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Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

gatesnotes.com

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Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#41

Post by differentView »

toastednz wrote: post #26

I find Gates' lack of focus on environmental issues disheartening. I know he does invest in clean energy and feels strongly about climate change, but this doesn't really do anything to prevent deforestation NOW. I know that bringing people out of poverty may have a side-effect of improving some environmental parameters, but it also makes whole swathes of people start demanding more meat, more palm oil, more cars, mor…

Smart people, and people in general, are more productive doing what they're passionate about. Buffett on investing, Musk on space, and Gates on curing childhood diseases.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#42

Post by throwaway729 »

foxylad wrote: post #38
obilgic wrote: post #2

I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)

Bill and Melinda are better where they are, because they are free from political interference. Can you imagine the opposition they'd get from the GOP for pushing contraception so centrally? And if they get into power, probably from the democrats too, for not focusing on their favourite bandwagons. OT: Can someone explain the GOP's strident opposition to funding contraception, both domestically and in the US's foreign…

> Can someone explain the GOP's strident opposition to funding contraception, both domestically and in the US's foreign aid?

It's a culture war thing from the 80's and 90's.

Contraception is for godless libs who fuck like rabbits out of wedlock. (Setting aside the fact that most religious right voters probably use birth control themselves...)

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#43

Post by saycheese »

hxta98596 wrote: post #29

It's hard not to be impressed by what the Gates Foundation is doing. I don't think they get the full recognition they deserve sometimes, maybe because much of their work is abroad in the poorest countries in the world. Hard to fathom the number of people out there in the world thankful and who owe their lives to the foundation choosing to help their community or their cause. With that said and not to diminish the goo…

>> "the scale of these problems really requires the cooperation of governments"

Right, it's my understanding that orginally the Gates foundation tried to do it without working with the governments governing the people they wanted to help, but were unable to make it work.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#44

Post by WalterBright »

geoka9 wrote: post #12
hamburglar1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get Bill and Warren, but Mark?

Don't know about Buffett, but I don't get Gates either. He was a ruthless businessman using every trick in the book (legal and illegal) to solidify his company's monopoly.

Every illegal trick? Come on. I competed against Microsoft (compilers) and they were a tough competitor. But I never saw anything illegal. Microsoft benefited a lot from their competitors simply being incompetent (see "In Search Of Stupidity" by Chapman.)

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#45

Post by GhiliaWeld »

GuiA wrote: post #4
obilgic wrote: post #2

I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)

I would argue that in the long term, Bill Gates running his foundation has a much deeper impact on humanity than being president, which would effectively cut him off from his philanthropic activities for 4-8 years. In other words, we're better off with Bill helming the Gates foundation rather than presiding the USA.

I know it's called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but isn't it Melinda that runs and manages everything? I'm pretty sure Bill just donates to the foundation. I could be wrong tho.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#46

Post by justinph »

Ghostery identifies 10 trackers and uBlock shows 7 advertising scripts, which seems like a lot for a page that you'd think shouldn't need advertising.

The page doesn't even display if you block some of these scripts. This is terrible.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#47

Post by pjmorris »

obilgic wrote: post #2

I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)

IMO, anyone with over a Billion dollars is more like an insider than an outsider. Probably anybody over ~4 Million, actually.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#48

Post by orbifold »

downandout wrote: post #30
toastednz wrote: post #26

I find Gates' lack of focus on environmental issues disheartening. I know he does invest in clean energy and feels strongly about climate change, but this doesn't really do anything to prevent deforestation NOW. I know that bringing people out of poverty may have a side-effect of improving some environmental parameters, but it also makes whole swathes of people start demanding more meat, more palm oil, more cars, mor…

So some trees are more important than saving 122 million children? I know I'm going to get all the nasty replies that it's a larger issue than just a few trees, that without trees there won't be people, etc. But comments like these are the reason that people dismiss environmentalists as nutjobs that care more about trees than people.

Climate change is not just about trees, but about the massive loss of biodiversity that goes along with rapid climate change.

Sure most of Europe will be covered in pine trees, but at the same time a lot of species, essentially all that are not able to migrate with the same speed that the climate changes in their habitat will die out.

This article for example claims that 1/2 of the known species have died out within this century and 1/6 will die out if nothing is done about climate change:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/30/one-in-s...

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#49

Post by giarc »

obilgic wrote: post #13
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that in the long term, Bill Gates running his foundation has a much deeper impact on humanity than being president, which would effectively cut him off from his philanthropic activities for 4-8 years. In other words, we're better off with Bill helming the Gates foundation rather than presiding the USA.

I would argue the otherwise. Imagine the resources and the influence power he would have on both U.S. and other nations, compared to few billion dollars spared by few people.

Countries where the president can't go because of diplomacy, Bill can. Bill also doesn't have to deal with things like the debt ceiling, F35 contract, nominating supreme court justices etc etc. He can focus on global health.

Re: Warren Buffett’s Best Investment

#50

Post by jasonjayr »

3825 wrote: post #20
aanm1988 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I ever want Zuckerberg as president? Why would I want any of these intelligent, but unqualified people as president? Trump has about the same qualifications. Look at that so far.

(I'm not trying to be partisan here even though it might appear to be) I don't think it is possible for anyone to have the kind of broad and deep qualifications to be POTUS at any age, much less thirty five. This is one job which effectively requires on the job training and (I imagine) lots of delegating. Sorry if this sounds partisan. It isn't my intention. I'm not saying this as anything in defense of or in opposit…

Of course, it's a unique job.

However, it does require a certain bit of humility, something that I think our current POTUS knows nothing about.

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