Co-founder of Atlantic Philanthropies, The Atlantic Philanthropies
Secret Billionaire The Chuck Feeney Story true documentary Part 2
The concept of "duty free shopping"—offering high-end concessions to travelers, free of import taxes—was in its infancy when, along with Miller, Feeney founded DFS on November 7, 1960. DFS began operations in Hong Kong (where it retains its corporate headquarters), later expanding to Europe and other continents. DFS' first major breakthrough came in the early 1960s, when it secured the exclusive concession for duty-free sales in Hawaii, allowing it to market its products to Japanese travelers.
About Chuck Feeney
Chuck Feeney, co-founder of The Atlantic Philanthropies, has continued to be recognized for his lifetime of philanthropy and his "giving while living" philosophy. In December 2021, Cornell University presented him with the first Charles F. Feeney '56 Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship and Humanity. During the event, speakers noted that Feeney grew up in modest circumstances, attended Cornell on the GI Bill, and later founded the duty-free business DFS Group. They described his giving as having been largely anonymous for many years, a choice Feeney's associate attributed to his personal modesty and desire to keep his family life private. Feeney has stated that he sees "little reason to delay giving when so much good can be achieved through supporting worthwhile causes today." Feeney has frequently spoken about his motivation for philanthropy, emphasizing empathy for those in need. He has said, "I think life is a learning process and you read books, you read stories, you empathize with people," and noted that he "had always empathized with people who have it tough in life." In various remarks, Feeney has expressed that giving while alive allows one to see the impact and "modify your mistakes," adding that it provides "satisfaction that you're achieving something that is helpful to people." He has also stated that there is "an obligation, certainly for the haves to reach out and to look and see what they can do." The Atlantic Philanthropies was scheduled to complete its work in 2016, having given away billions of dollars globally.
Transcript (50 segments)
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Chuck Feeney0:00
With my parents having these parties and having a grand old time, we were the house where people came and had barbecues and had parties. People always came with their kids; it was always kids and adults.
Parties. I enjoyed what I did. I enjoyed particularly the people that I worked with. I was always thinking that I don't need another million dollars.
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Narrator0:34
But as the profits rolled in and the four partners reveled in their multi-million dollar lifestyles, Chuck began to realize the effects that great wealth could have not only on him but also on his family.
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Chuck Feeney0:49
My dad was kicking us in the butt since we were 14: get out the door, do this yourself, figure it out. He was pushing us to be active and sporty and tough.
I felt that they should have the opportunity to see how money is earned. They knew there's a difference between what you're making and what you're giving. More than anything, he wanted us to have goals and passions. He thought, well, how could they have this? They're born with everything already. People have to fight and strive, so he made sure we did.
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Narrator1:27
I remember having a conversation with Chuck and quoting to him, which I can only do approximately, the statement that the Reverend Gates made to John D. Rockefeller, in which he said to Rockefeller: 'Your wealth is rolling up, rolling up, and if you don't do something about it, it will crush you and crush your family.' And Chuck kind of got that.
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Chuck Feeney1:57
He is uncomfortable with the displays of wealth and lavishness, and I think that grew over time. I think there were times when we enjoyed entertaining people at some of the houses that the family then owned. So I think there were things about it that he enjoyed, but the growth of the disquietude eventually outweighed the pleasure at being able to entertain and bring people together.
There's a halfway mark where we were living a certain life. My dad was fun at a party. Then I think things got a little bit more serious with the amount of money and also an awareness. When you travel and see how people suffer, really, it's not just an idea.
I think life is a learning process. You read books, you read stories, you empathize with people. I have always empathized with people who have a tough life. The world is full of people who don't get enough to eat.
It was by 1980 I started thinking, where's all this leading you? What am I going to do with it? Like many of the wealthy people today, they have the money, but they wouldn't be able to spend it if they started to spend it.
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Narrator3:35
It was the early '80s and the decade of greed was well underway. While much of the world was consumed with making money, Chuck Feeney decided he was going to do something completely different. It was the start of a journey which was to change his life and the lives of many around him.
I think because of his upbringing—a blue-collar New Jersey guy, a guy in college had to sell sandwiches to get through school—is that when he started making these tremendous amounts of money, he was almost embarrassed by it. He worked so hard to get there, and once he did, I think he found—I know he didn't like these fancy dinners and he didn't want to go places that they were invited to. That was, you know, he was very low-key.
Chuck doesn't own a car, doesn't own a house, has one pair of shoes and a $15 watch.
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Chuck Feeney4:30
I would be unhappy with myself if I was wasting money on anything, and that includes living. So I get what I want from life and move on.
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Narrator4:43
He's happy going out to dinner, and if he can get a good bottle of wine, he's happy with that. Sometimes even a better bottle of wine. It's just that his personal style is not self-indulgent or lavish.
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Chuck Feeney4:54
You know, I'm a guy who's said that I could be happier with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.
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Narrator5:02
Because he'd always insisted on remaining anonymous, very few people had any idea just how much Feeney was worth—not even his family. By now, his fortune was estimated at around a billion dollars. And although no one knew, he was secretly developing a radical plan to give everything away.
Well, I think it was clear throughout that there would be a moment when virtually all of the assets would be used for charitable purposes. Never perfectly clear what 'virtually all' meant, because Chuck didn't want to impoverish his family. But it was clear, increasingly clear, that he didn't want very much for himself.
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Interviewer5:37
Did you not at any stage wonder yourself, am I going nuts? Am I doing the right thing here?
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Chuck Feeney5:44
Oh, I suppose you always question business decisions, and this was in effect a type of business decision.
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Narrator5:48
I warned him. A good lawyer is supposed to warn clients about risks. And I said, you know, you can't change your mind on this once this is done. If the money is transferred, the assets are transferred, they're gone. And if you change your mind three days later, you can't get them back. And if you think you've made a mistake, you can't get them back. And if things go wrong, you can't get them back. It's irrevocable. Are you sure you want to do this?
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Chuck Feeney6:07
And there was no going back. Oh no, no going back once we decided.
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Narrator6:12
I think he actually was impatient with that because he made up his mind, thought it was fine. He said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get on with it.'
Chuck Feeney, the man who had worked his whole life to build a business empire, was about to change everything with the stroke of a pen. In November 1982, having made a relatively modest provision for his family, he signed over his entire fortune to his new foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies.
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Chuck Feeney6:36
I got a phone call one day from him, and he said, 'I have a big announcement.' And he said, 'I just wanted you to know that I've given everything away.' And I said, 'You mean every penny?' And he said, 'I've given it all away to a foundation.' And I said, 'Oh well, that's good if that's what you want to do.'
You know, I mean, I'm really proud of my dad. I think he's just really an extraordinary man. He's, you know, a very—I mean, he's just such—who does this, honestly? Who does this?
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Narrator7:09
I was surprised, I will admit, but I knew that he didn't do it without having given a lot of thought to it. And the Irish expression that he has, 'There's no pockets in shrouds'—well, I think he just came to that realization and said, 'Okay, I'm going to change what I'm doing.'
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Chuck Feeney7:26
I guess down to a realization that it doesn't add anything to your life. I say it may make life a bit more comfortable for you, but I'm not uncomfortable today.
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Narrator7:45
From now on, all of Chuck's multi-million dollar profits from the duty-free business would be paid directly into Atlantic Philanthropies. His next destination was a small, poor, underdeveloped country on the edge of Europe.
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Chuck Feeney8:07
I'm kind of a plastic Paddy, an Irish American. My origins are Irish, and my grandmother was from Fermanagh. I guess I qualify as an Irish American because I've been involved in a number of things that were to do with Ireland in my adult years.
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Narrator8:27
When Feeney arrived in Ireland in the early 1980s, the country was in the grip of a desperate recession. Unemployment and immigration were at record levels. There was little investment in industry or education. Things were bleak.
He began routinely spending time in Ireland and doing what he always does: he goes to someplace and he walks around and he sniffs around and he talks to people. And it's this entrepreneurial seeking mode.
Feeney had had firsthand experience of the benefits of education, and he quickly spotted a real need in Ireland.
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Chuck Feeney9:03
Irish education had not kept pace. And I just had the experience in my life of realizing that it's with educated people that you can achieve more. And so we wanted to reinforce the structures of the universities.
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Narrator9:21
One of the cities in Ireland in most need of investment in third-level education was Limerick. The people of Limerick had been campaigning for a university for years. Ed Walsh, the young head of Limerick's existing National Institute, had big ambitions to convert it from a small campus into a top-level university. The odds were stacked against him.
The thing about Chuck Feeney is that he likes the underdog, and Limerick was the underdog. First of all, Limerick is physically a little bit separate from other places, and the institution was a new institution which was bucking the trend. Ed Walsh was introducing new thinking into a rather stultified higher education system in Ireland and was not welcomed for that. Those are the sort of people that Chuck Feeney likes: mavericks.
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Ed Walsh10:06
A very unassuming man in our first encounter, just because he dressed so badly and was so self-effacing. A very ordinary kind of guy; he could have stepped off a tractor in County Clare. And when he came into my office in Limerick, most Americans would have a quick encounter and someone would take them away and see buildings. This man had read, and he was profoundly knowledgeable about Ireland and its predicament and the trouble and the potential. So something clicked.
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Chuck Feeney10:43
We did a lot of bricks and mortar at the very beginning because some of the things that we wanted to do, for example here in Ireland, are going to require buildings at universities—student accommodation, libraries, and that sort of stuff.
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Ed Walsh11:00
Chuck says, 'Look, you've got one chance to do something extremely well. The country does not have a purpose-designed concert hall. Why don't we bring in the best designer we can? I know one in New York.' He flew in, and we'll design a world-class concert hall that Ireland can be proud of and the university can be proud of. By the way, you can design it in such a way that it will meet the needs of students and conferring and everything else.' So this was the first major project.
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Narrator11:27
The anonymity which had been crucial to the success of his business became an obsession with Feeney. As the buildings went up, maintaining the veil of secrecy became the condition of any grants the foundation made.
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Ed Walsh11:40
The joke used to be in the trade that AP was synonymous with Anonymous. He explained to me that if we revealed who was providing the funding, it would cease. It was very strange trying to explain to faculty and staff here where the money was coming from. Was I involved in the drugs business or something like that? Because these magnificent buildings were rising out of the ground, and we couldn't explain really who was doing it.
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Narrator12:16
In 1989, Limerick finally got its university, and as the campus grew, so too did jobs and opportunities in the city and beyond.
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Ed Walsh12:27
No matter what you look on campus, you can find Chuck Feeney's mark. The thing he liked about the university program was that there were buildings—there was bricks and mortar. You could kick them, you could touch them, you could feel them. They were there.
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Narrator12:43
Those who knew him before said that being transformed, he was much happier, and he was really enjoying life. The more he gave, the more he enjoyed it. It was quite amazing.
The effect of Feeney's donations to Limerick and other universities was slowly transforming the country, but these investments would be dwarfed by the sheer scale of the next phase of the project. Meanwhile, events in his home county of Fermanagh were drawing him into the complex world of Northern Irish politics.
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Chuck Feeney13:25
Well, I think the terminal event was certainly the bombing and his killing. It just seemed so gross. They were just the people who unfortunately happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It struck me that, you know, this is not a good Irish thing. I mean, we're not that kind of people that want to make people disappear from the earth because of their views.
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Narrator14:00
I met Chuck one night at P.J. Clarke's, sat him down, and said I was considering putting together a group to go to Northern Ireland to become involved and try and bring an American dimension to solving the Irish issue. And Chuck instantly said, 'Yes, I want to do it,' which was remarkable given who he was and given the fact that, you know, this was really kind of a fool's errand in many people's eyes at the time.
There was no solution in sight to the violence in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin was silenced under Section 31 and had become political pariahs. But there was a feeling that if the party could be brought into the political mainstream, it could help move the peace process forward.
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Chuck Feeney14:39
At that time, I sort of felt that the business of bringing a solution to the problem was as good a business as you could get into.
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Narrator14:50
In early '93, O'Dowd suggested that Chuck Feeney should meet the head of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams.