Giving Back to Society: Gates and Buffett

In the last few days, something really great has happened.

We all loved, hated, or loved to hate Mr. Bill Gates. Ultimately, he is the person who became the richest man by developing this dominant technology company called Micrsoft. But what he did now is definitely less controversial and more respectable than anything he did so far — he decided to leave his company and focus full time on helping society (USA and Global) by contributing his wealth and time to important issues like education and health. Everybody knows that this man can focus and address his creativity to win. It will be interesting to see him in this new role.

More interesting announcement came out yesterday. Bill’s friend Warren (Buffett) was next only to Bill in terms of his wealth that he earned by selecting right investment. He believed in diversified portfolio of interesting companies and by now his acumen in finding investments is legendary. Now Warren Buffett announces that he will invest $31 Billion in Bill and Melinda Gates foundation so Bill can help the society.

Enough has been said about these in the media so I will not waste your time on this.
I can not help but think and compare this to what happened about 2600 years ago in India when Gautam and Mahavira left their Kingdom and walked away from their wealth and family to search for the truth. And that gave Buddhism and Jainism to the world. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are giving away their wealth but definitely they are giving this wealth to the society. They earned it (not inherited it) from the society and returning it to the society. Now it will be interesting to see what Mr. Gates does with it. In history every case and every event is different but they also have some similarity. In my life time so far, I had not seen Giving at this level.

My utmost respect to these two men who first showed their ability to earn wealth and now they are walking away from what they earned but only to give back to the society that gave them so much.