by Patricia Sellers
You thought that peer pressure ended in high school?
Not so. This is the method that Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates are using to challenge America's billionaires.
This morning, Fortune broke the story that Buffett and the Gateses (MSFT) are calling on the other wealthiest in the land to give half of their personal net worth to charity. "The biggest fundraising drive in history" is what my colleague, Carol Loomis, calls the challenge.
The mega-idea, as Carol explains in her story, was born at a May 2009 dinner in New York City. The dinner included David Rockefeller, Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and led to dinners in other cities, where group-think fueled other billionaires to reconsider the final destination of their wealth.
"You could tell the people who were still kind of on the cusp of thinking about how they were going to do this," Melinda told Carol. Melinda actually missed the first dinner but made the other two, in New York and Silicon Valley. Of her dinner companions, she said, "They were like, 'Yeah, okay. I've been kind of thinking in this direction. I knew I was going to get around to it. But wow!'
"And so, learning from others in the group, you could see the power of the idea starting to gel with them."
Wives were essential to get traction, says Melinda, who insisted that they be included in the dinners. "Even if he's the one that made the money, she's going to be a real gatekeeper. And she's got to go along with any philanthropic plan, because it affects her and it affects their kids."
"It was really neat to hear in a few cases how the men let the women kind of move them," she added.
It was a cache of California couples -- the John Doerrs, the Eli Broads, and the John Morgridges, whose billions come from Cisco (CSCO) -- who vowed early on to give at least 50% to charity. And in so doing, they are pressuring others to be "Great Givers," as Buffett decided to call them.
As for the importance of the women, Buffett told me, back when I interviewed him for a Melinda Gates cover story in 2008, that he might not have given his wealth to the Gates Foundation if it weren't for Melinda. Today, again, Bill's other half plays the critical role of pragmatic doer.
"One of the things I adore about Bill and Warren is," Melinda told Carol, "having a big idea but saying we don't exactly know how to execute it." As she says, "It takes some people to make it happen. So I help manage those pieces. And I enjoy that."
She led the design and creation of the website givingpledge.org, which went up this morning. Now Melinda Gates hopes that the spirit of largess -- really big giving -- spreads beyond the super-rich.
"My hope for this is that it takes on this momentum not only with the billionaires but that it expands out," she says, noting that young people she meets in colleges and grad schools say they want to give back to society.
"I do think there's a crowd mentality," she adds. "It becomes the right thing to do. And so, more will because others are doing it."
On Friday I told you about Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer's riff on Bing and Yahoo. I asked him: How much market share do you need to gain in search to not need to do a deal with Yahoo (YHOO)? Ballmer called my question "back-handed" and went on to give a really interesting answer. Check out the video or my Friday Postcard if you missed the Microsoft boss's take on MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 30, 2009 2:07 PM ET
"His ability to boil things down, to just work on the things that really count, to think through the basics... It's a special form of genius."
-- Bill Gates on what he's learned from mentor Warren Buffett, as told to Fortune in this week's Best Advice issue. Of all the great advice the Microsoft (MSFT) founder has gotten from Buffett -- his greatest mentor besides his dad -- "one of the MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jun 23, 2009 5:44 PM ET
This was a week of extreme behavior. From embarrassment to enlightenment. We learned that John Thain, ousted by Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis, redecorated his Merrill Lynch office at a cost of more than $1.2 million. People who worked with Thain pre-Merrill tell me that he was not a really extravagant guy. But he was, at times, clueless.
Three people who worked with Thain at the New York Stock MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 30, 2009 8:03 PM ET
In his first annual letter for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates writes that Warren Buffett (BRK.A) recently sent him an excerpt from John Maynard Keynes' essay, "The Great Slump of 1930," which relates to today's crisis:
"This is a nightmare, which will pass away with the morning. For the resources of nature and men's devices are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 26, 2009 5:39 PM ET
by Nancy Koehn, Professor, Harvard Business School
Are you in the center of the storm?
I teach business history and leadership at Harvard Business School and have been fascinated lately by the notion of powerful people getting a grip by stepping back and letting go.
The idea is counter-intuitive. But it works, particularly in today's environment of great turmoil and uncertainty. Seeing the forest for the trees is critical. Consider these lessons in MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 15, 2009 12:29 PM ET
"I think every foundation would probably be better off if they took on a narrower set of things and they took them on in a deeper way and a longer-term way. What you're providing is not just money. You're providing a voice. You're providing expertise. You're creating jobs. And when you first get into an area, you're naïve. You make mistakes."
--Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Sep 25, 2008 4:01 PM ET
Bill Gates is here in New York preaching his message about philanthropy. This morning he spoke to the UN General Assembly. Yesterday he chatted on stage with Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative. Back in Seattle, meanwhile, a new guy is in charge of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His name is Jeff Raikes. Sound familiar? Raikes was at Microsoft (MSFT) for 27 years, coming from Apple (APPL) MORE
Patricia Sellers - Sep 25, 2008 2:44 PM ET
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Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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