A Billionaire Who Wishes to Die Broke

Who wants to be a millionaire? I am sure there is hardly anyone who will say, 'No'. But what if there is a person who is already a multi-billionaire and wants to be broke before his death.

Weird as it sounds, but you have someone like that in this world.

Let me introduce you to Chuck Feeney. A billionaire who wants to have no money left by the time he dies. And aged 90, he’s already reached his goal of becoming broke.

Feeney once had a stake in one of the most successful companies in the world that at its peak was making more money per store than Apple does now.

But Feeney wanted to make significant changes to the world before he left it.

Known for his philanthropic work, he’s officially given away more than eight billion dollars of his entire fortune, leaving him and his wife a small apartment with some modest retirement savings.

The incredible true story of a billionaire gone broke

Chuck Feeney didn’t come from a wealthy family. He was born in 1931 in a small Irish American community in New Jersey. During the great depression, his mother was a volunteer Red Cross nurse at night.

So, it’s easy to see where Chuck developed his love for giving back to the community.

After graduating high school, he joined the Air force and was stationed as a radio operator in Japan. After returning to the States, he used his right to free education as a veteran and attended Cornell University — a big step up for a man from a blue-collar background.

Chuck started amassing a fortune when he co-founded airport retailer duty-free shoppers with Robert Miller in 1960. They sold whiskey to the U.S. Navy men stationed in Europe in the 1950s before rapidly expanding into selling luxury goods.

But it didn’t take Feeney much time to learn that he wasn’t after collecting massive wealth. Despite his recent success, in 1984, he secretly transferred his entire thirty-eight percent stake in the company to his foundation that would later be called “The Atlantic Philanthropies.”

At that time, very few knew that the company’s impressive revenues weren’t landing in Feeney’s pockets but the hands of a charity.

To understand how successful this business was and how much he was giving up, Duty Free Shoppers’ annual average sales per sq ft at their Waikiki store in 1988 was $43,561. In today’s comparison, Apple stores average about $5,650 per sq ft.

In 1997, when the world discovered that Feeney had transferred his stake, his business cut was expected to be worth more than 1.6 billion dollars.

But Feeney was not hungry for money. He thought there would be way better things to do with it than set himself up with a luxury lifestyle. Today he lives in a modest San Francisco apartment.

He flies coach, and up until 2010, he didn’t even want anyone to know his name. He also wears threadbare blazers, a $10 rubber Casio watch, and carries magazines and papers in a plastic shopping bag. The only car he ever owned was a used Jaguar.

Chuck Feeney wasn’t famous until he decided to make it known that he was giving all of his money away and came out of anonymity for one reason: he wanted other billionaires to do the same.

Where exactly did Feeney’s fortune go, and what did it accomplish?

Donations from Feeney have managed to change the world in massive ways, like bringing peace to Northern Ireland and modernizing Vietnam’s health care system.

But it’s vital to understand how Feeney managed to source his funds to enable Atlantic Philanthropies to make these donations.

So, to start, $2.9 billion was from Feeney’s stake sale in duty-free shoppers. $3.8 billion was from Atlantic Investment income, and $2.5 billion from General Atlantic Partners, which Feeney had founded in 1980 to fund high growth businesses.

Feeney was always passionate about education and the development of research and knowledge opportunities. He’s given $3.7 billion to various education initiatives. Including nearly one billion dollars to his alma mater Cornell.

He also funded $177 million to Ireland to help them revamp their education system and making them a world-class leader in research and innovation.

Feeney’s philosophy for donating money is all about where the funds will make a significant impact immediately. He didn’t want to donate money where it wouldn’t be put to good use.

He has granted more than $870 million to human rights causes worldwide, like $62 million to abolish capital punishment in the U.S. and $62 million in grants for the grassroots campaign supporting ObamaCare.

He has a long list of donations, including $700 million to fund healthcare improvements, including $270 million to improve public health care in Vietnam, and $176 million to the Global Brain Health Institute.

A partnership program between Trinity College in Dublin and the University of California in San Francisco were given $2.5 billion worth of grants to help build over one thousand buildings across five continents that invigorate communities and improve health care and education.

One of Feeney’s final gifts was building a high-tech campus for Cornell on New York’s Roosevelt Island, where he donated $350 million. This was accompanied by significant matching grants from the government and other donors, which was one of his goals to use his money to encourage others to donate.

The impact of this single project is phenomenal. The campus created about twenty thousand short-term construction jobs and is expected to maintain thirty-eight permanent jobs. The project will also create about six hundred spin-off companies and generate more than twenty-three billion dollars in economic activity and one billion in tax revenues.

In the first three decades, Atlantic philanthropies have given out 6,500 grants to nearly 2,500 recipients, at an average of 1.2 million dollars per grant, with an average of $216 million granted annually since 1982.

That’s a massive legacy to leave behind. Still, in Feeney’s opinion, it’s much more worth it than spending his billions on a high-tech smart house or superyacht, of which he could have had many if he decided to grow his billion-dollar fortune for himself.

On 14th September 2020, Feeney officially completed his four-decade mission and signed the documents to shutter Atlantic Philanthropies for good.

While some may say, he drained his fortune. He sees it as his money being used with more compassion for life than any other billionaire’s fortune, and it’ll continue to do well for the world long after he’s gone.

Over the last four decades, Feeney has donated more than eight billion dollars to charities, universities, and foundations worldwide.

He only set aside two million dollars for his and his wife’s retirement. That means he’s given away 375,000% more money than his current net worth.

It’s strange for a symbol of success to be the shrugging of a high-profile foundation, but that’s exactly what Feeney’s goal was.

At its height, the Atlantic Philanthropies had three hundred plus employees and ten global offices.

The 2020 closure date was set years ago as part of his long-term plan to make high-impact donations by setting a deadline to give away all his money.

As a philanthropist, he pioneered the idea of ‘Giving while Living,’ which is to spend most of one’s fortune on charity initiatives instead of simply funding and growing a foundation.

In this process, Feeney inspired billionaires worldwide like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. His work influenced the billionaire pair to start the giving pledge in 2010, a campaign to convince the world’s wealthiest to give away at least half of their fortunes; by the time they pass.

Summary

Now Chuck Feeney may not have a life full of the utmost luxury to look back on, but he does have incredible achievements to be proud of.

When he looks back on his life, he wouldn’t have any regrets. But we’re not sure if most billionaires would be willing to happily and confidently go broke in favor of helping the world.

And that’s what makes Chuck Feeney an extraordinary man.

Chuck Feeney’s work will continue despite him having given away his fortune. 211 billionaires have signed the Giving pledge as of 2020 with about six hundred billion dollars of funds pledged.

Only time will tell if any billionaires will match Chuck Feeney and donate until they go broke.

But the impact one generous man has had on the entire world is incredible, and perhaps we’ll see more of the world’s ultra-wealthy follow in his footsteps.

Sources : Originally written by me on my Medium account.