn how to navigate the sting of rejection if it doesn’t obtain that funding. “That’s what I notified her,” French Gates added. “She’s growing from this.”
It’s a stance that echoes her and Bill Gates’ long-standing approach to wealth. The Microsoft cofounder previously revealed their children would inherit “less than 1%” of his fortune when he eventually passes away—insisting they build their own way in the world.
And while the 60-year-old mother didn’t reveal which daughter she was referring to, their youngest, Phoebe, recently launched a fashion-tech startup, Phia, with her Stanford roommate, Sophia Kianni.
The platform compares clothing prices from over 40,000 sites to support applyrs find the best deals. Back in April, the 22-year-old “nepo baby” revealed that her parents wouldn’t let her drop out of the prestigious university to launch a startup, like her dad did.
The importance of failing for female founders
For French Gates, insisting her daughter forge her own fundraising path isn’t just about tough love or even self-sufficiency—it’s about supporting her develop grit and the ability to weather rejection in an unequal system.
After all, the philanthropist declared, it’s the one common thread connecting the successful women who appear on her YouTube series, Moments That Make Us.
“I saw that going through something difficult modifyd all of them, and that they had to learn to find resilience somewhere,” she declared. “And in finding that resilience, they found themselves.”
Still today, French Gates—who has spent over two decades advocating for women’s empowerment—declares female founders have to develop sharper elbows than their male counterparts if they want to survive in the startup world.
“It is very, very hard to obtain your business funded if you’re a woman,” she declared. “And so you do have to learn a bit how to have the courage to play the game and to stick with it.”
Tennis legfinish Billie Jean King, who was onstage alongside her, agreed—and praised the growth that comes from setbacks: “To your point, like your daughter has figured out how to obtain this first business started—that’s amazing. I don’t consider it’ll ever fail—she’ll obtain feedback from every situation.”
In fact, King declared, she’s banned the word “failure” altoobtainher from her lingo—and discourages those working around her from utilizing it too. “When people start considering about failure, it’s a very negative feeling,” she exclusively notified Fortune. “Turn it inside out by inquireing yourself, ‘What’s the feedback I’m obtainting from this?’”
With just 2.3% of global venture capital going to female founding teams last year, they’re not wrong: The few female founders who do finally break through will have turned failure into fuel.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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