Wealth and Charity

Biomedical tragedy has ruined most of Nepal, making it world's one of the poorest nation. Tens of thousands of people here die of easily curable disease. What does Nepal need today, will nepal be able to utilize a portion of multibillion Gates Buffet foundation and become a top class nation in the world? Strategically situated between world's fasted growing economy of China and India and bosting the highes peak and the deepest gorge in the world, Nepal has so much to offer to the world in terms of scenic beauty, this can indeed become paradise on earth.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today will start a $100 million fund to nurture unorthodox approaches to global health, inviting scientists to bid for small, quickly awarded grants.

The Gates initiative is among the richest and most ambitious donor-backed programs of this kind.

The initiative follows two disappointments in large trials whose results were reported recently. The trials showed that the cervical diaphragm and a vaccine developed by Merck & Co. failed to prevent infection with the AIDS virus. If the new tack by the world's biggest private charity bears fruit, it could pave the way for similar moves by other grant providers.

The Grand Challenges Explorations program, to be announced in Cape Town, South Africa, will reach out to scientists in Africa and Asia, where disease is widespread and money is scarce, though it will be open to all comers.

"Talent is grouped in great institutions, but not all of it," Mr. Gates said in an interview.

"There's a real logic to being where a disease exists."

Typical multimillion-dollar Gates Foundation grants require lengthy applications supported by data, financial oversight and peer review often taking six months to a year or more -- which can overwhelm scientists in underdeveloped countries. "As grants get big, the risk element can get squeezed out," Mr. Gates said, adding "if you're giving away $5 million at a whack," it requires accounting oversight and a mature development plan at odds with novelty.

SETTING THE AGENDA

• What's Happening: The Gates Foundation will announce a new $100 million fund for early, unorthodox health innovations in a search for tools to fight global epidemics.

• Behind the News: This year has seen the failure of two major AIDS-prevention trials, making it urgent to refill the pipeline of early-stage science.

• What's Next: The $34.6 billion foundation will issue a request for proposals early next year, encouraging in particular scientists from developing nations to apply.

The new streamlined program will use a shorter application form, and the review will take a few months. Grantees whose concepts prove promising can later apply for additional funding. Given the current atmosphere of fiscal constraint at the National Institutes of Health, where grants tend to favor traditional science, "the Gates program is a welcome move toward trying to fund new and high-risk ideas," said Anthony Fauci, director at the NIH. He added that the NIH itself has been trying to address the need to support novelty through its Pioneer Awards.

As a secondary goal, Mr. Gates said he hopes his foundation's new grants will encourage scientists in developing countries to stay at home rather than emigrating.

The family philanthropy of the Microsoft Corp. co-founder and his wife boasts an endowment of $34.6 billion. So far, it has committed $13.7 billion in grants, with $7.95 billion going to global health programs addressing AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and childhood vaccines.

Investor Warren Buffett's 2006 pledge of $31 billion of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fortune to the Gates Foundation will eventually double the pace of annual grant giving to $3 billion by 2009. Now, having funded many biomedical projects, Gates officials are looking to refill the pipeline with novel ideas.

"New ideas shouldn't have to battle for oxygen as hard as they do," said Tadataka "Tachi" Yamada, the foundation's executive director of global health. He points out that one "ludicrous" challenge to conventional wisdom -- the idea that bacteria and not stomach acid caused ulcers -- eventually won a Nobel Prize and changed the standard of medical care.

One example Mr. Gates cited was the foundation's sponsorship of a program that uses radiation to zap malaria parasites in their invasive stage, known as sporozoites. "Most people look at that and say, 'Whoa, this is pretty wild,' " Mr. Gates said.

Previous Gates grants have gone to more-mature research projects in malaria, AIDS and TB prevention. Refilling the epidemic-prevention pipeline has become more urgent after the failures of the HIV-diaphragm study and Merck's vaccine.

A detailed call for proposals in the new endeavor is expected in the first quarter of 2008.


Perils of Riches

The Rich And Unfaithful

Wealth has many perks: great vacations, beautiful houses and nice cars. But if its marital bliss you're looking for, don't expect money to help. Almost half of America's rich say they're unhappy in marriage, a study found. What's worse: More than that say they've been unfaithful in the last three years.

Of those confessing to an affair, more were women (61%) than men (43%). The reason cited most frequently by both sexes: variety. That's according to Prince and Associates, a Connecticut firm that tracks the habits of the rich. They asked 433 breadwinners (56% male and 44% female) with a net worth over $1 million about their relationships. Thirty-eight percent of the participants had a net worth of $10 million or more.


So it’s probably not a surprise that 30% of Prince’s survey group said they were considering a divorce.

Most men responding to the Prince & Associates survey (75%) said cost is their main obstacle to getting a divorce, and 61.5% said they feared it would hurt business dealings and opportunities. Just 7.7% of men cited harm to the kids.

Raoul Felder, the celebrity divorce attorney, says this makes a lot of sense, particularly if you have a lot of money and a lot to lose. For starters, there’s this whole thing about equitable division of the assets. And in many marriages, the assets were accumulated after the “I Dos” were said, making them fair game to be divvied up.

"Divorce itself is a businessman's biggest deal," Felder says. "He's going to lose half he has." But financially independent women were no less practical in their answers. The biggest obstacle cited was interference with business dealings (51%), followed by cost (42.8%). Just 14% said they feared divorce because it would hurt the kids.

Men and those with assets of more than $10 million were more inclined to say marriage had hindered their financial success. Fifty-three percent of men said so, as opposed to 41% of women, and 75% of those with more than $10 million agreed, as opposed to 30.6% of those with less than $10 million of assets.

Still, it seems like many people plan for eventual separation. About 56% of women in the survey said they had hidden or protected assets, while 36% of the men said they had done so. Those with more than $10 million were three times as likely to have hidden or protected assets.

What's telling is the low number of survey respondents, even among the very rich, who said they had prenuptial agreements in place, just 5.8% for the survey as a whole and 11% for those with more than $10 million of assets. Post-nuptial agreements were only slightly more common, 8.3% for the survey as a whole and most of those were in the $10 million-plus camp.

Oh, and more of those respondents said they were unhappy in marriage. What a shock.

Mentality of Extravagant Opulence

In Pictures:
• What did you dream of becoming when you were a kid?
• In terms of time, what was your study-to-party ratio in college?
• How much of your success do you attribute to sheer luck?
• What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
• How many employees do you interact with each day?
• When was the last evening that hadn't been scheduled in advance? What did you do?
• What is your favorite book and why?
• If you could share a drink with anyone on the planet, who would it be?
• How much is the correct amount to leave to your children?
• What is the hardest lesson you've had to learn?



As kids, America's richest entrepreneurs dreamt of curing patients, flying jets, writing plays and bagging base hits for the Chicago Cubs. Instead, they started hundreds of companies, employed hundreds of thousands of people and bagged $1.06 trillion.

In the accompanying slide shows, 21 self-made members of the 2007 Forbes 400 list offer an exclusive, introspective and often playful peek into their best days, worst qualities and hardest lessons.

We also coaxed them into sharing their thoughts on how to invest $100,000 right now (a few said put it with them); luck's contribution to their success (95%, says Kenny Troutt, founder of Excel Communications); and the pitfalls of leaving too much to the kids (money man Richard Rainwater says $50 million is too much, while $1 billion each works for supermarket and oil titan John Catsimatidis).

They even told us with whom they would most want to share a cocktail--two said "me."

In Pictures: What did you dream of becoming when you were a kid?
In terms of time, what was your study-to-party ratio in college? How much of your success do you attribute to sheer luck? How many employees do you interact with each day?

Sure, there was some ducking and weaving. When asked for the next billion-dollar idea waiting to be exploited, Donald Trump replied, "If I knew, I wouldn't tell." Logging tycoon Tim Blixeth's answer: "Stay tuned to 2008!"

One message came through loud and clear, though: It's good to be the guy in charge--and the money's nice too.

The top eight spots on the Forbes 400 belong to entrepreneurs, as opposed to well-paid corporate soldiers or the silver-spoon set. The combined net worth of the top eight hit $237 billion, or 15% of the whole pie. And of the entire list, 270 (or 68%) are self-made, up from 261 last year. Average net worth of all self-made members: $3.9 billion.

While their conquests run the gamut, from real estate and oil to media and technology, these billionaire-entrepreneurs also have a few things in common, according to our 20-question survey.

In Pictures:
If you could share a drink with anyone on the planet, who would it be?
When was the last evening that hadn't been scheduled in advance?
What did you do? What is your greatest guilty pleasure?

A healthy chunk admitted that they are impatient to a fault. (Patience might be a virtue, but it might not make you rich.) As for guilty pleasures, food was especially delicious--Sandy Weill, former head of Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ), goes for chocolate sorbet and pizza with jalapeños.

Then again, who's got time for guilt when you're worth $2.4 billion? Says media mogul Mort Zuckerman: "There used to be guilt associated with most of my pleasures, and now there is none."

When it came to best days in life thus far, weddings and births took the cake--with one glaring exception. Casino kingpin Phillip Ruffin's best day ever: Aug. 10, 2007, when he says he put "$1.24 billion into my checking account."

In Pictures:
What is your favorite book and why?
How much is the correct amount to leave to your children?
What is the hardest lesson you've had to learn?

Other answers were all over the map. Favorite books ranged from, yes, War and Peace to The Black Stallion; some even cited books they themselves had written. The group's study-to-party ratio in college bounced around too--not least because a few didn't go to college.

Great wealth doesn't come without a few bruises, and the group was fairly forthcoming--even poignant--when it came to sharing hard lessons learned. Manufacturing titan Michael Heisley had to admit that "wealth is one of the most corrupting influences in my life." Kenny Trout's epiphany: "Money does not buy happiness."

Of all the respondents, though, 86-year-old James Sorenson, the largest shareholder in Abbott Laboratories (nyse: ABT - news - people ) and a junk-food enthusiast, perhaps best captured the fundamental spirit of entrepreneurship. Asked for the hardest lesson he had to learn, he replied: "To spend my energy and resources investing in my own ideas, rather than those of other people. I need to drive my own vision."

And that's why he's worth $4.5 billion.