Life Real Loud by Bill Reynolds

Author:Bill Reynolds [Reynolds, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2014-08-25T21:00:00+00:00

X (2005–06)

The Man Who Gave It All Away

Within two years of going public, Neteller’s capitalization on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM swelled to over $2 billion. Over time, founders Lawrence and Lefebvre sold off sizeable chunks of their personal stock holdings. For the amount of time and effort they’d put into their project, 1999–2005, they had done well. It is difficult to quantify Lefebvre’s fortune, given the stock tanked when he was busted. But at one point, he started to wonder how they could possibly keep up with and spend all this money. Which part of the sky really was the limit here? Neteller seemed to be headed for the next galaxy, so it would be legitimate to ask the question: How much did Lefebvre want to change the world? The answer was a lot. How much money did he have to do it? A helluva lot, and there would be a helluva lot more where it was coming from. He was thinking he needed a foundation and targets for the money. He was trying to figure out how to change the world. When he got started, he managed to spend tens of millions on things he believed in.

Here is one small example—one of many—of giving it all away. Lefebvre hooked up with Flora MacDonald, the octogenarian, one-time Secretary of State for External Affairs who has been devoting her post-political years to humanitarian work. MacDonald’s charity, Future Generations Canada, helps support women and children in Tibet and Afghanistan. Lefebvre could get behind that. He was helping Daniel Taylor’s project in Tibet, so why not Flora MacDonald’s in Afghanistan? He gave money to support Afghan communities who were forming a joint-village shura, or council, of sixty-five villages in the Shaidan District of Bamyan Province. He spent money on mosque-based literacy programs for women and children—programs that spread to over 350 communities in three provinces. He supported a community health worker program. He supported reforestation in the Shaidan Valley of Bamyan Province and the erection of check-dams and the digging of ditch irrigation systems to mitigate drought in Ghazni Province. And he helped to establish English and computer courses for 135 girls and boys in the Jaghori District of Ghazni Province.

Lefebvre wasn’t just throwing money at every cause in sight; he was also saying to all his friends, “Write yourself a job description and come and play.” Geoff Savage says, “He did that with most of us.” Savage himself wasn’t so sure—he was making a good living as a lawyer for the banks—but Lefebvre kept at him. And after the extravagant wedding reception in Costa Rica in the fall of 2003, Savage thought seriously about what it would take to retire himself. More time went by, and he didn’t see Lefebvre again until the Athens Olympics, where Savage witnessed his friend’s marriage meltdown. By November 2004, now ensconced in Malibu 1, Lefebvre went right back to hammering on Savage to retire his law practice and become the CEO of John.

Savage says, “At that point in time he was a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar man.

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