Bill Gates never put out his old flame
Bill and Melinda Gates’ surprising split after 27 years of marriage has left many trying to decode what happened.
In the process, some have recalled how the power pair — who seemed to follow the perfect Silicon Valley script of meeting through work, raising a family and forming a foundation — actually started their marriage with some interesting terms.
In a 1997 Time magazine profile, Bill Gates disclosed he actually asked his ex-girlfriend Ann Winblad for her “approval” before popping the question to Melinda. Already the youngest U.S. billionaire at the time, he then reportedly negotiated one long weekend a year with his former flame.
The article referred to the annual weekend as an “arrangement.”
“Every spring, as they have for more than a decade, Gates spends a long weekend with Winblad at her beach cottage on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where they ride dune buggies, hang-glide and walk on the beach,” the article said.
“We can play putt-putt while discussing biotechnology,” Bill Gates said of his traditional trip to see Winblad, who obviously remained a valued friend and intellectual inspiration.
“We share our thoughts about the world and ourselves,” Winblad reportedly explained. “And we marvel about how, as two young overachievers, we began a great adventure on the fringes of a little-known industry and it landed us at the center of an amazing universe.”
Winblad, a software entrepreneur who’s five years older than Gates, said she personally urged the Microsoft co-founder, 65, to marry Melinda Gates, 56, saying the future spouse was “a good match for him because she had intellectual stamina.”
Author and journalist Megan K. Stack recalled the “small detail” of the Winblad weekends in a Twitter post late Monday that went viral.
Of course some experts say a couple’s willingness to give each other space and independence can be helpful to their long-term success. Indeed, Bill and Melinda Gates went on to raise three kids together, now ages 18 to 25.