No. of Recommendations: 1
Charlie is right in that the friendship of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet is cooling off, but not for any nefarious reasons. There was a long article in the NY Times about it. I will link to it, but there is a paywall.
Here are some reasons.
Mr. Buffett is genuinely curious about their backgrounds. He asks them questions and listens intently, eyebrows furrowed, to the answers. Banter comes to him easily.
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Attendees at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting in Omaha, Neb., were often delighted by the display of camaraderie by Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates.Credit...Nati Harnik/Associated Press
Mr. Gates, 25 years his junior, has a far different public persona. Almost everyone who interacts with him — whether at a gathering, in the office, in small group settings or during interviews — says he can be charming and engaging in the moment, but small talk and repartee are not his forte. He isn’t immediately interested in the person in front of him, but if you asked him a question, he might go on for minutes. Courtesies are lost on him.
There remained some striking differences, most notably in how they displayed the trappings of their enormous wealth.
In addition to his modest home in Omaha, Mr. Buffett owned only a single vacation property, in Laguna Beach, Calif., that he bought for $175,000 in the early 1970s and has since sold. He has a 6.25 percent interest in a Falcon 2000 operated by NetJets (a Berkshire company), he once told me, adding, “And that’s about it.”
By contrast, Mr. Gates lives a more traditional billionaire’s lifestyle, with multiple homes, planes, expensive art and a big personal staff to oversee it all. Among his possessions: an oil painting by Winslow Homer that he bought for a reported $30 million. A lover of fast cars, Mr. Gates has indulged in luxury wheels over the years, including several Porsches.
Certain aspects of his behavior, including his stewardship of his foundation, have upset Mr. Buffett, according to four people with insight into their relationship. For more than a decade, Mr. Buffett — known for his love of lean and efficient operations free of bureaucracy — had been bothered by what he saw as the bloat and inflated operating costs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Then there were some minor scandals.
In 2019, the foundation — whose influence, size and practices had already invited criticism about its approach being neocolonial, antidemocratic and too reliant on the idea that technology can solve all problems, reflecting Mr. Gates’s views — took an even bigger hit to its reputation. Just weeks after Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and pedophile, was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell, news emerged that Mr. Gates had met with him several times. Mr. Gates said that he had met Mr. Epstein purely to discuss philanthropy, and that he was sorry for his poor judgment.
Less than two years later, in May 2021, Mr. Gates and Ms. French Gates announced their divorce.
Other factors further strained the friendship between Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett. The Gates Foundation had settled into a groove and even become complacent, Mr. Buffett told staffers, which reduced its appetite for taking the kinds of risks that could lead to more effective philanthropy, and that he had hoped his donations would be used for. He was also upset by comments relayed to him by others who had found Mr. Gates rude and condescending, according to multiple accounts. Mr. Buffett had long offered Mr. Gates advice on how to be a friend: Be aware of how your closest friends think of you, Mr. Buffett would tell Mr. Gates, and be good to them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/04/business/bill-g... 