One day in 2005, the United States Illinois farmer Howie, New York musician Pitt, Omaha’s housewife Su Shi, respectively, received $1 billion and a letter.
Howie is an ordinary peasant and an environmentalist. During a trip to Africa, he was preparing to photograph the antelopes and zebras in the migration, and suddenly saw poor farmers set fire to clear the land. Therefore, Howie realized that to protect the ecological environment of Africa, it is necessary to solve people’s food problems first. With this $1 billion, Howie immediately decided to use the rest of his life to invest in the most profitable and beneficial area of humanity: agriculture. He first invested $16 million in northern Ghana to train local farmers’ soil management techniques, and in Central America invested $20 million to improve local crop cultivation. Today, he continues to invest heavily in research on genetic technology, hoping to solve the problem of food and clothing for African farmers in the future.
After Pitt got $1 billion, life has changed dramatically, and many people come to him every day to invest. Every time the phone rings, Pete raises the microphone and hears the most: “Can we fly to see you right away?” In this regard, Pete’s reply is: NO. To say “NO” is of special significance to Pete, because in some developing countries, many young girls will not say this word for a lifetime, they can only accept the fate of the arrangement. So Pete decided to use the money for those girls. He established a girl protection program in West Africa to prevent girls from being subjected to violence and to help them say “No” to early marriage and early pregnancy. In a few years, Pete spent nearly $80 million on the Save the Girl program.
Although Su Shi is a housewife, after receiving the huge sum of $1 billion, she did not become a broad-minded wife. In a school in eastern Omaha, classrooms are filled with female students between the ages of 5 and 18, mostly from low-income families, and some from single-parent families or care centers. The main sponsor of this school is Su Shi, who hopes to cultivate girls into strong, intelligent, courageous and confident people through good education. Many other school leaders have also asked Su Shi for money, improved music education, increased recording equipment, and built a new stadium… As long as it is conducive to education, Su Shi is generous.
Howie, Pete, Su Shi, they used a lot of money for charity, but they lived a simple and low-key life, so many people did not know that they have a common father, his name is Warren Buffett – the richest man in the world today. Buffett donated most of his property, leaving only $1 billion and one letter for each of the three children. In the letter, Buffett said: “Those thought that if you cast your mother’s womb, you will be able to eat and drink, and it will damage the fair concept in my heart. My child should never be such a person. Through your own efforts, I am very pleased to be able to support myself. Now, the whole world is concerned about how my property will be distributed. I want to say that 99% will be used for charity. Of course, I will also give you $1 billion each. You have established your own philanthropy. Through this, I want you to know that the meaning of life is to use charity to help the world, not to fight against the father’s property.”
For Buffett’s children, the meaning of this letter is much greater than $1 billion, because it makes them the masters of money rather than slaves, and they also understand that giving love is more valuable than collecting money.
