Melinda Gates Wants a Radical Redesign of How We Think About the 21st-Century Workplace

When Melinda Gates was hired at Microsoft, she was the only woman in her hiring class. During orientation, a new colleague picked a fight with a vp at the company—Gates later learned that colleague had been advised to be more aggressive—and that moment, which Gates shared during her keynote at South by Southwest in Austin on Sunday, became one of many that lead Gates to question if she could fit into the culture at Microsoft with “abrasive” and “combative” colleagues.