[mathdev]

> the only son of Leila (née Stahl) and Congressman Howard Buffett.

> In high school, he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a 40-acre farm worked by a tenant farmer.

> Buffett’s net worth dropped earlier this week when he donated $2.9 billion in Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) stock to charity

Such a generous man and an entrepreneur. We need more like him.

[elcomet]

> We need more like him

I disagree. We need less people like him (I mean people wealthier than some countries). Let the government manage social services. Some people depend on charities, that themselves depend only on the good will of those people, and I don't think that's wise.

[zalkota]

The problem with allowing the government to control funds, is that the government is truly terrible at handling money.

[conception]

This however is also true of most companies and certainly most charities. Waste isn’t a unique hallmark of government.

[voisin]

But this waste is something Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (the beneficiary of both Gates and Buffett wealth) screens for with intense due diligence. The government does not. In fact, the government seems proud of its pork barrel.

[goalieca]

Bill gates wealth is growing. He cannot spend it fast enough. Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good.

[unityByFreedom]

Yeah but the idea is to decentralize and disperse management of the money.

[elcomet]

So why not giving it back to all the people and let them decide what they want to do with it?

[HenryKissinger]

I've always wondered about the logistics of 8+ figure donations. Does Buffett call his personal wealth manager and tell him to transfer X BRKa.N shares to Charity LLC? Does the wealth manager then call Charity LLC to ask them their routing numbers, types a few strokes on a keyboard, and that's it? How many layers of approval do operations of this magnitude go through? Also, what software do they use to (1) store these shares in the first place as Buffett's, (2) transfer them over the Internet?

[jkulubya]

The answer to question 1 is a combination of the DTCC and his broker, or the relevant company registry for non-traded shares.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Trust_%26_Clearing_...

[smileysteve]

I attended a meetup with a presentation from the engineers at https://www.charityvest.org/ you might find their product interesting for your question

[mathdev]

I imagine the process is quite involved for tax optimization reasons.

[RhysU]

My guess is that it isn't too involved on the tax front. Someone please correct me if the following is bogus...

Donate your lowest cost basis stock and write off at current market value. Donate stock directly to avoid taxes incurred by selling. Lowest cost basis because that removes the largest unrealized capital gains from your personal portfolio. Maybe do so over some number of days to cost average if you are donating oodles like Buffet.

[voisin]

There are a lot of nuances missing here. Estate freezes, transfers, nested partnerships, different HoldCos, etc. Buffett seems proud of his simplicity, so I doubt his structure is too convoluted (bad for his brand to be trying to avoid taxes this way), for people with a small percentage of his wealth all the way up to other billionaires with his wealth have extremely complicated structures that boggle the mind and keep PwC, EY, and similar employed.

[ghaff]

The process itself probably doesn't have to be that complicated (or at least it's well understood) but at least the timing is presumably taking tax effects into account.

Even for much much smaller amounts, donations (of various kinds) of appreciated assets can use tax law to considerable advantage.

[kome]

this, but with a lot of lawyers more :)

it's also kinda cute the idea that shares are stored like computer files. But it's not a stupid question at all. Their existence is regulated by a complicated regulatory complex.

[jbob2000]

He’s responsible for the propagation of expensive insurance and sugary drinks around the world - he extracts wealth from the poor and middle class, and by never splitting his stock, makes it impossible for anyone but the elites to share in that extraction.

He is nothing like Musk. If Buffet never existed, Geico and Coca Cola would have been mismanaged into the ground and these markets would have never been sparked to become global industries.

[voisin]

He buys companies that are well managed but have hit a stumble and the market overreacts negatively. He is not a turnaround specialist.

[mrfusion]

They did make class B shares to bring the price down.

And how did he make expensive insurance?

[jbob2000]

The class B shares don’t have the same power as the A shares, it’s still classist.

The expensive insurance thing is a hard thing to prove, it’s definitely an opinion rather than a fact. What I saw was the huge success Geico had with their advertising programs, and then every other insurance company deciding to run expensive ad campaigns. The costs of that marketing is paid for directly by the consumer, we’re paying to watch all these dumb characters and cavemen try to sell us car and home insurance, when it used to be a quiet thing you did at the bank.