The lives of the self-made often follow a symmetrical curve, wherein a mounting acquisitiveness peaks in middle age and mellows into philanthropy as the person grows in wisdom, leisure time, and (perhaps) abhorrence at the thought of his or her heirs driving around in fancy cars. True to form, Andrew Carnegie devoted his youth to building an empire. By his mid-fifties, when he consolidated his holdings into Carnegie Steel, he was thinking seriously about "the improvement of mankind" and declaring that a "man who dies rich dies disgraced." After his retirement in 1901, at age 65, Carnegie went on a giving spree that lasted 18 years and dispatched $350 million. Electronics pioneer David Packard traced a similar curve, setting up a modest foundation in his early fifties and, later, in 1988, when he was 75, enriching it with his $2 billion stake in the Hewlett-Packard Co. There is beauty and logic in this progression: first you inhale, then you exhale. But there is also danger in taking it for granted.

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