Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke • Hacker News Board

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#71

Post by Cerealkiller050 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

khalilravanna wrote: post #52

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #2

Mad respect, not letting that amount of money get to your head and not wasting it on vain stuff surely takes some crazy discipline.

Absolutely. Especially being an American. We have such a materialistic, maximalist culture. There’s definitely a psychological element here to be able to tune out all those negative messages (“Why don’t I have a nicer car/house/yacht than Alice/Bob?”). I’d be interested on where he falls on the satisficer/maximizer scale.

"Especially being an American"

I have always heard the complete opposite.

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

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/12/28/the_ge...

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#72

Post by tilolebo » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

I wonder how their daughters feel about that.

Especially knowing that for having such a career behind him, he must probably have spent a lot of time working and not being there for his family.

Still, mad respect for what he/they did.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#73

Post by hamburglar » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #61

olivermarks wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ft.com/content/f999c4e4-78a2-4f83-9beb-91c15dccd... Opinion Coronavirus treatment Bill & Melinda Gates: Vaccine fairness will make us all safer | Free to read Sharing Covid-19 jabs equitably would result in fewer deaths and faster control everywhere'

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/11/18129580/gates...

Please make a point rather than just pasting insinuations and links to articles. Neither of the two articles you've provided give any reason Feeney would have a negative opinion of Gates.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#74

Post by tmpz22 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

BrainInAJar wrote: post #59

dougmccune wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While many wealthy philanthropists enlist an army of publicists to trumpet their donations, Feeney went to great lengths to keep his gifts secret. Seems like that was by design.

> Seems like that was by design. It is. Philanthropy exists to launder the reputations of the rich, on the one hand, and are paternalistic on the other. The only things that get funding are things that can attract the attention of our "betters." If we had taxed them on the front end to the point they couldn't become billionaires in the first place then people in general (through democracy) can decide what causes are…

I’ve noticed this community is very bullish on the ends justifying the means, ie a founder that bends the rules and causes some damage and hurts some people but has a huge exit and gives some to charity is still a hero and role model.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#75

Post by freeone3000 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #36

hogFeast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also donate your time.

Well, if you're working in paid employment it will usually be a lot more effective to put in some more time at work, and give away some of the resulting income. "Donating your time" can of course be genuinely worthwhile if you're, e.g. a scientist who might want to do useful research on globally-relevant, critical issues; just not very much otherwise.

Lots of us have highly specialized technical skills. It's nearly impossible, logistically and financially, for a small non-profit to hire a software developer or a web developer or an IT tech for two or three hours. Donating your time and talents can be very valuable for small organizations.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#76

Post by yboris » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

I humbly encourage everyone to make giving a larger part of your life.

Consider giving at least 10% of your income to cost-effective charities -- because cost-effective charities can do thousands of times more good than merely regular charities. So your $1,000 donation can do as much good as $1 million, if given well.

Join others: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#77

Post by kaiken1987 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

What he did was great. But for Forbes to say a man with 2% of 8 billion dollars is broke is a stretch.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#78

Post by hamburglar » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #64

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Disagree. There are more than enough resources on effective NGO's. There is no reason to give cornell a billion dollars when that money could save hundreds of thousands of lives in the developing world.

It's possible the guy giving away the money sees something about this organization that you don't.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#79

Post by throwaway287391 » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #11

Extra props for doing it anonymously.

Preface: yes, absolutely, all the props in the world to this guy for doing something so thoroughly incredible and selfless and rare for the benefit of humanity. Even if I had the means, I know I'd never have the guts to do something so amazingly heroic in as extreme a way as he did.

That said (i.e. time to be the irritating pedantic little asshole, but I think it's a genuine enough question about the purpose/execution of philanthropy)... does the anonymity really warrant extra props? We know that the guy gave away essentially all of his money; does the anonymity of the individual donations really make it more selfless? If anything the headlines "Feeney gives $100M to cause X" and going on TV to talk about it etc. would likely bring more attention and donations to X, which I assume is why Bill Gates and others tend to do things that way.

Edit: ok, I've just figured out from other posts that it basically wasn't known beyond a small group of people that he was giving away most of his wealth. I didn't realize that (although it's also my first time hearing of him). I agree then, he really did spend the bulk of his life being pretty much truly anonymous and that does deserve extra props.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#80

Post by hilbertseries » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #49

zozbot234 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you're working in paid employment it will usually be a lot more effective to put in some more time at work, and give away some of the resulting income. "Donating your time" can of course be genuinely worthwhile if you're, e.g. a scientist who might want to do useful research on globally-relevant, critical issues; just not very much otherwise.

Now there is no way of obviously measuring this, but I'd make the case that donating time (volunteering on the ground) to organizations is way better than donating money. First, money goes through so many layers that it's hard to actually know what they go to, and how much actually ends up being useful and not just scavenged by middlemen. Secondly, donating your time by volunteering gives you more than just the feeli…

This is nice, but money very likely goes further than time. The work done by volunteers in organizations is typically not that high impact and usually grunt work. If you work in a high paying industry such as tech, working money and donating it will absolutely have a larger impact than volunteering. I agree volunteering can have a greater personal benefit, but from a utilitarian standpoint donating is better. Peter Singer makes this argument very well in his book the most good you can do.