Bill Gates: 2021 has been a year of ‘great personal sadness’

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said this past year has been one of “great personal sadness” following a divorce from his ex-wife and foundation partner Melinda French Gates. 

The admission from the billionaire came in a blog post Tuesday, in which Gates reflected on the year and its difficulties, including the pandemic. 

In the post, Gates says that when he first started Microsoft, he did not expect computers to become the main form of connection, playing a “significant role” in people’s lives, especially during the pandemic. 

Most of his social interactions, he says, have been online through video chat or playing games with others — like bridge — on the internet. 

“It’s been a strange and disorienting experience. My personal world has never felt smaller than it did over the last twelve months,” he wrote. 

Gates went on to address a point of public interest: his divorce from French Gates, which was announced in early May after almost 30 years of marriage. The two met while French Gates was working at Microsoft in its fledgling years. 

“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage,” the couple wrote in a joint statement at the time. In their announcement, the two stated that they would work together on The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation unless it proved untenable.

“Even though I think the things I’ve been working on are by far the most interesting part of my year, I know a lot of people are curious about a subject closer to home: my divorce,” the entrepreneur wrote in his Tuesday blog post. 

“Melinda and I continue to run our foundation together and have found a good new working rhythm, but I can’t deny that it’s been a year of great personal sadness for me.” 

However, Gates also stated that there is reason for optimism at the end of 2021, looking ahead to 2022. He added that he believed that the world was at a turning point in the pandemic. 

“I am hopeful, though, that the end is finally in sight. It might be foolish to make another prediction, but I think the acute phase of the pandemic will come to a close some time in 2022.” 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funneled money into COVID-19 vaccine development since the beginning of the pandemic. In October of this year, the foundation also committed $120 million to expedite lower-income countries’ access to COVID-19 drugs. 

Gates said the world is better prepared to tackle worse variants of the coronavirus “than at any other point in the pandemic so far.” Even amid the emergence of the omicron variant, the Microsoft founder said that he was “hopeful that, at some point next year, COVID-19 will become an endemic disease in most places.” 

However, Gates noted that the pandemic has been a “massive test of governance,” adding that the coronavirus has shown just how difficult it is to administer public health solutions when there is a lack of trust in larger institutions. 

“Based on what I’ve seen over the last couple of years, I’m more worried than I’ve ever been about the ability of governments to get big things done,” he said. 

“If your people don’t trust you, they’re not going to support major new initiatives. And when a major crisis emerges, they’re less likely to follow guidance necessary to weather the storm.”