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Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

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Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#41

Post by jcranberry »

adventured wrote: post #23
SEJeff wrote: post #21

I'm surprised that people are asking how / why he is giving money away and no one mentioned his Giving Pledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge Bill Gates and Warren Buffet pledged to give half of their net worth away during their life or death to charity. They're practicing what they preach.

Gates and Buffett have, for many years now, publicly pledged to give away basically 99% of their wealth. Buffett's premise on not giving much of his wealth to his children, goes back perhaps 40 or 50 years now based on what he has said. According to Gates, an article that Buffett wrote for a business magazine, published ~25 some years ago now, informed and altered Bill's thinking on the detriment of giving such immen…

Andrew Carnegie was the OG give-all-my-wealth-away-before-I-die incredibly wealthy person. I read an essay by him in high school where he though, philosophically, he shouldn't give his money to his kids rather than donate it.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#42

Post by jimbokun »

sametmax wrote: post #35
slackoverflower wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize his foundation helped eradicate polio worldwide. Some of you HNers can't give people a break.

We do realize their PR tell you that. What I know, however, is that I've been missioned in Africa by the gate foundation and that most money is wasted. Most stats are bullshitted. What I know is that Gates have been misbehaving most of his life and that suddenly he is giving so much money he won from this time. What I see is that a lot of people like you are very eager to forgive everything he has done, all the benef…

I didn't like the way Microsoft acted as a monopoly, but the tech industry managed to survive and escape Microsoft hegemony. Microsoft made some terrible software, but Office is actually very good overall and can argue has led to real productivity gains for many businesses. (I realize this can be debated endlessly.)

Everything I've read indicates Gates takes his philanthropy very, very seriously and is having a real impact on improving people's lives. I'm sure his foundations are not perfect and have problems, but I also believe they are a net benefit to the world.

Interesting to contrast with someone like Steve Jobs. His company arguably produced much better products impacting (shockingly) many more people, but he didn't give a dime to charity (as far as I know). Could have long philosophical arguments about who had the more positive impact on humanity overall.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#43

Post by bluGill »

joering2 wrote: post #34
adventured wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cascade's investments are roughly 1/2 of his wealth. Bloomberg is currently estimating he's sitting on $43 billion in cash. https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/william-h-ga...

Honest question: can half of it for example $20B in cash, cure cancer? or HIV/AIDS?

Cure is a hard thing. Research can get us closer, but until you do it you never know if the research will pan out. Someone smart gets an idea (someone who already knows enough about the subject to have a reasonable guess as to what might work), then they go into the lab and try it. Over the course of larger and larger studies - eventually something fails and they start over with a new idea (often a refinement of the last one), until it gets through all studies and is shown to work. Nobody knows how long this process will take. It isn't known if a cure is possible though we have had enough success in similar problems to believe it is.

Gates is focusing on things like Measles. We already know to cure it. The only thing left is rolling it out. Gates can easily calculate that $x hires so many nurses, and buys so many vaccine doses. Thus eliminating measles is something that we can do with money. Unfortunately there are a lot of vaccine deniers claiming measles is not harmful and pushing to skip the vaccine which makes elimination less likely. You can help here without spending any many: talk about it with your social circle and importantly remind them that youtube, movies, and blogs are NOT a valid places to do research.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#44

Post by comicjk »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #33

He is donating it to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is controlled by himself. Isn't it just a different form of ownership?

Legally no - a nonprofit has its stated goals apart from whomever runs it, and if the managers aren't following those goals, they can be prosecuted. In practice, small charities can get away with misusing their funds as long as no one notices. But a large charity like the Gates Foundation has a lot of eyes on it, so Gates really has sacrificed a lot of control over that money by donating it.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#46

Post by dalbasal »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #33

He is donating it to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is controlled by himself. Isn't it just a different form of ownership?

In a sense, if you're acting legitimately. Yes, if not.

In this case every indication is that Bill is using the mechanisms as intended,and then some. Money goes from him to the foundation. The foundation spends it. Once the money is in the foundation it can't go back to him, legally or ethically. They are doing good work, unquestionably charitable.

I get the skepticism, given how anything involving tax often works. But, not everything is a scam.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#47

Post by NIL8 »

joering2 wrote: post #34
adventured wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cascade's investments are roughly 1/2 of his wealth. Bloomberg is currently estimating he's sitting on $43 billion in cash. https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/william-h-ga...

Honest question: can half of it for example $20B in cash, cure cancer? or HIV/AIDS?

I don't understand why you were down-voted for asking an honest question. Here's an up-vote to encourage fair play.

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#48

Post by melling »

dopamean wrote: post #32

Pledging to give away so much of your wealth has interesting side benefits. You get to keep your money out of the hands of the government and if you're donating to your own charity then you also get to keep your family in control of the money. I definitely don't mean to diminish the contribution of the Gates Foundation though. I often hear that they're one of the good ones.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes_Medical_Institut...

Re: Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 with $4.6B Pledge

#49

Post by efa »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #33

He is donating it to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is controlled by himself. Isn't it just a different form of ownership?

Well, they give the money away. So either way he's giving the money away to groups he thinks will do good work with it.
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