The future our grandchildren deserve

I turned 67 in October. It’s hard to believe I’m that old—in America, most people my age are retired!

But I won’t be slowing down anytime soon. I’m still going full speed on the project I began more than two decades ago, which is to give the vast majority of my resources back to society. Although I don’t care where I rank on the list of the world’s richest people, I do know that as I succeed in giving, I will drop down and eventually off the list altogether.

I’ve always viewed my philanthropy as a way to help reduce the awful inequities I see around the world. I also feel a responsibility to give my wealth back to society in ways that do the most good for the most people. But I started looking at the world through a new lens recently—when my older daughter gave me the incredible news that I’ll become a grandfather next year.

Simply typing that phrase, “I’ll become a grandfather next year,” makes me emotional. And the thought gives a new dimension to my work. When I think about the world my grandchild will be born into, I’m more inspired than ever to help everyone’s children and grandchildren have a chance to survive and thrive.

This is a long-term project that requires patience; in the effort to make the world more equitable, success is measured in years and decades. Maybe age makes it easier to understand this. When I was in my twenties, I didn’t think that anyone my grandparents’ age had anything useful to offer the world at large. As I get older, though, I see how wrong I was.

I do almost all of my work through the Gates Foundation, though most of my efforts on climate and clean energy are housed at Breakthrough Energy and I fund research on Alzheimer’s disease separately. Global health is a major focus for the foundation because it’s the worst inequity on the planet and it’s a solvable problem. More than two decades ago, Melinda and I were shocked to learn how little money and effort were put into saving the lives of children in poor countries, and we thought the world should do more.

The world has been doing more—and it shows. Since 2000, when the foundation began, the childhood death rate has been cut by half.

Tragically, recent events are slowing and even reversing this progress. The COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of deaths and severely hampered efforts to immunize children. Russia’s war on Ukraine is inflicting terrible suffering in Eastern Europe and driving up food and energy prices around the world. Rich countries are cutting foreign aid, partly because they need to spend more on the military, electricity subsidies, and support for refugees displaced by the war. Inflation is rising and economic growth is slowing. Climate change is leading to more frequent extreme weather. And in the United States, our politics are more polarized than ever. In my lifetime, the only other period that felt this turbulent was the 1960s.

The people who were already worst off are bearing most of the pain of these setbacks, and the worst thing we could do is retreat from supporting them. I’m stubborn in my belief that with the right innovations, we can continue to reduce inequity in spite of the headwinds. Through the foundation and my personal work, I am trying to make sure that, even with everything else going on, the world continues to do more to help the poorest. Getting more support for this is a key goal.

For its part, the Gates Foundation is putting much more money into the areas where we work. In July we announced that we intend to increase our spending by half, from nearly $6 billion per year before COVID to $9 billion per year by 2026. To help make this spending increase possible, I transferred $20 billion to the foundation’s endowment. We know we will keep the same priorities, and in our recent strategy reviews, we allocated about half of the increase. We will allocate the other half in future reviews so we can stay flexible, directing the additional money to the areas of greatest need over the next couple of years.

Our secret weapon, which should not be secret at all, is the incredible generosity of Warren Buffett. Since 2006, his gifts to the foundation have totaled about $45 billion, if you count the appreciation of Berkshire Hathaway stock after it was given. I believe this is the largest gift ever given, and thinking about it fills me with awe and gratitude and a sense of responsibility to make sure it is spent well.

Warren and I talk often about the work of the Gates Foundation and Breakthrough Energy. In this letter, you’ll read the kinds of things I tell him. It should look familiar to Warren and his readers: The model I’m following is his own letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway.