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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

#101

Post by antisthenes »

atonse wrote: post #30
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 “w…

> Add to that the fact that most billionaires don’t “have” wealth the way we think of wealth.

While it's true that if they were to instantly liquidate all of their stocks/assets, the real number of their "wealth" would be significantly reduced, they still operate with insane amounts of money.

The question still remains though whether at that level of ownership they are still generating enough value as a CEO/board member for the outsized returns they are receiving as an owner.

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

#103

Post by whatwherewhy »

germinalphrase wrote: post #23
whatwherewhy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

As far as I know Bill Gates is still alive

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

#104

Post by nicoburns »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #87
pmoriarty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They deserve their wealth because you keep buying and using their products." Their products or the products of the people who work for them?

It's their products. Fixing wealth inequality doesn't necessitate throwing out the entire legal and economic system we have. Workers can form unions if they they are not being recognized. There is no need to topple capitalism so that amazon can become a nationalized business with an inverted pay hierarchy.

> Fixing wealth inequality doesn't necessitate throwing out the entire legal and economic system we have

I don't think anyone's suggesting that. More likely they are advocating for higher taxation on the highest earners and perhaps on the largest businesses (notably, we already had this in the 60s/70s/80s). This would leave us with largely the same economic system, except with a counterbalance to a key a flaw in the current setup: that in a given time period, those who already control capital can typically turn that into more capital with much less effort than those who don't start out with that capital.

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

#105

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by whatwherewhy »

frumper wrote: post #92
WithinReason wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You invest $100, now you have $110. You give away $10, you have $100 again.

Then your net worth is $110 and when you give away $10 your net worth goes down $10.

Gates pledged to give his wealth away before he dies, not immediately. And that's good - the world will be getting much more money than it'd get if Gates just gave away all his money the moment he announced it.

> Then your net worth is $110 and when you give away $10 your net worth goes down $10.

Gates' wealth fluctuates all the time. There was a time when he was rather low due to his donations - multiple 10s of billions down. He got back over $100B from cca $50B - that's $50B more for charity than if he just donated everything he had left.

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

#107

Post by SuoDuanDao »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #54
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because you can use $10B to give $500M/yr for a limitless period of time. Gates can give substantially more money if he leverages it to grow over time. I would wager that it is going to take decades if ever that the Gates fund will hit $0. Yeah it's not as flashy as "Died with $0 of his fortune left", but under the hood the net good done is orders of magnitude greater.

In that case, more power to him, and no argument about net good - I guess for me, the issue is with the wording. 'Most of his wealth' to me implies someone's giving away most of the principle, not most of the proceeds. Which of course Bill Gates did, just to a charity he also controlled. Again, more power to him and I'm glad the precedent is set, regardless of how I feel about the Gates foundation's activities. But it still doesn't feel the same as giving it to a charity someone else controls.

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

#108

Post by ch4s3 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #100
ch4s3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Bezos started Amazon for a relatively modest amount of funding in a garage and built the "everything store" with a relentless focus on customer service. It's not like he's some 19th century oil baron. I don't want to fall into the trap of reading a mans mind from a distance, but you claim of "extractive mindset" is utterly unsupported and ideological.

Of course it’s ideological. How else does one arrive at ideas and concepts after a review of empirical evidence? The facts are the same, the conclusions we arrive at (including our ideologies) will be the intersection of the facts, our mental models, and our life experiences. Edit: wrt to your reply, agree to disagree.

To be clear I'm saying that the claims starts from ideology and works backwards ignoring any other factors.

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

#110

Post by ryandvm »

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.

It takes a while to be an effective altruist with a hundred or so billion dollars. What did you want him to do? Throw it in a fountain?
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