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Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

finance.fortune.cnn.com

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#91

Post by hprhpr »

rdl wrote: post #88
hprhpr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed about the importance of making sure you donate to the right charities, which is why I was disappointed to read this: "And, to begin, they have sprinkled $1 million on Silicon Valley nonprofits that focus on everything from urban forestry to homeless families." Another good essay about this stuff is here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gj/efficient_charity_do_unto_others...

Given that "how people donate money" (or spend money, or invest money seems to conflict with what they claim are their stated preferences, I wonder which is more representative. I'd bet on the revealed preferences by actions. Basically no one would say (or is allowed to say in polite company) that they care more about having art available locally than the lives of a thousand people in some third-world country that th…

Agreed about nobody saying they prefer local art over thousands of lives, but I don't think that means their revealed preferences are more representative of what they really want, I think it just shows how irrational they are. Most people don't sit down and think about what they want most and construct a plan to achieve that, so it shouldn't be surprising that they end up doing such drastically sub-optimal things as donating a lot of money to a museum when someone asks them to. It seems like a good thing to do, so they do it. They don't consider whether it's what they actually most prefer.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#92

Post by tobtoh »

rdl wrote: post #87
tobtoh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been research done (by Alumni organisations) that show that the people who 'wait till they get rich' never donate. The 'wait till I get rich', despite the best of intentions, is just an excuse. The other related excuse is that 'I'll wait until I can make a sizeable and therefore meaningful donation'. The research (and I don't have a link sorry) showed that if an Alumni made a donation, even $1, within 3 yea…

That seems like you might be measuring something other than total donation -- just donation to one specific charity. Sure, if I pass on donating to MIT today (IMO they have enough money already), I might not get around to it ever. But, given that I am unlikely to have kids, if I die, my money will all be going to some charity or set of charities eventually. (I do donate now, mainly to groups like MAPS and EFF, but my…

No - the research is about people's attitude and actions around donations. It doesn't matter who or what you donate to - the act of donating right now is the indicator of whether you will donate in your lifetime.

If you have committed to donating your estate to charity by putting it into your will, good for you! But if you haven't already committed to this by putting it into your will, then you (at this point in time) reinforce the research - which is people always promise/intend to donate, but they have excuses to delay donating till some point in the distant future which result in them never donating in the end (so in this case, I'll donate my estate when I die).

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#93

Post by daenz »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #90
daenz wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

appeal to accomplishment, appeal to poverty, appeal to wealth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Thanks, daenz. That's what "usually I don't do this" was referring to -- which is a lazy cop out, I agree. Usually I don't do that , either. My bad. It may not make it better, but I think I did it because jimmyvanhalen's argument was, to me, so... Preposterous. As I understand him, he is basically arguing that if you feel that you have money to give to charity, you should give that to whomever gave you that money. I…

Yeah, it's a difficult subject. People are passionate about money. But kudos for owning up to your post... I made a ad hominem awhile back and someone was kind enough to point it out, thought I'd pass around the favor :)

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#94

Post by rdl »

hprhpr wrote: post #91
rdl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that "how people donate money" (or spend money, or invest money seems to conflict with what they claim are their stated preferences, I wonder which is more representative. I'd bet on the revealed preferences by actions. Basically no one would say (or is allowed to say in polite company) that they care more about having art available locally than the lives of a thousand people in some third-world country that th…

Agreed about nobody saying they prefer local art over thousands of lives, but I don't think that means their revealed preferences are more representative of what they really want, I think it just shows how irrational they are. Most people don't sit down and think about what they want most and construct a plan to achieve that, so it shouldn't be surprising that they end up doing such drastically sub-optimal things as…

I also thought a lot of the art donations (at the high end) were weird tax dodges, or done for the ancillary benefits of donating (getting your name on a building or bench, access to high end parties, cute art girls, etc.)

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#95

Post by mlinsey »

daenz wrote: post #42
paul wrote: post #41

It's sad to see so much misplaced cynicism here. If the partners had decided to keep 100% of their carry (as is typical) and used it to buy a bigger house or jet or something, nobody would comment or care. Instead, they've pledged to give half to some of their favorite charities, and some of you are acting as if it's a crime against humanity. Put away your Ayn Rand books (or whatever it is that drives you to such opi…

> Put away your Ayn Rand books ... and go make some money of your own. Does Ayn Rand have similar opinions? I'm trying to figure out what you mean by that.

Yes. Rand does not just think that forced redistribution by the state is immoral, but also that private charity is at best morally neutral, and often wrong depending on the nature of the charity (particularly if it is "sacrificial", or is given in response to the needs or shortcomings of the recipient, which in my opinion describes most of the charity in the world today). Her fictional works perhaps lend themselves to a bit of interpretation on this point, but her non-fiction work is quite unambiguous.

I know many libertarians are in favor of private charity and consider it a virtue, and many of these same people are also fans of Rand, but they should realize that she disagrees with them on this point.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#96

Post by paul »

daenz wrote: post #85
paul wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only this were a logic problem consisting of three boolean variables... But reality is complex, and so I do give some weight to authority. For example, if I had a question about evolution, I would automatically trust an answer from Dawkins more than one from Santorum, even if you think that's some kind of fallacy.

You are free to believe whatever you want, based on whatever criteria you want. But to argue that something is right or wrong because someone else has more money, has no weight. Re-read yesbabyyes comment. It makes no argument other than "who are you", "they are famous and accomplished" and "they are rich." It's a poor argument.

Typically the fact that someone has more money would not be relevant, except in this case it's a discussion of capital allocation and a person (Andreessen) who is making a lot of money by being very good at capital allocation. It's like claiming that Michael Phelps's 14 gold medals should carry no weight in a discussion of whether or not he's a good swimmer.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#97

Post by paul »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #84
paul wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some changes are best made via a for-profit venture, and some aren't. I'm interested in both kinds of change, and that means that I'm involved in both worlds.

Zuck paid, what, a cool billion for Instagram? Elon spent $800 million, and has an orbital vehicle that can dock with the ISS. And SpaceX is actually profitable . So, yeah, you can be for-profit and change the world. Or be for-profit and help people share photos. Changing the world is a pretty big grey area.

It's not yet clear which venture will have a greater impact on the world. People here consistently underestimate the significance of democratizing the media.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#98

Post by poorpointofview »

The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life – educated men who live in the East End – coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.

~ Oscar Wilde

You would think smart men as these would want to cure the disease instead of curing the symptoms.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz to give half their earnings to charity

#100

Post by tptacek »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #84
paul wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some changes are best made via a for-profit venture, and some aren't. I'm interested in both kinds of change, and that means that I'm involved in both worlds.

Zuck paid, what, a cool billion for Instagram? Elon spent $800 million, and has an orbital vehicle that can dock with the ISS. And SpaceX is actually profitable . So, yeah, you can be for-profit and change the world. Or be for-profit and help people share photos. Changing the world is a pretty big grey area.

I'm not sure what these two things have to do with each other. Elon Musk's goals with SpaceX are entirely different than Facebook's goals with Instagram. No business purpose of Facebook's would have been served by building orbital vehicles. Facebook hasn't even gone public yet; the money we're talking about isn't yet Zuckerberg's to spend randomly.
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