Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation conducts all operations and grantmaking work, and it is the entity from which all grants are made". Also announced was the decision to "... spend all of [the Trust's] resources within 20 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths". This would close the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and effectively end the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In the same announcement it was reiterated that Warren Buffett "... has stipulated that the proceeds from the Berkshire Hathaway shares he still owns at death are to be used for philanthropic purposes within 10 years after his estate has been settled". The
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation principal officers include Co-Chair William H. Gates, Sr. and Chief Executive Officer Susan Desmond-Hellmann. It had an endowment of $50.7 billion . The scale of the foundation and the way it seeks to apply business techniques to giving makes it one of the leaders in venture philanthropy, though the foundation itself notes that the philanthropic role has limitations. In 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in the US, and Warren Buffett the first. As of May 16, 2013, Bill Gates had donated $28 billion to the foundation. Since its founding, the foundation has endowed and