David Sanford "Sandy" Gottesman (April 26, 1926 – September 28, 2022) was an American businessman, billionaire, and philanthropist.
[4][5][6] His father, Benjamin, worked as a banker and investor; his mother, Esther (née Garfunkel), played a key role in procuring the Dead Sea Scrolls for Israel.
He joined the US Army after high school and was first sent to Princeton University to study engineering, before being deployed to the South Pacific theater in 1945.
[6] In 1963, he was introduced to Warren Buffett at a Wall Street club lunch by a mutual friend, who recognized their identical approach of purchasing value stocks.
[6] In 1964, Gottesman founded the investment advisory firm First Manhattan Co..[6][13] He was also an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway.
The trio soon concluded that this acquisition had been a "terrible mistake," and Gottesman oversaw its reselling, at only a minor loss.
[6][12] The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth at the American Museum of Natural History is named in their honor.
After Gottesman's death, his wife Ruth donated an additional $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in February 2024, dedicated to making tuition free for all future medical students.