A Little More Personal

So far, my posts have mainly concerned what's going on now in Buffett's life and at Berkshire Hathaway. Now is a good time to look at the personal history of Mr. Buffett and some of the amazing things he has done over the years. Here are some fun facts from the 2007 list of the World's Billionaires in Forbes magazine:

• Warren was the son of Nebraska politician and delivered newspapers as a boy.
• He filed his first tax return at age 13. On the return, he claimed a $35 deduction for his bicycle (I assume he was using the bicycle for business purposes -- delivering newspapers)
• He studied under value-investing guru Benjamin Graham at Columbia and learned to hunt for undervalued stocks.
• Mr. Buffett bought control of textile firm Berkshire Hathaway 1965. He later added insurance underwriting so that he could invest the money derived from the float.
• In June 2006, Buffett announced that he earmarked the majority of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to charity. At the time the article was written, the value of Buffett's stock was $31 billion. Most of the gift, which is believed to be the largest in history, will be going to the Gates Foundation.
  
• In August 2006, Buffett married Astrid Menks, his longtime girlfriend.

I was particularly interested in more details about Buffett's donation, so I did a little more digging on the Gates Foundation website. I found out how the funds will be transferred to the foundation:

The gift is being implemented in annual installments. Ten million Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shares have been pledged. The first installment of 500,000 shares, or five percent of 10 million, was transferred to the trust in August 2006, with a value of about $1.6 billion. Each year, five percent of the remaining pledged shares will be transferred to the trust. For example, in 2007, 9.5 million pledged shares remain, and five percent of those shares—475,000—will be transferred to the trust. That will leave 9,025,000 remaining pledged shares, which means the 2008 donation will be 451,250 shares.

And what does the foundation plan to do with such a large donation?

For the next couple of years, we’ll continue on a steep climb to ramp up our grantmaking. Beginning in 2009, and continuing through the next decade, the payout target will be approximately $3.5 billion per year, tightly focused on our major areas of investment, including global health and global development, and improving access to a great education and to technology in public libraries here in the United States.