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Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

seattletimes.nwsource.com

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Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#41

Post by Ardit20 »

c1sc0 wrote: post #31
Ardit20 wrote: post #27

Why was he able to make billions anyway? That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

Could you define a level of bureaucracy that would be acceptable to you? 10%? 20%? 30%? While many charities are woefully inefficient, so are many businesses. And charities don't live in some kind of vacuum: inefficient charities fail just like inefficient businesses.

Its the greater point which you have missed. He is not being some great guy, he is not being awesome, in this drunken state I am free to say that which I wanted to all along, he is a thief pure and simple, it is not HE giving away money, HE is not being ethical, some kind of god we should all adore for being so nice to us paroles.

He stole this money. He charged much more for his products than he clearly, plainly knew he should have. He is not some guy who might have guessed how much he should charge, thus through trial and error trying to find out. He knew full well that he was making obscene amounts of money because he was charging highly for his products.

So my point was not about charities. They are a matter for a different discussion. My point was, why on earth was he able to make BILLIONS, you know an amount that millions of us together need to work our Ass off to gain in perhaps our life time.

Its legitimised theft and nothing else.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#42

Post by tkahn6 »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #17

Man, he may even give away enough that he's no longer one of the 250 richest people on the planet. Don't get me wrong, it's a great gesture but let's put it in perspective. He is and will remain obscenely rich and this will make absolutely no difference to him in terms of how he lives his life. In terms of disposable income and day to day impact on what he can and can't do, it's probably less significant than someone…

this will make absolutely no difference to him in terms of how he lives his life.

You are conflating the suffering usually accompanied with a a good deed with the deed itself. The fact that he may not take any hit to his lifestyle means nothing. The fact that he is giving away his own money should be enough for you.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#43

Post by Ardit20 »

Ardit20 wrote: post #27

Why was he able to make billions anyway? That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

Also, down vote the comment all you like. I was fully aware you would.

Engage however if you dare :), that is what shows your worth.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#44

Post by Retric »

rbanffy wrote: post #30
colinplamondon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did he ruin people? His company was incredibly progressive for its time.

Ruthless competition, mostly. The example that illustrates his character is not related to this kind of behaviour, but to how he treated his workforce. The Homestead strike was caused by a broken promise to tie salaries to profits which, made in a downturn, reduced payments. When profits returned, he broke the promise, refused to keep salaries tied to profits, locked out the union workers who protested and used viole…

FYI: There is no reason to use url shorteners on hn and many people will not click on them.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#45

Post by zandorg »

hugh3 wrote: post #10
kylelibra wrote: post #4

"The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him." -Voltaire

Apparently he's unmarried and has no children, so there's not really many good options for his estate apart from charity. I suppose he could disperse it among nieces and nephews, or build himself a pyramid for a tomb, but charity seems like the obvious route.

I vote for the moonbase.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#47

Post by qq66 »

Ardit20 wrote: post #27

Why was he able to make billions anyway? That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

Charging less for his products would have primarily benefitted shareholders and white-collar professionals in American and Western European corporations.

Why should he have benefitted them over abjectly poor people in the rest of the world?

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#48

Post by SoftwareMaven »

pavs wrote: post #8

Which is better? Just giving away money or targeted investment on critical research/development and social needs to inflict a lasting change (without taking any profit)? Would you drop few billion dollars on Africa or would you make investments to create long-term industry that will give people jobs and help them help themselves? I think what Paul/Gates/Buffet and others are doing is great, but I think we have to sta…

In order to do what you are suggesting, infrastructure and education needs to exist. You aren't going to worry about working on your cool start-up if you need to cart clean water 2 miles on your shoulders every day and your kids are sick with malaria.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#49

Post by rbanffy »

Retric wrote: post #44
rbanffy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruthless competition, mostly. The example that illustrates his character is not related to this kind of behaviour, but to how he treated his workforce. The Homestead strike was caused by a broken promise to tie salaries to profits which, made in a downturn, reduced payments. When profits returned, he broke the promise, refused to keep salaries tied to profits, locked out the union workers who protested and used viole…

FYI: There is no reason to use url shorteners on hn and many people will not click on them.

Sorry. The URL was so huge I felt bad. When more than 50% of the message is a insanely long URL, something is clearly wrong.

Re: Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy

#50

Post by Ardit20 »

qq66 wrote: post #47
Ardit20 wrote: post #27

Why was he able to make billions anyway? That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

Charging less for his products would have primarily benefitted shareholders and white-collar professionals in American and Western European corporations. Why should he have benefitted them over abjectly poor people in the rest of the world?

How would have shareholders benefited more if the company is making less profit?
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