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My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

gatesnotes.com

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Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#101

Post by swiftcoder »

BSOhealth wrote: post #79
skandium wrote: post #48

One of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.

My guess would be, actually a very small number of people think he’s the antichrist. Why would anyone other than someone with decades of operating system passion even care who this guy is? They know he’s a rich guy. Big deal. I’d guess most people just live their lives and don’t care about Microsoft monopoly or FOSS or anything. The same can probably be said for his altruism—most people probably have no idea.

The antivax movement has been demonising the medical side of his foundation for decades at this point - I'd wager the folks who weren't born in the 90s are more likely to have heard about that than about the genesis of Windows

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#102

Post by tootie »

modo_mario wrote: post #3

Last time he pledged to give away half his wealth over x years didn't it basically tripple during that period?

It's part of the strategy. He endowed a giant philanthropic org. You can leverage an endowment by investing it aggressively and spending the proceeds to keep the fund running indefinitely. What he is now announcing is a pivot to start spending principal so the endowment starts to shrink until it hits zero.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#103

Post by olivermuty »

_bin_ wrote: post #88
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

[flagged]

A dollar will help someone abroad much more than the same dollar will in the US though.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#104

Post by Zaheer »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #61
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

For you (or other folks) working in tech and giving to charity, apart from corporate match, another couple pieces of advice are to consider a Donor Advised Fund. They are really easy to set up, and then you get some benefits, like the ability to "bunch" your donations (can help with tax deductions) or donate appreciated investments (like RSUs) without paying capital gains tax.

https://charityvest.org/ is a great modern DAF tool. I use it to get 1 single charity receipt at the end of the year and track my giving.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#105

Post by lapcat »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #44
RataNova wrote: post #33

How much power is concentrated in the hands of individuals... It's great that Gates is choosing to use that power philanthropically, but it also raises questions about the long-term role of private wealth in solving public problems.

Well, it's not as if the public sector is solving many problems these days. We seem to have decided, collectively, that we'd rather have more problems. At least that's what we've been voting for.

That's because the ultra-wealthy control the elections via unlimited campaign contributions, "independent" group spending, lobbying, providing lucrative jobs to ex-politicians, or even running for office themselves. Both of the major political parties are corrupted by money, just in different ways, different funding sources. The news media has also been centralized, monopolized, and increasingly, owned directly by billionaires.

The public sector doesn't work because it's been sabotaged by the private sector.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#106

Post by tootie »

RataNova wrote: post #33

How much power is concentrated in the hands of individuals... It's great that Gates is choosing to use that power philanthropically, but it also raises questions about the long-term role of private wealth in solving public problems.

He talks about this in today's NY Times interview and he is pretty unsparing against Elon Musk in particular for his role in killing USAID. Says he is directly complicit in killing children while at the same time, he is technically still a signatory of the Giving Pledge.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#107

Post by closewith »

_bin_ wrote: post #88
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #39

His foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise ha…

[flagged]

I don't think any individual should have the power to unilaterally choose where to deploy billions of dollars, but your vision is equally myopic. Nothing about being a US citizen gives you any moral priority over any other person.

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#108

Post by 1970-01-01 »

skandium wrote: post #48

One of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.

Are we talking about Bill putting 5G chips in our vaccines, or are we talking about Bill Gates the total asshole[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Treatment_of_collea...

Re: My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth

#109

Post by nicce »

tasuki wrote: post #92
skandium wrote: post #48

One of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.

Can't he be both?

I think he is both. Maybe you need to do some evil before you can do some good, because the general evil does whatever necessary to win in competition, and that is challenging. He would have never got the money he has if he didn't do that.
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