Melinda French Gates is one of the wealthiest women in America but her path to a $17.4 billion fortune began with an unusual advice from hiring manager at IBM. A hiring manager at the US-based multinational technology company told her to turn down the job, and instead join Microsoft that was relatively new at that time.

French Gates interned at IBM for two summers, and was on the verge of accepting a full-time position with the company.

The ‘Dumbfounding’ advice for Melinda French Gates

During the conversation, she told the hiring manager that she had interviewed with a tiny company in Seattle, according to Fortune.“My hiring manager at IBM, a female, said to me, ‘Okay, are you ready to accept the job offer?’ And I said, ‘Well, I have one more company to go interview—this little company, Microsoft.

It was tiny,” French Gates said during an interview. “And she said, ‘If they give you an offer, you should take it.’ And it dumbfounded me,” she added.The manager’s reason was clear: She reportedly said that a young recruit would have the better chance to move up quickly at Microsoft as it was growing rapidly.French Gates took the leap and moved to the West Coast in Seattle. “I didn’t know anybody in Seattle. It was moving to the West Coast, but I was so excited about what they were doing.

I was like, ‘I want to be part of that,’” she said. French Gates spent nine years at Microsoft and became the General Manager of Information Products. She was a critical architect of the company’s expansion, which is now a $3.6 trillion software titan.

Melinda French Gates credits her career to IBM hiring manager

Reflecting on her journey, French Gates now uses her story to encourage other women.“I remind them all the time you can pivot careers. You can change. It’s not like one or two paths that carry you forward, even though you had plans before this,” she said.“Here’s this woman who’s supposed to be my manager, giving me a piece of career advice,” French Gates said.