Melinda Gates goes public - Jan. 7, 2008

(Fortune Magazine) -- Years before Melinda French met and married Bill Gates, she had a love affair - with an Apple computer. � She was growing up in Dallas in a hard-working middle-class family. Ray French, Melinda's dad, stretched their budget to pay for all four children to go to college. An engineer, he started a family business on the side, operating rental properties. "That meant scrubbing f

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"Buffett also believes that Melinda makes Bill a better decision-maker. "He's smart as hell, obviously," Buffett says. "But in terms of seeing the whole picture, she's smarter.""