Frugal, Stoic, Billionaire, Passion driven, Low Profile, Philanthropic – These combinations are a common denominator for most part of the Forbes Billionaires list. And to add another factor there, they are not outcome driven but rather want to live their passion everyday to the fullest potential. This non-penchant approach to materialistic pleasures is driven by a larger purpose for these wealthy top 5%. Today am going to introduce to a Billionaire who wanted to die broke and was successful in doing that. Am talking about Chuck Feeney, the billionaire who cofounded Hong Kong based airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers group. His life story had a deep impact on me.
He was driven by the belief that the best use of one’s wealth is to help people. So he founded The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest private charitable foundations in the world. Feeney gave away more than $8 billion to charities, universities and foundations worldwide through his foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies. And he gave it away anonymously.
“Chuck has set an example…he is my hero and Bill Gates’ hero. He should be everybody’s hero.”
– said the legendary investor Warren Buffett. His stark generosity and gutsy investments influenced Bill Gates and Warren Buffett when they launched the Giving Pledge in 2010—an aggressive campaign to convince the world’s wealthiest to give away at least half their fortunes before their deaths. “Chuck was a cornerstone in terms of inspiration for the Giving Pledge,” said Warren Buffett. “He’s a model for us all.”
Chuck lived a simple, low profile life inspite of amassing billions, like living in an apartment in San Francisco, keeping his philanthropic org anonymous for decades, always travelling economy and so on – Understated profile and oversized Impact.
Chuck Feeney`s story along with other frugal billionaires like Warren Buffett, Andrew Carnegie who wanted to die broke inspired me deeply. I wanted to follow this path and took this one simple idea and decided to pursue it for the rest of my life – Create immense wealth and give it all away. And compounding is the path to that for me.
Let me end with a quote from Andrew Carnegie, once a richest person in the world said: “The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.” You can watch a good documentary on Chuck Feeney –> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMcjxe8slYI
