How Gates reconciles her wealth

Melinda Gates is keenly aware of her wealth and privilege, said David Gelles in The New

York Times. She and her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, are among the wealthiest people in the world, as well as the most philanthropic; their foundation has given away more than $55 billion since the 1990s, including nearly $500 million to coronavirus response efforts. They were early benefactors of BioNTech, the German drugmaker that partnered with Pfizer to produce one of the most promising Covid-19 vaccines. The couple’s work on vaccines has made them the target this year of deranged conspiracy theories, but Gates can understand why there is suspicion of their 12-figure wealth, which she calls “absurd.” She struggles to reconcile that bottomless bank account with the fact that so many people lack food and water. “I spend a lot of my waking hours traveling and meeting other people and doing what I call letting my heart break,” says Gates, 56. “I’ve worked in Mother Teresa’s home for the dying. I’ve slept on people’s farms in Africa.” Grappling with other people’s hunger and sickness leaves her weeping, and with a deep sadness that the world is so full of suffering. But she feels that trying to help is her duty. “I just constantly remember that it’s a privilege.”

Gibb’s grief for the Bee Gees

Barry Gibb is haunted by the deaths of his bandmate brothers, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian (U.K.). The three British-Australian Bee Gees had several fallings-out after their infectious pop tunes and three-part harmony led to huge, global success in the 1960s and ’70s. Gibb’s younger brother Maurice died suddenly in 2003, and Robin died of cancer in 2012; both had struggled with addiction. The youngest brother, Andy, had a successful solo career but developed a cocaine habit that killed him at age 30. “My brothers had to deal with their demons,” says Barry, 74, “but I was married to a lady who wasn’t going to have it,” his wife of 50 years, Linda Gray. “I could bring drugs into the house, but they would end up down the toilet.” What pained Gibb most was that he wasn’t speaking with Maurice and Robin when they died. The Bee Gees often fought over who was the group’s frontman. “There’s fame and there’s ultra-fame, and it can destroy,” Gibb says. When Robin was fighting cancer after Maurice’s death, he begged Barry to re-form the Bee Gees with just the two of them. Barry refused. “Spiritually, he didn’t want to become an invalid,” Gibb says. “He never wanted to be recognized as someone who had something wrong with him, so he hid it—from me, anyway.”