In the book “Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and his Quest to Shape the World” by author Anupreeta Das, a story about Bill Gates was revealed.

This billionaire is considered one of the most successful businessmen in the world with a huge fortune and many charity projects, but Bill Gates sometimes feels tired because of his schedule being packed down to the minute when he has to attend one meeting after another.

Bill Gates’ schedule is planned by a team of assistants to the minute, even breaks are meticulously planned, dividing the time into 5 minutes.

What is noteworthy here is that most of this schedule is managed and arranged under the direction of his wife Melinda French Gates when the couple was not yet divorced, making it difficult for Bill Gates to refuse or complain.

This has made Bill Gates sometimes feel tired and many times skip meetings, hiding from his wife to meet his close friend Warren Buffett.

According to Das, there were days when the Microsoft founder would quietly take a private plane to Omaha to visit Buffett and escape the tightly scheduled life, including personal time arranged by his wife.

“When Buffett asked Gates why he couldn’t control his life and live the way he wanted, Gates would often just shrug. In an email, Buffett said, ‘Bill Gates likes to live with a schedule, and I don’t,'” Das said.

Sometimes Warren Buffett himself would come to the airport to pick up Bill Gates and have a relaxed conversation during their free time. If Bill Gates couldn’t fly to Omaha, the two friends would play Bridge online for fun.

The Microsoft founder once praised Buffett’s laid-back lifestyle.

“It took me a long time to realize that you don’t need to fill every second of your schedule to be successful. In retrospect, this is a lesson I should have learned sooner if I had looked closely at Warren Buffett’s work schedule,” billionaire Bill Gates wrote on Threads in May 2024.

It is still unclear whether Melinda’s tight control of Bill Gates’ time was one of the reasons for the divorce.

However, Business Insider (BI) commented that since Bill Gates divorced his wife in 2021 and Buffett resigned from the “Gates Foundation”, the relationship between these close friends has gradually cooled.