Back in the early 1990s, Melinda French was a rising star at a software company when the boss asked her out on a date. This was complicated because he was her boss, and frankly, he was kind of a nerd. But they fell in love and got married, and decided to raise a family, retire from the business, and in their spare time give away more money to charity than anyone else in the history of the world.
Melinda Gates is the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she focuses on family planning, agriculture, nutrition and U.S. education. (That nerdy boss, who's now her husband, turned out to be Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.) We've invited her to play a game called "But I meant well, your Majesty." Three questions about gifts given to Queen Elizabeth II.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support for NPR and Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me. But as host Peter Sagal notes, Melinda Gates appears in this segment "because there's nothing more hilarious than her foundation's work to fight poverty and disease worldwide."
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