They left the most valuable gift to their children - great education from their parents, and they gave the most valuable present to some less priviledged children in the world - the chance to be educated with the help of Bill&Melinda foundation. Well done, Bills.
They aren't alone. There's a movement called "The Giving Pledge" started by the Gates' and Warren Buffet that very wealthy people (read: billionaires) are signing up to that promises they will give away at least half of their fortune. Over 100 have signed up so far.<p>You can read about them all here: <a href="http://givingpledge.org/" rel="nofollow">http://givingpledge.org/</a>
Our plan is to not let the kids know how much money we have. It obviously doesn't work if you are a billionare, but you can hide the first few million dollars living in a decent house in the Carolinas as long as you don't feel the need to drive a Porsche.<p>I don't understand why anyone would want to raise an entitled brat.
Let's not get carried away with this - it's pretty disingenuous. Most people are motivated to work, at least in part, because they will starve and be homeless if they don't. I doubt that these kids will ever face the threat of such a fate, regardless of how much they mess up or how lazy they are.<p>Further, regardless of how much money they are actually left, those children will live billionaire lifestyles for the rest of their lives. Out of security concerns, Bill has likely arranged for bodyguards and ensured that they will be able to travel via private jet for the rest of their lives. The Gates family owns multiple homes, one in Washington being over 50,000 square feet, that will likely stay in the family and where the children would presumably be allowed to stay should they choose.<p>Hopefully his kids choose to be productive. But the idea behind this - that he is leaving them enough to "do anything they want, but not enough to do nothing" - simply isn't true. They could do nothing and be just fine.
Hopefully they will leave something in case one or more of the kids "fall down" later in life. I think Bill and Melinda might be discounting the luck factor that they have had in their own fortune. While I'm not saying that they didn't work their butts off to get where they are, there was a lot of luck involved as well.<p>Imagine how they would feel if, after they were gone (and I realize they can't feel anything at that point...), one of their kids was in their 50's and lost everything because of bad luck - cancer or other disease for example. Then the "kid" had to live his/her life out in poverty. How sad would that be that he/she had the richest parents in the world (due to good luck) but lived in poverty because of bad luck.
The best actionable advice I've read to date regarding giving money to kids without spoiling them - <i>For every dollar they earn, give them $N. That way they have to work, but they don't have to work a repulsive yuppie job to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.</i><p><a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/" rel="nofollow">http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/</a>
Andrew Carnegie recommended this in "The Gospel of Wealth" (written in 1889):<p><a href="http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora;cc=nora;rgn=full%20text;idno=nora0148-6;didno=nora0148-6;view=image;seq=0661;node=nora0148-6%3A1" rel="nofollow">http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx...</a>
I could care less if their children are leading productive lives. Leaving them some amount of money is probably not going to change a lot either way.<p>For that matter I don't care much if anybody "has to work for a living". Anything else would be jealousy.
Sounds remarkably sensible. I'd do the same in their place: leave your kids well-educated and pretty well-off, but not filthy rich. Let them make their own life, rather than living off daddy's riches.
I think I could've guessed this about Bill and Melinda based on what we already know about their non-billionaire like lifestyle.<p>It's an approach to be lauded, but one thing their children will always have is that they started out privileged which is itself a huge inheritance.
Their name/lineage and connections to community (ie, forms of wealth that can't be quantified nor taken away) will be enough to live a life most of us only dream of. Of course I still think it's nice that the Gateses are doing this.
Even if their kids aren't left with much money, they will definitely leverage their parents' influence across so many areas and be able to do anything they want.