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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

#151

Post by knowitnone »

_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]

It's his money. He can give it to North Korea or China if he wants. Entitled and selfish.

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

#152

Post by SwamyM »

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.

Yea, his involvement with the Covid vaccine research seems to have made him a target for a large portion of the GOP/MAGA contingent. They are convinced that he wants to use the vaccine to implant a microchip in everyone and control them.

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

#155

Post by modo_mario »

DavidSJ wrote: post #52
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?

MSFT is up 18x during that time and the S&P 500 is up 5x during that time. His investments are some mixture of MSFT and other things, so we might say he would have been up around 10x if he'd given no money away. Since his net worth is only up 3x, that means he gave away about 70% of his wealth.

He said he would do it over 5 years. MSFT was up roughly 2x not 18x

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

#156

Post by adverbly »

legitster wrote: post #49

It's interesting he decided to go this way rather than put it into a sustainable trust and just trickle money out indefinitely. I suspect he believes that these causes need shock therapy. To eradicate a disease, you are better off doing it all in one go. I also wonder if he looks at something like the Ford Foundation and realize in the long run that any charitable trust will just turn into an overstuffed political ad…

Who manages that trust? There is not shortage of short term needs, and short term value added can compound over time. I think this is a fine approach. He's Bill Gates - his legacy is ensured regardless.

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

#157

Post by lapcat »

> Today, the list of human diseases the world has eradicated has just one entry: smallpox... I’m optimistic that, by the time the foundation shuts down, we can also add malaria and measles.

What is Gates going to do about the anti-vaxxers, especially now that they're running the US government health programs?

Many of the problems that the Gates Foundation wants to solve are effectively political. In other words, the dysfunction of governments allows these problems to fester, such that the only, temporary solution is for someone like Gates to step in. What is Gates doing to solve the fundamental political problems? The foundation is trying to do the work that governments should be doing, so what happens after Gates dies and/or his money runs out?

Gates has a scathing critique of Elon Musk, accusing Musk of killing millions of children, but that's the inevitable outcome of a system where everything depends on the whims of billionaires. Gates himself appears like a rarity among them now, with a bit of a conscience and sense of public responsibility. We may praise Gates for his philanthropy, but it would be irresponsible of us, the non-billionaires, to leave the public's welfare to chance like that, and neither should Gates, about to turn 70 years old, support a world that depends on his personal existence in that world.

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

#158

Post by knowitnone »

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.

a significant part of Americans are dumb as bricks

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

#159

Post by bombcar »

vasco wrote: post #124
9rx wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.

The state is never going to be as agile as private people engaging on topics they are passionate about on their private time.

You can donate directly the pay down the debt: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/government/public-debt-report...

Supporting government programs at the same time as you insist money could be better used elsewhere (at charities) is somewhat amusing.

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

#160

Post by rendaw »

nicce wrote: post #109
tasuki wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is assuming that huge wealth inequality is a given and all we can do is pray for a rare oligarch to give some of that money back to those in need.

Edit: I think it's great that he is doing this, but I don't think it's a good system. Giving money is so hard at scale that you need to set up a corporation just to figure out how to do it, and either it's so hard that they can barely shave away at the amount they have or their MO has evolved to include preserving themselves as an entity. If that wealth were more distributed, the social distance between those in need and those with money would be less.

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