Chuck Feeney’s stealthy giving earned him a nickname: “the James Bond of Philanthropy.” Atlantic Philanthropies

May the exceptionally wealthy take note of the example set by Chuck Feeney. Only once have we used the word billionaire in these pages, but a couple of times we pointed to this remarkable man who gave away all his billions while alive, and now that story is complete:

Chuck Feeney’s Legacy Is a Lesson for America’s Billionaires

Yes, the man avoided taxes, but he gave away his fortune, seeking nothing in return.

The selfless billionaire is a rare creature indeed. Chuck Feeney, who died on Monday at the age of 92, was one of them. He is “my hero and Bill Gates’ hero,” Warren Buffett once remarked. “He should be everybody’s hero.” Indeed, Feeney was an inspiration for the Giving Pledge that Buffett and the Gateses launched in 2010, whose 241 megawealthy signatories have promised to dedicate a majority of their fortunes toward charitable pursuits.

Feeney did a lot better than a “majority.” By the time the pledge was announced, he was reluctant to join because he was no longer a billionaire. He’d long since heeded Andrew Carnegie’s advice that a rich man should distribute his fortune for the public good during his lifetime—else “die disgraced.”

In 2016, Feeney’s charitable foun­dation pledged the last remaining sliver of his staggering wealth to Cornell, cap­ping an epic three-decade giving streak. All told, starting in the early 1980s, Feeney had doled out $8.6 billion, setting aside a scant $2 million for himself and his second wife, Helga, to live on in their old age. For every $100,000 Feeney gave away, he kept about $25.

Feeney grew up in a working-class family in Elizabeth, New Jersey, during the Great Depression. He was entrepreneurial from the get-go according to Conor O’Clery’s 2007 biography of Feeney, The Billionaire Who Wasn’t. After serving a noncombat stint in the Air Force, he was admitted to the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell on the GI Bill, earn­ing extra cash by selling homemade sandwiches at night on frater­nity row…

Read the whole essay here.