AKRON, Ohio — Meet Peter Buffett, and you might be surprised to learn that he's the son of one of the world's wealthiest men.
"People would meet me and say, you're Warren Buffett’s son, you're so [quote unquote] normal, and they didn't put the quotes, I did, and I thought that's nice to say but that's too bad because the projections that society will put on me based on who my father is, I get that and it's understandable, but I knew how not true it was," he told WKYC's Sara Shookman before his performance at The University of Akron's EJ Thomas Hall earlier this month.
Buffett, an accomplished musician and composer, was in Akron to help Akron Community Foundation launch it's new Center for Family Philanthropy with his "A Concert & Conversation" show.
Buffett can certainly lead an interesting conversation - his life experience has been both relate-able and very unusual. Growing up, he told Sara, most people had no idea that his father would become the world-renowned investor we know today.
"Frankly, most people didn’t know who my Dad was, I didn’t know who my Dad was, in terms of his impact in the business world, though my twenties, thirties, even into my forties. My Dad didn’t really become sort of a household name until the last maybe 15 years or so," he said.
In fact, his childhood was quite normal. He attended the same Omaha public school and had the same English teacher as his mother, his grandparents lived just down the road. An upbringing, he says, many in Northeast Ohio can relate to.
"You know, Akron has that solid community feeling and that's what I try and reinforce everywhere I go because I think community matters a lot." Buffett said.
He said his parents encouraged him to pursue his passion, backing his decision to drop out of Stanford to become a working musician. That decision paid off - as Buffett became an in-demand commercial composer. He was even tapped by Kevin Costner to compose the well-known fire scene in 1990's "Best Picture" Academy Award winner, "Dances with Wolves."
Still, Buffett continued to live a relatively low-key, normal life. That is, until a surprise fax from his father changed everything.
"In March of 2006, my brother sister and myself, got a fax from my dad and it was the letter explaining what was going to happen and that was a complete surprise that we were going to get a billion dollar foundation."
Warren Buffett had already famously pledged to give most of his multi-billion dollar fortune away, but his children were not expecting to be entrusted to play a large role in that philanthropy at that time.
"We had to think differently about how we were going to give, what we were going to give to, you know the whole process of giving," Buffett explained.
And that is exactly what Buffett has done, running the NoVo Foundation with his wife Jennifer, explaining to Sara that it was critical to do research to make informed choices.
"I went on a learning journey with Jennifer for a number of years. And it’s critical to have a little help around that. And when you’re working in community, to have trusted and knowledgeable people to advise and go deep with your interests." he said.
It's that idea of responsible philanthropy that ties his work so closely with that of the Akron Community Foundation - and their new Center for Family Philanthropy, which was created to help families build a legacy of giving that can be passed to the next generation and beyond.