How Bill Gates spent long weekends at the
beach alone with his venture capitalist ex-
girlfriend Ann Winblad every year - and even
sought her approval to marry Melinda - in a
bizarre decades-long arrangement with his
wife
Daily Mail (UK),
by
Kayla Brantley
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
5/4/2021 2:06:57 PM
Bill and Melinda Gates have had a decades-long agreement that the Microsoft boss could vacation for a long weekend at the beach every year with his venture capitalist ex-girlfriend. The odd arrangement raises eyebrows now that one of the richest couples in the world are going their separate ways after 27 years together and building a $130billion fortune. Bill, 65, and venture capitalist Ann Winblad, 70, dated in the 80s but broke up in 1987, the same year he met future wife Melinda. Ann was reportedly more ready for marriage than Bill as he worked day and night to build his billion-dollar Microsoft empire.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Knotwyrkin 5/4/2021 2:08:46 PM (No. 775258)
There are few things I could care less about. Well, maybe whatever Cher says.
48 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
udanja99 5/4/2021 2:36:03 PM (No. 775282)
Sounds just like Charles, Diana and Camilla.
39 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
earlybird 5/4/2021 2:44:56 PM (No. 775290)
I’m with #1. Reading this (and finally getting to a current pic of the now 70 year old girlfriend) I’d say that Gates has been a cold fish who was more interested in acquisition of stuff than anything else in life. He may be making up for it with his so-called philanthropies, but he still appears to be a juiceless fossil.
34 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
lakerman1 5/4/2021 2:52:45 PM (No. 775295)
I am reminded of that great Olympia Du8kakis line in Moonstruck, after finding out that her husband had a mistress.
Olympia looked at him and said, "You are going to die!"
The context was important. She concluded that as her husband aged, he was trying to defy that reality by acquiring the mistress.
Olympia's performance in Moonstruck deserved an Oscar. Cher's performance did not.
15 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 5/4/2021 3:00:49 PM (No. 775310)
Uh, yeah, whatever.....not important. The wife will get many tens of billions of $$, and I doubt she cares one bit about Billy Boy.
14 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
red1066 5/4/2021 3:04:21 PM (No. 775316)
Bill's exwife will instantly become a billionaire. If I'm her, I'd say go ahead and have a girlfriend, I'll cash in later.
12 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
planetgeo 5/4/2021 3:11:36 PM (No. 775323)
I'm surprised he took the girl friend and not "Clippy".
9 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 5/4/2021 3:28:26 PM (No. 775335)
I thought the same as #2.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote almost a century ago, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." He knew them well.
18 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
columba 5/4/2021 3:30:00 PM (No. 775339)
Having money does not make one moral.
23 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Maggie2u 5/4/2021 3:30:14 PM (No. 775342)
Happy Stars Wars Day. May divorce be with you. (a current meme going around)
16 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 5/4/2021 3:30:38 PM (No. 775343)
Sounds like Prince Charles and Camilla when Dumbo was married to Princess Diana.
12 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 5/4/2021 3:31:46 PM (No. 775347)
Wow, so many see this alike!
8 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
jinx 5/4/2021 3:43:52 PM (No. 775362)
How much is enough, Bill? You have enough to buy the world and yet you are not happy. How many homes can you live in at one time? You have tried to control the world by telling us what we should be doing or not doing. Guess what. We are happy and you aren't . Now who is in the better place? Maybe you tried to control your wife and she didn't like it either. You are still that little nerd who cheated on his wife and children. I am not impressed.
20 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
msjena 5/4/2021 3:47:16 PM (No. 775367)
HIs wife is already a billionaire because she owns half of what Bill accumulated during their marriage--i.e., marital property.
12 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
montwoodcliff 5/4/2021 3:51:09 PM (No. 775372)
Bill caught Melinda using a MAC!
20 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
coldborezero 5/4/2021 4:07:25 PM (No. 775394)
For some time now I have been developing a personal theory that the same psychopathy (i.e. persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, bold, disinhibited, egotistical traits and the ability to focus on personal goals to the exclusion of everything and everyone else) that drives some individuals to be supremely successful is also the condition that makes these same individuals so damned WEIRD. Just a theory.
16 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Mr C 5/4/2021 4:14:44 PM (No. 775406)
Gates is the Plural for Gate and the Gates referenced in this story must be the 'swinging type'...Did you notice that the current Ms Gates looks like the identical Twin to Bruce Gender?
6 people like this.
Yet Gates thinks he can tell us how to lead our lives, that he knows better than us, that he knows what's good for us.
No, thank you. No!
12 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
DVC 5/4/2021 4:22:53 PM (No. 775416)
Hmmm. After reading #3's comment, sought some pix of Ann Winblad. My wife is about the same age...looks much younger. Even money can't buy 'youthful'.
Some have got it, some don't.
7 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
NYbob 5/4/2021 4:23:56 PM (No. 775417)
But none of this matters to Bill. Doesn't anyone else understand that the Sun is far too bright? What is wrong with people? Help me dim it. I have to scatter chalk in the upper atmosphere over Norway. It's the only way to save us. That and depopulating the Earth.
I wish I was joking, but he is on the record for ' dimming ' the Sun and thinks there are too many other people on his planet.
13 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
lynngirl122 5/4/2021 4:31:38 PM (No. 775422)
If they have had an arrangement for all these years, why divorce now? Hmmm..
8 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
montwoodcliff 5/4/2021 4:49:11 PM (No. 775432)
After seeing Ann Winblad's picture in the NY Post, I think Bill needs a better ophthalmologist and optometrist.
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/05/ann-winblad-gates-08.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1966
5 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Sully 5/4/2021 4:51:34 PM (No. 775434)
I have seen his wife. I have seen his mistress. Listen to me: YOU HAVE A SHOT OF HOOKING BILL GATES.
IDC what you look like. You have a shot.
9 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
earlybird 5/4/2021 4:51:54 PM (No. 775435)
Ann Winblad was a cute blonde.
Ann Winblad now (current photos at age 70):
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/29/investor-ann-winblad-says-microsoft-is-the-stock-to-own-long-term.html
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQa-rFUAYSShWFI_Cj7hcJIELWXdF2vZoQR3A&usqp=CAU
This one is in the article:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/05/04/19/42567006-9541957-They_broke_up_three_years_later_but_in_the_TIME_Magazine_piece_A-a-29_1620153550626.jpg
Two losers find their way back to each other...
6 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
PeteRieck 5/4/2021 5:07:41 PM (No. 775441)
Bill Gates and his family can do whatever the heck they want with their money. What they can't do is use it to manipulate govt into telling we unwashed what to do, as much as they would like to.
11 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
LadyHen 5/4/2021 5:21:39 PM (No. 775442)
As we Southerners say, "These folks just ain't right."
And wow, that mistress is one homely looking old broad... not that Bill is any fashion plate. And the mistress is married to a private investigator? LOL. You can't make this stuff up. Either he is really bad at his job or he was paid well to look the other way.
This is just one of those popcorn moments!!
9 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
LadyHen 5/4/2021 5:26:14 PM (No. 775447)
Oh and of note... their youngest child turned 18.
Momma always said lots of divorces happened when the youngest became an adult. Someone was just hanging in there until the kids were old enough.
I personally can't imagine being married to either of the insufferable know-it-alls. A pox on both their houses!!
7 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Penney 5/4/2021 6:14:33 PM (No. 775500)
They have fine looking children. Hopefully they will find their own way, but it is a challenge in wacky Seattle. ...Once the guys who brought us Starbucks, Amazon and Microsoft emerged in Seattle, that once lovely town has never been the same. Sad.
5 people like this.
The photo with the CRT monitor - remember when things were cool back in the eighties? No social media, no web, no internet, no cell phones, Gates was just a geeky software guy and he and his Silicon Valley friends were developing technologies that were actually useful, and Madonna was merely a very talented pop singer.
6 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
udanja99 5/4/2021 6:27:45 PM (No. 775507)
Wow. That photo from #22. You’d think with all of his billions, Gates could get his mistress a decent dermatologist and a few “procedures”. Or at least some makeup.
3 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
DVC 5/4/2021 6:29:14 PM (No. 775509)
I'm still friends with an old HS girlfriend, but any visits are with my wife present, who also knew her in HS. Last visit to the town where we went to HS, we had dinner together, and really enjoyed my old girlfriend's mother being there. Almost none of her generation are left, and it was wonderful to see her again. We got along well when I was dating her daughter 50+ years ago, and she is still sharp as a tack in her late 80s, although just a touch frail. Still we had a fine restaurant dinner, fun to talk about old times with old friends.
Never any 'weekend getaways'. Sounds like Billy Boy is sick of the wife.
7 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
padiva 5/4/2021 8:17:10 PM (No. 775572)
Money can't buy happiness.
It only disguises poverty.
4 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
caljeepgirl 5/4/2021 8:42:46 PM (No. 775583)
Haha! Same Time, Next Year. Alan Alda & Ellen Burstyn.
5 people like this.
Trust me, nobody ever looked at Bill and went "Hubba hubba" Is the 'friend' getting a divorce too ?
1 person likes this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
anniebc 5/5/2021 6:46:06 AM (No. 775772)
Leftists. . .
0 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
GustoGrabber 5/5/2021 6:54:26 AM (No. 775778)
Matthew 16:26
What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?
0 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
DVC 5/5/2021 11:48:33 AM (No. 776099)
#32, lots of kinds of poverty.
Poverty of the heart.
Poverty of the soul.
Poverty of the mind.
Poverty of ideas.
Poverty of empathy.
And they seem to have all of these, along with piles of money.
0 people like this.
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