Sequoia Fund Manager, Philanthropist William J. Ruane

After receiving his master's degree in 1949, he went to work for Kidder Peabody, where he stayed for 20 years.

In 1950, Mr. Ruane and Buffett sat in on a class Benjamin Graham taught at Columbia University, where they learned that the quality of earnings was just as important as growth in earnings. Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 and recommended four years later that his partners invest in Mr. Ruane's new fund. Many of them did.

In 1999, Forbes noted that if an investor had placed $10,000 with the fund at its inception and had reinvested the dividends, he or she would have had $1.1 million that year. Today, the Sequoia Fund manages more than $14 billion.

Long interested in urban education and mental health, Mr. Ruane in 1992 "adopted" a block of East 118th Street, between Fifth Avenue and Lenox Avenue in Harlem.

Called the Carmel Hill Project, it was a "comprehensive community initiative" that involved renovating buildings, bringing in health clinics and other community service programs and providing scholarships to every child on the block so all could attend a Catholic school three blocks away. He resolved to spend whatever it took to make the block a better place.

He also funded an Accelerated Reader program for 26 New York public schools and for 19 schools in Monroe, La., as well as schools on reservations. In addition, he created TeenScreen, a nationwide organization that tests teenagers for symptoms of depression and other suicide risk factors.

Survivors include his wife, Joy Ruane of New York; four children, William Ruane Jr. of Cambridge, Mass., Elizabeth Ruane of Burlington, Vt., Thomas Ruane of Washington, Conn., and Paige Ruane of New York; a sister, Patricia Lowry of Maui, Hawaii; and four granddaughters.

At the 2005 Sequoia Fund shareholders' meeting, Mr. Ruane offered two rules of investment, borrowed from his old friend Buffett: "Rule No. 1: Don't lose money. Rule No. 2: Don't forget Rule No. 1."