Gates and Buffett plan healthy investment

If money was measured in weight, the stage would have plummeted through the floor of the glittering ballroom at New York's Sheraton hotel yesterday. Before a gallery of flashing bulbs and inaudible questions, the world's richest man, Bill Gates, and his wife, Melinda, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the legendary American investor Warren Buffett.

Between them, the three are worth $94bn (£51bn) - twice the gross domestic product of Kuwait. They were there to explain that they intend to pump their combined fortunes into alleviating disease, illiteracy and malnutrition.

Known as the "Sage of Omaha" for his homespun Nebraska wisdom, Buffett is handing 85% of the proceeds of his lifetime of canny investment to charity. Most of it, about $31bn, will go to the Gates Foundation. His kids, he declared, would have to rub along on a couple of billion apiece. "I don't believe in dynastic wealth," he explained. "I do not believe in inheriting a position in society based on what womb you come from."

Facing some 250 representatives of the international media, they were an unusual spectacle. Buffett, a youthful looking 75 with silver hair and lashings of charm, was in his element dispensing homilies about the value of money and playing to people's strengths. Buffett has the common touch and he assured his audience that the money would be spent wisely. "If your interest was taking care of stray cats and you tripled the fund, you might not accomplish too much," he said. "But millions of people around the world are facing health problems. That's not something $3bn a year is too much for."

Gates, by contrast, said little and looked slightly uncomfortable, smiling vaguely and staring through his glasses into the distance. There were "gigantic" problems to tackle in the world, said the Microsoft founder, and their combined fortunes could do their bit to help.

His wife was more forthcoming, fluently listing the foundation's goals: HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, followed by education and biotechnology to aid the production of food. The objectives go together, she maintained: "Malaria medicines are hard to take if people have insufficient food - they can't even swallow them. You need a banana or some water to go with whatever you're taking."

Earlier, a television channel had calculated that if Buffett's fortune was laid out in dollar notes, it would reach from earth to the moon seven times over, or buy houses for a large chunk of America's homeless. The trio clearly hope that other billionaires will get in on the act. They have talked to New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg ($5bn), about philanthropy. They have also worked on charitable projects with the computer magnate Michael Dell ($14bn) and the family of the Hewlett Packard founder, David Packard ($7bn).

Buffett was in the unusual position of being outranked on the wealth scale by Gates, who has $50bn to Buffett's $44bn. The poorer man was self-deprecating: "If you're accumulating wealth, it's sensible to hand it over to someone who can do it better then you can - like an investment manager. I'm handing it over to someone who can give it away better than I can."

To laughter, an Italian journalist informed him that he would be seen as "crazy" in Italy to give his money to charity rather than his family. Had he considered leaving it to the government instead? "Bill and Melinda will do a much better job of maximising the impact of the money than if it goes into the federal treasury," replied Buffett. As for his kids, Susie, Howard and Peter, they would still have more money than most people would dream of.

The trustees of the Gates Foundation stood next to each other and smiled for the cameras. Slightly awkwardly, they ignored requests to link arms or touch each others' shoulders. As they left, they moved into a new phase: of struggling with the responsibility of wise spending, rather than seeking to build businesses to beat the competition.