Warren and Bill: Gates, Buffett, and the Friendship That Changed the World

From the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of The Theory of Everything, Darkest Hour, and The Two Popes comes the fascinating account of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s friendship—one of the most impactful relationships in history, and the basis of an upcoming play and film.

Few friendships have had such far-reaching implications for the world—from finance to technology to philanthropy—than that between Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. After meeting at a party in 1991, the two played cards and golf, shared jokes, swapped trade secrets, ate junk food, talked and listened. Their growing friendship would impact each man and lead to change on a grander scale, culminating in the development of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which holds nearly $50 billion in assets.

How did such an unusual union blossom? In what ways specifically did each man begin to influence the other? How did these two avid wealth accumulators jointly decide to address some of the world’s most critical problems—poverty, disease, inequality—by giving their wealth away? And what, finally, does their giga-wealthy partnership mean for the rest of us in an age of great wealth—and great inequality? This book gives the fullest account yet of this extraordinary relationship and explores how it has transformed these two men—and is changing the world for the better for all of us. 

Anthony McCarten is a New Zealand-born novelist, playwright, journalist, television writer and four-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker. He is best known for writing the biopics The Theory of Everything (2014), Darkest Hour (2017), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and The Two Popes (2019), and producing motion pictures that entertain and inspire through the examination of some of history’s most interesting people. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Theory of Everything and The Two Popes, and won two BAFTA awards for the former. Notably, the first three of these films won consecutive Oscars in the Best Actor category (for Eddie Redmayne, Gary Oldman and Rami Malik). Bohemian Rhapsody is the second highest grossing box-office drama of all time, after Titanic. His non-fiction work, Darkest Hour, was a Number 1 Sunday Times Bestseller. He lives in London.