DAVID GREENE, HOST:
And our last word in business today is Happy Birthday.
Turns out when you're a billionaire investor you can celebrate any way you want. Warren Buffett turned 82 yesterday and his wish was to give away billions, so he did, in the form of millions of dollars worth of his company stock. All told, those shares will eventually be worth about $3 billion. That gift was divided between his three children's charitable foundations.
NPR's Sonari Glinton has more.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: If you want to learn how to invest like Warren Buffett you can take a course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Donna Dudney teaches that class on Warren Buffett.
DONNA DUDNEY: One of the questions that gets asked all the time is how do you decide who to give money to and what causes do you support.
GLINTON: Dudney says Buffett has used a very definite strategy to run his companies. He picks good managers. She says he asks: Are they talented, candid, and open?
DUDNEY: And I think he looks for the same things when he gives money to philanthropic activities. Who is going to be spending it and does he trust the managers that are going to be spending the money he worked so hard to accumulate over the last 60 years?
GLINTON: Dudney says the foundations run by Susan, Howard and Peter Buffett fit an important criteria of their father's. They support a variety of issues, from anti-poverty to agriculture, and of course, well, they're his kids.
DUDNEY: He wants to give his money to big problems that require lots of money to solve and that don't have a natural funding source.
GLINTON: Buffet has been giving about $64 million a year to each of his children's foundations. Now he's decided to up that amount to about $100 million a year. That means more than three billion additional dollars.
Sonari Glinton, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
