Oslo — The world's richest man Bill Gates Wednesday urged fellow billionaires to give away most of their wealth, saying sharing brought far more joy than passing on money to descendants.

"I think all billionaires should give away the vast majority of their fortune," the Microsoft co-founder, who has given away a large part of his 40-billion-dollar fortune to fight poverty and disease, said at a public debate in Oslo.

Photo: Bill Gates circa 1983, surrounded by 8088 cpu (with math co-processors)  floppy drive based personal computers. Bill built Microsoft from a small business.

"I'm not saying they shouldn't leave anything for their kids or to have a little bit for themselves but yes, I think they would enjoy it, I think their kids would be better off, and I think the world would be better off.

"I want to share with them how much fun we've had."  Fellow American Warren Buffet, the world's second richest man with a fortune estimated at 37 billion dollars, had announced in 2006 that he would leave a part of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

At virtually the same Bill Gates made this statement, Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer made a statement where he threatened President Barack Obama that he would move even more US jobs overseas if president Obama prevails in his effort to end tax preferences for large corporations who invest money overseas.  President Obama and others have complained that these tax preferences end up encouraging people to send money overseas to avoid US taxes and thus harm our nation's economy more and more as time goes by.  It was unclear what Ballmer's point was.