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By Root 3167 0

and predictable. An unconventional thinker and problem-solver, he was making a gesture against philanthropic waste and grandiosity. The Gates Foundation got its money, but had to spend each installment—and fast. The decision was unusual, highly personal, a form of teaching by example, and—naturally—enormously attention-getting. Meanwhile, in another sense, this was a classic Buffett no-lose deal. He had stunned the world by giving away almost all of his money by earmarking it, yet got to keep most of it until he actually transferred the shares. Nonetheless, in one stroke he had transformed a lifetime of grasping at money by committing to letting go—and had started to disburse it by the billions. The boy who would not let his family touch the chifforobe where he kept his hoarded coins had finally become a man who could entrust his tens of billions to someone else’s hands.

In the announcement speech, Buffett said, “Just over fifty years ago last month, I sat down with seven people who gave me one hundred and five thousand dollars to manage in a little partnership. And those people made the judgment that I could do a better job in amassing wealth for them than they could do themselves.

“Fifty years after that, I sat down and thought about who could do a better job dispensing the wealth than myself. It’s really quite logical. People don’t often have that second sit-down. They are always saying, Who should handle my money? and they quite willingly turn their money over to people with a certain expertise. But they don’t seem to think about doing that very often in the philanthropic world. They pick their old business cronies or whomever to administer wealth after they’re gone, at a time when they won’t even be able to observe what’s happening.

“So I got very lucky, because philanthropy is harder than business. You are tackling important problems that people with intellect and money have tackled in the past and had a tough time solving. So the search for talent in philanthropy should be even more important than the search for talent in investments, where the game is not as tough.”

Buffett then spoke of the Ovarian Lottery. “I have been very lucky. I was born in the United States in 1930 and won the lottery the day I was born. I had terrific parents, a good education, and I was wired in a way that paid off disproportionately in this particular society. If I had been born long ago or in some other country, my particular wiring would not have paid off the way it has. But in a market system, where capital-allocation wiring is important, it pays off like no other place.

“All along, I’ve felt the money was just claim checks that should go back to society. I am not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth, particularly when the alternative is six billion people who’ve got much poorer hands in life than we have, getting a chance to benefit from the money. And my wife agreed with me.

“It was clear that Bill Gates had an outstanding mind with the right goals, focusing intensely with passion and heart on improving the lot of mankind around the world without any regard to gender, religion, color, or geography. He was just doing the most good for the most people. So when the time came to make a decision on where the money would go, it was a simple decision.”

The Gates Foundation followed a basic creed that Buffett shared: “Guided by the belief that every life has equal value,” it worked to “reduce inequities and improve lives around the world” in the areas of global health and education. The Gateses saw themselves as “convenors,” who brought together the best minds as advisers to work on permanent solutions to enormous problems.19

However much Buffett had changed and grown since Susie’s death, he was still very much the same in certain ways. Allen Greenberg, who ran the Buffett Foundation, found out that the foundation he would be running would be a $6 billion foundation, not the $45 billion foundation for which he had been preparing, not from Buffett, but by proxy through Allen’s new boss and ex-wife, Susie Jr. Warren had been unable to bring