In this episode of Boss Files, one-on-one with Melinda Gates. The work that she and her husband have done through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has produced remarkable results in battling diseases like malaria and polio. Now Melinda is squarely focused on a mission that is no question her most personal, helping empower women and girls in the United States

and around the world, and working to close the opportunity gap.

I sat down with her in September in New York.

When I first sat down with you and Bill and Davos years ago, your focus was obviously on eradicating

horrible diseases and on vaccinations. Your mission has always been all lives have equal value.

The way that I see this next chapter that you've undertaken is still in that context.

All lives have equal value. And we need to

start valuing the lives of women and girls equally. Absolutely. Do I have it right? You absolutely

have it right. And I think for too long the world hasn't valued women and girls. And that's true

in many, many countries across the world. And so while we still take this disease approach and vaccination approach,

we also are taking a much more holistic look at women and girls' lives and how they're led

and what other things we need to do to lift them up.

Because at the end of the day, they are the ones that transform societies.

You've always been very data-driven. No surprise that the Gates Foundation is data-driven.

Right.

But you've said that the data on women and girls as it relates to poverty, for example, in many other aspects, is sexist.

How is the data sexist?

Well, because it's two things.

One is it's thin, or it doesn't exist in some places, and two, in places it's biased. So let me give you an example of bias. It's unintended bias, but it's there. So some of the best health surveys that we have that are done worldwide, these household surveys, when they go in to ask about income in the household, they talk to the man and women together, but as soon as he

answers that he has income, they never ask the secondary question to ask the woman, does she

have income and where does it come from? And quite often, all over the world, women do have

income. And so we need to understand their sources of income, how they use it. But that's

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