Warren Buffett Talks Philanthropy With 'Giving Pledge' Billionaires

A group of billionaires met to talk about money -- not earning it, but how to best give it away.

Thirty-five billionaires who have handed over a majority of their wealth to The Giving Pledge, a charitable initiative started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, met in Santa Barbara, Calif., for the second time to talk all things philanthropy, The Economist reports.

A total of 81 people gave joined the pledge, with the youngest being 27-year-old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"Mark Zuckerberg will be a hero to many young entrepreneurs 20 years from now," Buffett told the news source. "Bill Gates will be a hero to others, and they will look to those [people] like I read books when I was in my teens about Rockefeller or Carnegie or whomever."

While Buffett's giving nature echo ideas from Andrew Carnegie’s "The Gospel of Wealth,” which encouraged the very rich to give back as a means of protecting capitalism in Buffett says his philanthropy is more simple.

"I just think it'd be madness not to do it.”

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Comments

[Aarontwp]

07:20 PM on 06/14/2012

Warren Buffet is so cool! What a Godsend for what he is doing to change the world around him. I remember hearing about, I believe; Rockefeller and how his mother made him and his siblings tithe in church. I have a non-profit I started, sure could use a hand from Mr. Warren Buffet.

Aaron K. Taylor/[e-mail]

[Paul Rivas]

02:25 PM on 05/23/2012

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[Paul Rivas]

02:20 PM on 05/23/2012

Quite a bit of monetary donations has been directed towards public schools. Yet school systems are still struggling soon after the donation has been given. It's like the saying, "you can give a man a fish, and he will eat for the day. Or you can teach a man to fish, so he may eat a lifetime." My name is Paul Rivas and I am a Regional Coordinator for Titan LED, and perhaps schools or other institutions which benefit from your charitable donations would be better served with energy efficient lighting conversions which will save them 50-80% off their illumination bill each month, FOREVER.If there is any interest in this concept, I can be contacted at [e-mail]

[Daniel Rechel]

02:24 PM on 05/22/2012

Philanthropy as a means to protect capitalism? The irony here is that the common 'Capitalist' mentality could arguably be the biggest culprit of poverty in the first place.

[Annespeaks]

06:24 AM on 05/22/2012

He really is a remarkable man.

[1logicalthinker]

08:18 PM on 05/23/2012

You're absolutely correct, but the surprising thing is that whenever an article appears about him on HuffPo, there are people who readily attack him for his philanthrophy. I don't understand that at all.