This year Warren Buffett officially surpased Bill Gates to become the richest individual on the planet. It’s hard to imagine just how much money these two men have individually, but what’s even more amazing is the partnership that they have in their philanthropic efforts. In 2006, Mr. Buffett announced that he would be donating almost 83% of his fortune to the charitable efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As such he also earned a place as a co-chair of the foundation. In 2008 he attended the annual meeting of the foundation and sat down with the other co-chairs for a Q&A session from the foundation’s employees. Below is a transcription of his responses to two questions asked of him. It’s rare that you get to see such insight into the mindset of a person as influential as Mr. Buffett. His responses are certainly not what you would expect, and it’s for that reason that I wanted to share them here.
Why did you make the decision to donate to the foundation?
“Since we have small, intimate, discrete group here I’ll make a confession that I normally wouldn’t … I don’t work very hard at my job. At Berkshire Hathaway we have 255,000 people out working and then we have about 19 of us that just fool around at the office and – I like it that way – all I really do is I allocate capital and I align myself with outstanding managers and organizations, that’s all I do at Berkshire Hathaway. I decided two years ago to do the same thing in philanthropy. I allocated the capital and I aligned myself with terrific managers that.. I don’t want to do what they do, but I want done what they do. And all I can say is two years later I feel a hell of a lot smarter than I felt then even.”
How do you feel about your investment in the foundation so far?
“I feel terrific about it. I’m used to evaluating often large projects. When the facts just hit me in the face I have no problem making the decision. This is done exactly what I expected, it will continue to, and in fact it will probably exceed my expectations and it’s a perfect answer of what to do with a lot of money to benefit the most people in the world. We’re two years into it now and I’m looking forward to observing it for a long time.
I have never given up one thing in this world that I wanted in order to make somebody else’s life better. Now, I given up surplus to do it, but so what? I have not denied myself anything in life and I’m not denying myself anything now. Somebody that goes to church on Sunday and puts $5 in the collection plate that otherwise would have meant a movie or an extra toy for their kid, or a different dinner they might order; to me that’s real charity. What I’m doing is just logical. My older sister was on C-SPAN on Sunday with Brian Lam and my sister, who’s 80, is spending 10 hours a day doing what I call retail philanthropy and she gets involved in people’s lives, she helps them, and she was describing all of this. She is giving up some significant things in her personal life in order to make other people’s lives better. I’m giving up a lot of surplus and I’m delighted to do it and society has treated me sensationally, but it’s not real charity, it’s really just sort of the logical disposition of money to a society that’s handed it to me in a crazy way.”