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Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

nytimes.com

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Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#121

Post by ModernMech »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #48
olivermarks wrote: post #43

'Mr. Doerr joins a growing list of ultrawealthy men donating huge sums of money to the fight against global warming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2020 said he was committing $10 billion of his own money to a new initiative he called the Bezos Earth Fund, and last year detailed how some of the money would be spent. Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close co…

I too feel somewhat skeptical & cynical... but given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point. It's not ideal, but we don't seem to have a lot of other viable options at this point.

> given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point

For anyone wondering, this is not an accident. Billionaires greatly prefer it when they are seen by the public as the only viable solution to progress.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#122

Post by codekilla »

valarauko wrote: post #118
codekilla wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the Broad building at Caltech (Eli Broad), and I watched for 2 years as they demoed the parking lot outside my office to build the 200 million dollar Chen neuroscience building. It is a complete and total waste of money, and I say that cognizant of arguments like 'attracting talent'...etc. At one point we calculated the number of neuroscience postdocs we could hire for that money and easily came to the co…

wait, is the 200 million just for the building, or for the entire facility (new equipment, etc)? Building a new facility in itself seems a worthwhile enterprise - though as a postdoc myself I'd rather have pay bumps for the postdocs :)

I believe at least 170 million was slated initially for construction costs, which may have run over. I don't know how much was for new equipment, but I can't imagine it was a significant fraction (and likely it was an additional expense over those numbers).

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#123

Post by [deleted] »

_vdpp wrote: post #104
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats simply not true. Engineering 'solutions' to climate change like more efficient or cleaner technologies, or things like direct air capture are also social signaling, although more veiled and perhaps self delusional. These solutions are the equivalent of building more lanes on a highway instead of going with public transportation solutions. If anything many of these technologies may end up making climate change d…

I see a lot of people saying “society needs to be more comfortable with less.” I never see anyone saying “I need to be comfortable with less.”

[deleted]

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#126

Post by ModernMech »

tofuahdude wrote: post #67
kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #16

Tell me you care more about your legacy than actually helping the world without telling me you care more about your legacy than actually helping the world.

Why criticize someone for caring about their legacy when they're making an enormous contribution to the public good? Wrong lens. Who cares about his ego when he's making a real impact?

A lot of people feel that the fact a single human can amass so much money is part of the problem. It incentivizes people to maximize profit and money over all else, sucking up all available cash they possibly can with little regard to how it's generated and what damage they do in the process. Profits are privatized while losses are socialized. Meaning when they start paying their profits back into the public good, are we talking about a net positive gain for society here, or is it just a form of restitution to atone for the damage they caused?

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#127

Post by geodel »

rayiner wrote: post #105
supersync wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very fair concern. First off, most of this funding will go to a building. The rest will go mostly to an endowment. The concentration of mega-gifts at the top has very perverse impacts. Harvard built a $100M building a few years ago that is used by a total of 100 people a year. Philanthropy combines prestige, PR, and “legacy” in a way that massively overvalued those three vs. any kind of measurable impact. T…

> First off, most of this funding will go to a building. What a waste.

Some time back I read a line in article "Government has deluded itself into thinking that building institutions is same as institution buildings"

This seems to apply here.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#128

Post by TrackerFF »

usrn wrote: post #95
daterdots wrote: post #11

I am concerned about the incredible concentration of money and resources into a few academic institutions. Obviously Stanford is an incredible school, but I am not sure Stanford will do more with $1B than 10 2nd tier schools would do with $100M each.

idk what exactly a "good school" is. I wasn't exactly impressed with the last set of lectures I watched from Stanford.

I think it's important to divide elite schools into undergrad and research.

During undergrad, the benefits are plenty. Brand name, excellent on-campus recruitment, bright and/or highly driven peer students, valuable networking opportunities, challenging coursework if you want it.

But with that said, taking Calc 1 at most elite schools isn't too different from taking calc 1 at some random school way down the (ranking) list. The syllabus will be the same, quality of your lecturer could go either way. At the undergrad level, there's really not much as far as "cutting edge" goes - after all, you're there to learn the fundamentals.

I'd say that it is at the research level that you'll start to see real payoffs. Mostly because these schools tend to attract top talent in the different fields, and have the funds to pay for them. And there's a pipeline between elite academia, and elite private (industry) research groups.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#129

Post by boringg »

It's interesting that KPCB founder is on the climate school - they haven't managed to move the needle on climate. I'll give them their due they did put a fight in the original clean tech VC round but investors got hammered. Now I think they are working on climate tech (rebrand in the investor world) but can anyone correct me if I am wrong? Have they had any big impacts - happy to be corrected here.

As I understand it - KPCB early VC gold standard company - made money off tech. I don't want to sound too harsh as KPCB have done some pretty impressive things in the investment world - feels like a green washing or something along those lines.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#130

Post by lofatdairy »

rayiner wrote: post #105
supersync wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very fair concern. First off, most of this funding will go to a building. The rest will go mostly to an endowment. The concentration of mega-gifts at the top has very perverse impacts. Harvard built a $100M building a few years ago that is used by a total of 100 people a year. Philanthropy combines prestige, PR, and “legacy” in a way that massively overvalued those three vs. any kind of measurable impact. T…

> First off, most of this funding will go to a building. What a waste.

Upvoted because I agree but it's not always this cut and dry. I can't speak for climate research (I imagine it's mostly computer sims so maybe a building is a waste), but for bio research lab space is nearly as important as personnel.
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