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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#21

Post by Mistletoe »

wfleming wrote: post #9
Mistletoe wrote: post #4

Realistically how can he do that without tanking the stock price? He owns 100B in Amazon stock. Anyone with knowledge care to chime in on how he could ever access it? For comparison, Vanguard and Blackrock (shares owned by little folks like us) own 69B and 59B. Mackenzie, his ex-wife, owns 33B and has pledged to give hers away as well on The Giving Pledge.

He can give the shares away directly. Start a charitable foundation, give the shares to the foundation, and then the foundation can liquidate slowly (over decades if need be) to access capital.

Oh that’s an interesting idea.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#22

Post by toomuchtodo »

gsatic wrote: post #8
dontlaugh wrote: post #2

Bill Gates pledged the same and yet his wealth hasn't reduced. Worse, the philanthropy has been targetted ideologically (like encouraging private schools) and somehow keeps ending up favouring companies he has ownership in.

That's cuz saying you want to give it away is not a simple thing, when most people around you only have the skills to accumulate it or spend it on themselves. Not to mention all the pond scum it draws in that has to be constantly filtered out.

The people who have the skills to accumulate wealth at this scale don’t have the skills to give it away. They are extraction minded, and philanthropy is a direct contradiction to this mental model. Keep some to stay comfortable of course, but you have to be comfortable with your status, influence, and wealth substantially declining as a second order effect of the distribution logistics, and that’s just not who these people are.

MacKenzie Scott can’t give her wealth away fast enough, for example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/mackenzie-scott-...

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#23

Post by germinalphrase »

whatwherewhy wrote: post #6
dontlaugh wrote: post #2

Bill Gates pledged the same and yet his wealth hasn't reduced. Worse, the philanthropy has been targetted ideologically (like encouraging private schools) and somehow keeps ending up favouring companies he has ownership in.

Why should his wealth reduce?

Probably, the words “give away” imply that all the wealth will, indeed, be given away.

For instance, Chuck Feeney gave away billions until it he was left with only $2 million (or so it was reported).

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#25

Post by Bilal_io »

erehweb wrote: post #5

Pledge is a strong word for what he actually said. He has really expressed intent rather than promising. Asked by CNN whether he intended to give away most of his wealth within his lifetime, Mr Bezos told the network: "Yeah, I do."

He would probably have given away $300B by the time his net worth is $2T.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#26

Post by ck2 »

If someone can accumulate that much wealth in a lifetime it means way too much was extracted from each individual.

Then they distribute it back to mend the damage as they see fit, not as society deems needed.

I'm not against millionaires but the exponential level up to billionaires probably shouldn't exist because it means the balance in the system is beyond broken.

No-one has contributed billions of value to society.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#28

Post by chadash »

xyst wrote: post #10

Probably going into a “donor advised fund” which allows bezos to claim a multibillion dollar tax break for a lifetime without having to prove the money was actually spent towards a cause.

Yeah, but once it's in a donor advised fund, it can't come out. No, it doesn't have to be spent right away but at some point it needs to be given away. It's not like you can just put money in a DAF and take it back out when you want to buy a yacht.

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#29

Post by throwaway98797 »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #20
whatwherewhy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should his wealth reduce?

If I give $10 to charity, my wealth is reduced by $10. The naive assumption is that if Bill Gates gives $10B to charity, his wealth is also reduced by $10B. Can you explain why the naive assumption is wrong? Because I actually can't, not without more thought and research than I've given it.

cuz if i have 100b and give away 10b, but the remaining 90b grows 2x i have more than what i started with

Re: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges to give away most of his wealth

#30

Post by atonse »

gavinray wrote: post #13

Quoted post unavailable.

Nope you’re not the only lunatic. Add to that the fact that most billionaires don’t “have” wealth the way we think of wealth.

In that, most of it isn’t in some bank account sitting there waiting to be used. What they’re more likely to have truly liquid is probably on the order of many (MANY) millions.

It’s the value of stuff they have like stocks. Yes they can borrow money against those assets but it is never just “why can’t Bezos just do an ACH transfer to ____ nonprofit?”

It’s “just” the size of his stock portfolio in the way your stock portfolio looks if you had put all your money into one stock.

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