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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Nantucket Project: What David Rubenstein Bought as the Ultimate Act of Patriotism [Watch (HLS stream): The Nantucket Project: What David Rubenstein Bought as the Ultimate Act of Patriotism](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WEZTViU5.m3u8) (15:20)  _Published 2014-10-20. What David Rubenstein Bought as the Ultimate Act of Patriotism_ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:23 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [2016 Republican Presidential Debate: Chris Christie and Rand Paul Argue Over The Patriot Act](/video/GkVpV83M/) ### 2016 Republican Presidential Debate: Chris Christie and Rand Paul Argue Over The Patriot Act [What Happens If The Patriot Act Expires?](/video/NR9ilmjR/) ### What Happens If The Patriot Act Expires? [Obama Speaks Out Against Patriot Act in 2005](/video/5jkPkWHE/) ### Obama Speaks Out Against Patriot Act in 2005 --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] Just curious. How many people here think that congress is going to come to its senses and solve this problem by Monday night? Any? How many? Jeez. How many people think we're having a government shutdown? Okay. Let me explain my analogy and what I think is gonna happen. Maybe some of you have heard me say this before. I, I wasn't here last night. I had to go back to speak at an event, the National Zoo. the, a region of the Smithsonian and the National Zoo is very popular these days because we've had a baby panda be born. And this was the most exciting thing in Washington, much more important than the government shutdown. [ LAUGH ] And as I've gotten involved with pandas, I've learned something, and I think it's somewhat relevant to what we're doing, talking about now. And that's this there are, 99 % of all the species that ever existed on the face of the earth are extinct. 99 % of all the species who've ever been here are gone. We have five million species left. And the most popular of those other than humans, with humans probably like themselves, but is probably the, the panda, There are seven billion people on the face of the earth, seven billion people. Before I'm projected to die, there'll be nine billion people, There were only two and a half billion people when I was born. So two and a half billion people from nine, to nine billion. A lot of people. There are only 1600 pandas. And why are there so few pandas? Well, they only live in China, Northern China. There's, there's they only eat bamboo. Bamboo grows in a very small number of places, but there's another problem. Whether you believe in God or evolution, there is a system that pandas have to reproduce that is unique among all mammals and maybe all animals and that's this. the, the female panda can reproduce only for about a four hour period of time one day a year. So, think about that. How many people would there be if people could only reproduce one day a year? Now so the pandas, the way they do it in the wild is they they, the female leaves the hormone scents on a tree that says in four weeks I'll be ready for. In all reproduction, and the male leaves some hormones saying in four weeks I got the message, I'll be there. Three weeks, three weeks, two weeks, two weeks, they get there. They appoint a day, well, if you only do this four hours a day, one day year, you don't really know where the part's supposed to go. And so, they kind of fight together and, a lot, it doesn't really happen the way it's supposed to go. It's like, when, what I analogize it to Congress. Congress, [ APPLAUSE ] Congress knows what it's supposed to do, but it doesn't know how to do it, and it's the same thing with pandas. So unfortunately we have to use a lot of artificial insemination. I wish we could have artificial insemination in the Congress. unfortunately, that's probably not gonna happen. what, what Tom was talking about, to be serious was something that I had told. And I'll just very briefly before lunch give you a little glimpse of what I, what he and I were talking about. I came from very modern circumstances. Am I right? My tax return might be bigger than it used to be. It wasn't fore ordained that it would be the case. Your last name is Rubenstein. You might think the father was the layer or a doctor or, or something like that. My father dropped out of high school to go into World War II. He never went back to high school. My mother drop, never graduated from high school. They married when my mother was 17, my father was 20. I was born more than nine months later. And I was an only child, grew up in a Jewish ghetto in Baltimore, the most rigidly segregated city by religion in the United States, I didn't know anybody who wasn't Jewish until I was probably 13, and it was a very unusual place, and ultimately I realized that to get somewhere, I'd have to do it on my own, and I got lucky, but. In the sixth grade, I read [ COUGH ] the speech of John Kennedy, I was in sixth grade. How many of you remember the speech that John Kennedy gave that, that famous day in January 20th, 1961. When I read that speech, my teacher went over it, and it kinda stayed in my mind. And I said, well I'd like to go serve my country. And so I decided I'll become a lawyer and, and try to go serve my country. I didn't have the charm, the good looks, the money of John Kennedy. But I thought that maybe I could. Help as an advisor, so I got a scholarship to go to Duke and I got a scholarship to go to the University of Chicago Law School, and I went to work for the man who wrote that great speech with John Kennedy, Ted Sorenson. He was at a firm in New York, Paul Wisethrift and Wartney Garrison. And after a while, I practiced law for a couple of years, then I was willing to, wanted to go Washington. I told my colleagues, well, I think I'm gonna leave. None of them said don't. I said, now I've, I told my clients, I might get out of the practice of law, have to have, turn over your case to somebody else. They said that'd be fine, so I got the hint, I got the hint that I wasn't a great lawyer, I, I got the hint. And finally I got a job for the man that Ted Sorenson said would be the next president of the United States, 1976. And I became his chief council and I thought I'd be on my way to the White House the man's name was. Birch Bayh anyone remember him? He was well I joined and 30 days later he dropped out of running for President. He dropped out because in this state, he came behind the anti abortion candidate Ellen McCormick. And he came in fifth and he dropped out. So, I, I figured I wasn't a great lawyer. And I obviously wasn't a great political person, 30 days after I joined a campaign. I. I was out of a job practically. And so as some of, may have happened to some of you I got a call out of the blue that changed my life and I've hadn't been there to take the call I don't know what I would have done. And the call was would you like to join another presidential campaign? And I, course I rolled my eyes and I said, who is it for and they said, Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter? I guess, I guess I've heard of him, okay. So, I went to work and the general part, general election part of the campaign, and when I joined Carter he was 30 points ahead and he won by one point. [ LAUGH ] So, Carter often said, what was your contribution? Well, White House staffs are not filled on merit. And, as, all of you may know, you know, they tend to be filled by people working the campaigns so I became at 27 the deputy domestic policy advisor, to the president of the United States, three years out of law school. Now I wasn't qualified to be the deputy domestic policy advisor to the United States, but most people in that administration weren't qualified, I felt, so I wouldn't have stood out. And I managed to get inflation to 19 %. Very difficult to do. Mortgage rates of 22 % even harder to do. And there was rumor that if Carter was reelected I would be the second term top domestic advisor. And the strength of that rumor President Carter thinks he lost the election. Who knows? So as Harry Truman said, if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. All the people tell me how bright I was and they would hire me, I started calling them and none of them would hire me. None of them. Because who wanted that Carter aid when the age of Reagan was coming along? So after many, many, many months, my law firm felt sorry for me. I got a job, I started over again at the bottom, and I realize once again I probably wasn't a great lawyer. My clients wanted to know how much longer I was going to do this. And my colleagues in the firm said if you want to leave that's not a problem [ LAUGH ] so I I took a chance and I read that on average an entrepreneur will do something between the age of 28 and 37. Now there's always a Bill Gates and there's always a Mark Zuckerberg but most entrepreneurs start their first business between 28 and 37. I read that when I was 37. So I said okay I got to do something different. So I decided to start a business in Washington and I, with three other people and I raised $ 5 million and we, we built a company that became a very large private equity firm. And when I turned 54 I read. In the press about my net worth. Depending, I don't know how they figured it out, but it was clear that it was more net worth than I'd ever had when I was in Baltimore. And I realized that I read that also that a White Jewish male who reaches 54 will probably live another 27 years on average. So I realized I'd lived two thirds of my life and I had one third to go. Now I realize I could take all my wealth and keep accumulating it and when I died I'd be the richest. Person in the cemetery. Or I could take my wealth with me like the ancient pharaohs did and you know, take your wealth. Maybe you need it in the afterlife. But I thought I probably didn't need my money in the afterlife. So I decided to basically give away the money. And I signed the giving pledge. I was one of the first 40 people to sign it with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And I decided to, to as much as I can to give away my money. But try to do it in intelligent ways. It's not as, as all of you know who are involved in philanthropy, it's. It's much hard to give it away than, than, than to make it. And, I don't have the resource of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, so in a much more modest way I'm trying to figure out ways to do this, and let me just mention one area that I think, might be of interest to you. And, it came to me not because I hired McKenzie to tell me what I should do with my money, it came kind of by happenstance, maybe it happened to you many times in your life. I was coming back from London reading my mail and I saw that that evening I had been invited to a reception and the reception was at Sotheby's and I'm not an art collector so I didn't, I'd never been to Sotheby's and it said you can get a chance to see the Magna Carta. I said okay I never saw the Magna Carta I'd like to go see it. I get there and I kind of worked there and the curator came told me that the Magna Carta there are actually 17 copies of the Magna Carta. Fifteen in British institutions, I remember, has been sold, probably one in the Australian parliament. And Ross Perot had bought one in 1981 or 2 for about $ 1. 5 million or so, and he had put it on display at the National Archives. But maybe he got in dispute with the National Archives or whatever reason, he wanted to sell it and it was gonna go tomorrow night in the auction too with the highest bidder and the, Perot say it would probably go. To the somebody from outside the country, she mentioned one or two countries. And so right then and there I said oh, I, I, that's not a good. It's the inspiration for the Declaration of Independence, the inspiration for the Constitution, the Bill of Right and the things that enabled me to rise up from modest circumstances are kind of the freedoms that are embodied in these documents so I, I really want to do something about it. I decide I was gonna go buy the Magna Carta. Now it's somewhat presumptuous to say I'm gonna go by the Magna Carta, so I didn't want to tell anybody, and- [ LAUGH ] And I thought my children might say well how much money does this mean for us, they don't know. [ LAUGH ] so, I, went back the next night. They changed my schedule. Went back. I get back to the Southeby's the next night, seven o'clock, the auction starts. I get there five of 7: 00. I want to go down and get you know, sit there and raise your hands, and they said no, don't do that. It's too visible. Go sit in a little room. So they put me in a room, they locked the door. And all of a sudden I start bidding. And all of a sudden, this curator, the curator and the auctioneer said, sold! I realize I bought it. So they [ UNKNOWN ] these came in and said, who are you, we don't know you? I said, I explained who I was. They says, okay, do you have the money for this? I said yes. Okay. Okay, he says what we won't tell anybody who won because we keep things secret, but there are 100 reporters who want to know who bought the Magna [ UNKNOWN ] What's going to happen to it? So I said, now I want to tell them. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out and tell them, so I said that I was gonna give it on a long- term loan, and on my death it would go to the, to the National Archives as a, down payment on my obligation to repay the, this country for the good fortune that I've had. Because I realized as I thought about that, that, you know, I've been very fortunate, my family's been very fortunate and I really have been able to do this in this country, which has these incredible freedoms. And this made people from like me, from modest circumstances be able to rise up. So I, I did that and, and today it is there and anybody can see it and I got in the habit of. Buying other historic documents, making sure that Americans would know that they were around and recognizing importance the freedoms in those documents, so the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation. I bought a rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and I gave it to the President, it's in the Oval Office now, and other documents like that. I recently bought a rare copy of the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, and giving that to the African American History and Culture Museum. And by doing this I'm trying to convince people a bit that not only you should learn more about our country and the great freedoms it has and enable people like me to do what we've done but do something that I call patriotic philanthropy. Giving back to your country. And what I was referring to early in the session with Larry is that all of us here if we can be at the session presumably you've been very successful in life and therefore this country has made it possible for you to be. Successful, and so maybe when you're thinking about philanthropy, yes it is important to give the universities and the medical research, and I try to do as much of that as possible, but give things back to your country as well. Because our country doesn't have the resources it once had, it just doesn't. And therefore if you can give to organizations like. The National Archives, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, or the national park system. Other things like that, I think it'll be, it's a good thing to do. And I, I, I recently heard something that got more attention than anything else I've done, though I wasn't by far the most significant thing I think I done, did, but when the Washington Monument had an earthquake, I decided I would put up the money to help repair it. I said I would put it all up. Ultimately, Congress said, no, we want some credit for helping do something [ LAUGH ] so we'll put up half of it. [ LAUGH ] So they put up the half of it. And recently, their scaffolding, anybody from Washington, D. C, the scaffolding is more beautiful than, than it was before. And some people wanted me to keep the scaffolding up. [ LAUGH ] Anyway. Recently, I had a chance to go up in the outside of the Washington Monument. Some of you may have been on the inside of the Washington Monument. I went up on the outside with the scaffolding and I was supposed to go up on the elevator and get to the very top of the peak. And then, you know, be harnessed and get up there and be above the peak. And I thought okay, so I went there that morning and the secretary of the interior showed up, and she's new, and she said well she's a mountain climber, let's not take the elevator, let's climb up. I said, well, you know. She said I've climbed Mount Ranier seven times. I said, well, I've flown over it seven times and [ LAUGH ] if, you know, I want to climb. I said: Is there a defibrillator, here, if we're gonna do this? [ LAUGH ] 'Cuz I'm not in the shape you are. So she got in there in about 30 minutes. And, about two hours later, I got to the top. And but it's an incredible view. When you're at the top of The Washington Monument, you see the greatest view of Washington you can possibly see. And I just kind of saw the, the, the nature of the city and how great it was kind of came back to me in. What our government has been able to do through bad and good times, the countries had lots of struggles. But all of us are beneficiaries of the people who've gone before us. And I think all of us should try to do something to give back to the country. And I would just close by saying that. Now, all of you've, no doubt, are being involved in philanthropy, and philanthropy is not rich people writing checks. The ancient word philanthropy is, is ancient word, Greek word, it means loving humanity, it means helping other people. And so you can help other people with your ideas, your time, or your energy, it doesn't have to be with writing money. But whatever you might do with your energy, your time, your ideas, try to do something to help the government. That really enabled us to build this incredible system. And I, I just give you three reasons why I think you should do so. One, you will live longer if you do so, because when you give back to your country, I think you'll feel better about yourself. And when you feel better about yourself, I have a theory that you'll live longer. People who, nobody gives back to their country and all of the sudden says gee, I feel bad about myself. I wish I hadn't helped my country. Nobody feels that way. And when you feel better about yourself, you live longer. Secondly, I do think it's a natural human instinct to want to help other people. That's what separates us from other mammals. We wanna help people more than just in our family. And I do think it's a great human instinct, and to do this. And I really think you might actually do something good. John McEnroe when he was a tennis player when he was being taught by Harry Hopman the greatest tennis coach he said when a ball's coming over the net if it's a difficult to reach just stick out your net your racket and something good might happen. You never know. Well the same thing is true when you're helping other people everything won't work perfectly. You aren't helping your country it may not help perfectly. But you may do something good and wanna take a chance. And the third reason is this. I think all of you who help your country in any way you can do so will probably get to heaven more quickly. [ LAUGH ] Now I can't prove that, but why would any of you wanna take a chance? [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] So thank you very much. 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