Gates/Buffett: Immense Generosity, Missed Opportunity

Spurred on by the groundbreaking $1 billion gift to the United Nations by Ted Turner in 1997,* Bill Gates will dedicate his efforts full-time in 2008 from Microsoft to the Gates Foundation (already the largest U.S. philanthropy with a massive $30 billion endowment), which has been buffeted by the largest philanthropic gift in history – a $31 billion gift from the world's second-richest man, Warren Buffett.

The amount of money is eye popping. The generosity immense. The power that the world’s richest man has to influence philanthropy is unparalleled.

The missing piece of the story has to do with the fact that the two richest businessmen in the world felt they could not accomplish similar societal gains through the very businesses in which their fortunes were made.

The Gates move and the gift by Buffett, 75, are classic examples of the old wealthy man’s retiree syndrome – after a long and financially successful career one feels their mortality and then seeks to “give back” and leave a legacy of helping others.

Buffett, who acted particularly selflessly by contributing the largest gift ever to a foundation in somebody else’s name, said he “agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society,” and "There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way."

A separation exists between how even this, the most successful of investors, views the criteria for making money, versus the criteria for what should be done with it. Buffett and Gates rightly deserve all of the accolades they are getting. They have set a new bar that will hopefully become a trend.

But, when will wealthy people of prominence apply such principles to making money while they are IN business, not out of it?

*I was present when the Ted Turner $1 billion gift was announced at the annual global leadership award dinner sponsored by the United Nations Association of the USA, with which I worked at the time running their nonprofit program. Turner aired the event live on his CNN network. The U.N. Foundation was set up to disburse the gift. Note, like Buffett’s the gift was in annual disbursements of stock, which means that its value will fluctuate over time.