“As I understand, you knew each other for many years before deciding to marry.”
William smiled, thinking back to an earlier time. “Fran and I would meet just about every Saturday for dinner or Sunday for a little free time and talk about our private lives, which were far less successful than our business lives. We were three years out of Berkeley when we made a pact.”
“What pact?”
“If I failed to meet my soulmate over the next eight years, and she did as well, we would marry each other. Sounds like something out of a romantic comedy, doesn’t it?”
“But you two must have been terrific friends to strike a bargain like that.”
“We were! We had a great deal of respect and admiration for one another.”
“Well, I’m guessing you both went without meeting your soulmate.”
“More or less. A fling for me, a time or two of being smitten for her, but for both of us we knew no greater love than the drive for building our law practice, which in time became more of a venture capital practice. Those were exciting times both in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. There were bumps in the road like the time when the tech bubble burst in 2000, but through the years, with the right steps, our gains kept moving steadily upward.”
“So after the eight years you had given each other, you got married?”
“We joked it was more like a merger.”
“And you were married for twenty years.”
“Twenty years and four months. That place we bought up near Heavenly was our twentieth wedding anniversary gift to one another. That didn’t work out very well, did it?”
Sylvia looked down for a moment then said, “No, I suppose it didn’t. But none of us know the future. And you did have a very successful, as you said, merger.”
“Wildly successful,” William said wistfully with a smile that vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. “But Sylvia, what I’d like you to write about Fran was the great joy she found in philanthropy. She was so brilliant, and so hard working, that she could not fund one project or another without our net value rising to replace whatever wealth we gave away.”
“How did you get started in philanthropy?”
“After you reach that tipping point and realize that you cannot spend the money you have accrued over a lifetime, perhaps several lifetimes, additional wealth is simply a way of keeping score. So while we worked hard, we wanted to see our money create new successes.”
“So what did you do?”
“We began with the ancient wisdom that charity begins at home. Fran and I knew that our parents were beyond retirement age, but all four of them continued working. So I went to my parents and casually asked, ‘What's your dream house?’
“They adored this stone mansion with a small adjacent vineyard less than a mile off the Silverado Trail up in Napa County. My mom and dad were speechless when Fran and I took them to lunch one day in St. Helena and then drove them to their new home.
“It took a few minutes for them to stop saying, ‘You’re teasing us.’ But then they started to believe that this two-million-dollar home was theirs. They cried, then we cried, it was a fantastic experience.”
“I guess you did the same for Fran’s parents?”
“Absolutely. The very next weekend we took Eileen and Sandy and drove down to Carmel-by-the-Sea. For many years they had enjoyed an annual two-week getaway at this cottage they rented. Fran and I knew where it was because we had driven down a couple of times to have dinner with them and then spent the night near Pebble Beach. We found the owner of the cottage, made them an offer they could not refuse, and we gave two wonderful people a surprise they’ll never forget.”
“I can’t imagine how overwhelmed your parents and Fran’s parents must have been.”
“No amount of money could have brought us greater joy than to make four such terrific people so happy. But let me add one more story. While Fran and I never took the time to start a family, we have several sweet, wonderful nephews and nieces. Our gifts to our parents happened at a time that the oldest one of these children was about to start applying to colleges. We brought our brothers and sisters together and explained our desire to underwrite the education of all their children, tuition, along with campus housing and expenses. All totaled these gifts represented a fraction of one percent of our net worth. I don’t say that to be prideful. I’m amazed that many people with great wealth ignore the opportunities to give financial gifts that mean little to them monetarily, but mean something beyond words to others.”
“And this is when you started to think about charity in a larger sense?”
“Absolutely. If you’re blessed to earn a fabulous amount of money, it is an even greater blessing to see the joy that money can bring to the lives of others. Our giving in a bigger way started close to home, but it spread from Marin County to other parts of California, to America, and causes around the globe. No matter what your fortune you’ll never be able to do all you’d like to do. But to see how your money can change lives, improve lives, and actually save countless lives, is a feeling I could never adequately describe.”
“William, that’s just fantastic.”
“I’ll send you over some information on the charitable work Fran was involved in for background if you need it.”
“Of course, that would be very helpful. Thank you so much for sharing all this.”
“No, Sylvia, thank you for being here and listening. It's raised my
