The Billionaire Who Wasn't (53 page)

His life is full of paradoxes. He bought some of the finest mansions for his family but wouldn't live in them. He lives modestly but occasionally stays at one of InterPacific's five-star resorts. He was the biggest retailer of cigarettes in the world, yet he abhors smoking. He sold luxury goods but would not be seen dead with a Louis Vuitton briefcase. He made his fortune pushing high-end consumer goods yet dislikes Christmas because of its consumerism. The greatest paradox of his life arises from his relationship with money. He loved making money but not having it. In the early days, he never talked with Danielle about getting rich: His goal was to make a success of his business ventures. “I like the thrill of the chase,” says Feeney. Wealth was a measure of success. Now he measures success by the speed and efficiency with which he can give that wealth away to empower others.

Those who have gotten close to Chuck Feeney believe he is a person apart, a true American original. The common perception is that he has no ego whatsoever. Frank Rhodes maintains that Feeney “is saintly in the best sense—not in the literal sense” and that university presidents around the world should get down on their knees every day “and thank God for Chuck Feeney.” Ed Walsh thinks that Feeney is at heart a Benedictine monk. Michael Sovern compares him to St. Francis—also a linguist and wine drinker—who gave everything to the poor. Sue Wesselkamper believes he is really “profoundly religious.” In the opinion of Michael Mann, “he has made the lives of millions of people in this world so much better for him being on this earth, that if anyone can say on their death bed they have done 1 percent of what Chuck Feeney has done, they would be a very special person.” His Cornell friend Ernie Stern said of his frugality, “I think he's nuts, crazy, but it's in keeping with his philosophy; I love Chuck, I believe he is a Good Man.”

Feeney does not see himself as a religious person, nor is he a churchgoer. What drove him, he says, was simply a sense that his wealth was surplus to his needs. “I had one idea that never changed in my mind—that you should use your wealth to help people. I try to live a normal life, the way I grew up. I think there's something in the makeup of people from the way they are brought up. I set out to work hard, not to get rich. My parents worked hard and they didn't get rich, but there was always the effort to find out who needed some help.” Had some of that rubbed off on him? “For sure.” Bonnie Suchet, who worked for him for some twenty years, used similar words to explain his giving. “It came from his parents, I think. They helped shape his psychology. He gave it all away because of the way he was brought up.”

Feeney's five grown children make clear in conversation that they believe their father's act of giving is something to acknowledge and celebrate. They resent it when people ask them if there is something wrong with their dad that he gave away all his money instead of leaving it to them. They do not feel disinherited. “We don't see it that way,” said Diane. “We never have wanted to live an extravagant lifestyle. None of us are like that.” They will not inherit billions, but their father set up modest trusts for them “with enough money for what they should, and will, need in life,” and their mother has a considerable family fortune. When people tell them they are lucky to have a lifestyle that involves nice homes and international travel, they reply that, yes, they are lucky, but they are truly lucky in their parents. “We have huge respect for our parents,” said Caroleen Feeney. “I always liked my parents. I took it for granted. It was a shock when I got to school in New York, and other kids didn't like their parents. I loved my parents.”

Chuck Feeney did not think it reasonable to ask his children to spend the rest of their lives coping with immense wealth, and their children and grandchildren after that. “Right from the very beginning, I felt this just would give them a destination in life that they haven't earned per se and that I would be imposing on them,” he said. He saw how some family-run foundations were abused by later generations. “He really believes that wealth corrupts,” said Cummings Zuill. “He believes it ruins families and individuals.” He realized “that not all progeny have the same values, interests, or capabilities,” said Juliette.

He did nevertheless want to involve his children in giving. Feeney set up a modest family philanthropic foundation in Bermuda in 1990 that got an injection of $40 million at the time of his divorce from Danielle in 1991.
Called the French American Charitable Trust (FACT), it is run by Diane and makes grants of $3.5 million a year promoting a more egalitarian society and aggressively persuading other foundations to give away more money. In 2004, the board of directors, consisting of the five children; their mother, Danielle; Bruce and Margaret Hern from Sterling Management in Bermuda, and family financial adviser Jean Karoubi, decided to distribute its endowment and spend down by 2020.

All the Feeney children lead independent lives. Diane lives in New York and runs FACT; Patrick is a schoolteacher in the south of France; Caroleen is a Los Angeles-based actress who has featured in eighteen movies; Leslie lives in London and runs a company making handbags; and Juliette in Paris worked in interior design and has taken a law degree. “He always expected us to be productive in some way,” said Diane. “My father was desperately scared that his children would be surrounded and wooed by fortune hunters,” recalled Juliette, “but we have always had friends who were not interested in money.” They lack the sense of entitlement common to rich kids, and they inherited his sense of guilt if they fly business class. Said Diane, “In my opinion, he felt guilty about making so much money and having so much ease in his life. Somehow he needed to redeem himself. It ascended to us, too. I think the responsibility of having so much weighed on him—that and trying to change the world.” Caroleen felt her father was motivated to respond to the unhappiness and the problems in the world because he was more conscious of suffering. Everyone has circles of intimacy, she explained: the first circle exists around oneself; the second encompasses intimate relationships; the third, friends and confidants; the fourth, acquaintances; the fifth, people in one's neighborhood; and the sixth, the wider world. When there was a news item about terrible things happening in the wider world, people thought it was terrible, “but for my dad, it would be in his immediate circle.”

“My father has amazing humanity, which leads him to get depressed about the condition of our life,” said his daughter Leslie. “He has incredible empathy with people, which has its roots in his Irish Catholic background. He is a real child of his time. One needs to understand those Irish American neighborhoods during and after the war, how they worked, how they helped each other. That's a big part of his life. He saw his mother and father take people off the street, helping people. He always had a mischievous sense of humor which made him simple and accessible.”

“To this day we are all a bit uncomfortable with what we have,” said Patrick, who feels that his father inherited a
Protestant
guilt from living in America, a sense that made someone uncomfortable with luxury and wealth. “He has this tremendous weight. He passed some of it on to us. Everything was always very serious. The world is a heavy place, not a place to enjoy.”

What was most important to them was that despite the constant travel and absences and the divorce, he always tried to be involved in their lives. He once flew from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to see Caroleen act in
Amadeus
at a little theater in Woodland Hills and flew back the next day. “The truth is, my father is very happy,” said Caroleen. “He lives the way he wants to live. He likes to read his books, he likes to read the newspapers, he likes getting the news, he likes a good bottle of wine, he likes good food. He has his children and the things that he values around him. I think he actually has greater access to happiness than most. We are so measured today in society with accumulating and coveting symbols of wealth and happiness like being on the cover of a magazine, or driving a big fancy car. My father has his own idea of what happiness is for him and what makes him happy.”

What makes Chuck Feeney happy in his philanthropy is evident to anyone who has traveled with him. His face lights up with pleasure when he walks around a hospital—taking shorter steps now, as his knees are acting up—and sees babies in incubators that actually work; when he watches an eye doctor restore a peasant's sight; when he sees clean new hospital wards with one patient to a bed where there were three; or when he goes into a learning center and watches disadvantaged kids working on computer terminals. The dividend of his giving is the satisfaction of seeing people use a building he has helped build. He might drop into a library and just watch students working late in the evening. “I sit there and pick up a magazine to read,” he said. Friends tease him that he does this because it is free.

Among history's notable businessmen and philanthropists, Chuck Feeney stands out for several reasons. Starting from nothing, he built a vast fortune, and then in a single act, at the height of his powers, he transferred it irrevocably to his charitable foundation. Not only did he create one of the biggest and most successful philanthropies in the world, he often alone found the countries, the institutions, and the people to support, and then went out to “kick the tires,” as he is fond of saying. He brings his entrepreneurial acumen to the causes he feels passionate about, and helps build organizations to become self-reliant. He leverages money and favors and has created networks
of people across the world to support each other. He shows the greatest respect for his beneficiaries. He goes to their premises. He never asks them to come to him. He means it when he says thanks and almost resents being thanked himself. He insists that it is the people who do good with the money that deserve the gratitude.

His philanthropic model is unique in its combination of size, offshore location, freedom of action, flexibility, anonymity, limited life span, willingness to make big bets, and global impact. It is a philanthropic landmark of the new century. Feeney's creation is not just a good foundation but a great foundation. It has “Level 5 Leadership.” His promotion of bold problem-solving rather than self-perpetuation is a challenge to the tight-fisted rich, and to foundations that dole out very little every year. “Wealth brings responsibilities,” says Feeney. “People have to determine themselves whether they feel an obligation to use some of their wealth to improve life for their fellow human beings rather than create problems for future generations.”

“It is their call what the rich do with their money,” says Feeney. “I would not want to impose my thoughts on any rich person—he can keep it all or spend it all. If he doesn't find anything wrong with buying big yachts, fine, more power to him.” But however reticent he is about saying it publicly, he believes strongly that the rich should start giving early in life, when still full of energy and drive. If they get heavily engaged in giving, they will see more opportunities to do good. “It's a lot of work when you are over sixtyfive to start a giving program. It doesn't happen overnight. If you want to give it away, think about giving it away while you are alive because you'll get a lot more satisfaction than if you wait until you're dead. Besides, it's a lot more fun.”

Asked to elaborate he—typically—produced a newspaper cutting about unhappy American billionaires, which concluded with the story of how the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
found to his astonishment that giving money away was life's most pleasurable act. “Read it,” he commanded.

Feeney's giving while living has already exceeded that of his philanthropic icon, Andrew Carnegie, who before he died in 1919 gave away $350 million, equivalent to $3 billion in the year 2000, according to the
New York Times.

Of the $4 billion Atlantic Philanthropies has given in a quarter of a century, over $2 billion has gone to the United States, more than $1 billion has been given to the island of Ireland, and well over $200 million
each to Australia and Vietnam, making Feeney the biggest private foreign donor, by far, in each of these countries. His giving has also had a significant impact in South Africa, and extends to the United Kingdom, Thailand, Cuba, and Bermuda.

It is a paradox that in a world afflicted by poverty and disease, a big problem facing philanthropists today is finding causes where the money will make a difference. “Spending is not a big problem, but spending it meaningfully is,” says Feeney. Atlantic Philanthropies must spend $1 million a day if it is to meet its target and limit its life span. To illustrate the point, Frank Rhodes told staff at a 2006 seminar about a French general who ordered a sergeant to plant a tree. The sergeant said it would take 100 years to grow. “Then plant it before lunch,” said the general. “There isn't a moment to lose.”

Chuck Feeney has been ahead of his time. By giving away his fortune, personally overseeing that it is put to the best use, and determining that Atlantic Philanthropies should spend itself out of existence, he ensured his personal legacy as the champion of giving while living. Giving while living has recently won important advocates. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, top of the
Forbes
list today, and his wife, Melinda, devote themselves to running the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest foundation in history. In 2006, the investor Warren Buffet, number two on the
Forbes
rich list, pledged $31 billion to the foundation. The three trustees of the foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet, have decided that it will spend all its assets within fifty years of the death of the last trustee, so as to do “as much as possible, as soon as possible” to further health, education and economic development globally.