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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

#201

Post by giantg2 »

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…

It seems his foundation already has significant funding. I would give to other charities, focusing on high impact work in specific regions or domains that knight not be as popular.

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

#202

Post by njdas »

9rx wrote: post #100
Ozzie_osman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

[dead]

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

#203

Post by nicce »

jayd16 wrote: post #184
nicce wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We could also decide to live in a society that doesn't allow for such runaway wealth consolidation we need the robber barons' hand-outs to do good. C'est la vie.

We could, but we haven't yet figured it out how to.

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

#204

Post by bombcar »

toenail wrote: post #143
devenson wrote: post #89

>There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. You can't hold onto it regardless. The best you can do is choose who gets it.

> You can't hold onto it regardless. I can, I can take my bitcoin private keys with me when I die. He could do the same if he wanted to.

Even that doesn't hold onto it. It just inflates the value of the remaining stash, and effectively "donates" it to all other holders.

Of course, if the keys are later found, then you crash everyone out.

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

#205

Post by wormlord »

argsnd wrote: post #186
wormlord wrote: post #91

Remember when Gates refused to lift IP restrictions on the COVID vaccine https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bi...

There were, I think, fair reasons to do this. A patent-free "people's vaccine" may well have reached fewer people because there's got to be money in scaling up the production of something like this.

It also conveniently benefits him greatly.

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

#206

Post by foldr »

gambiting wrote: post #179
dekrg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and Bill Gates is such a good guy that he even remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein's conviction. To help children of course. Truly a Bill Gates is a true hero looking out for all the children.

Do you have any details on the exact nature of their relationship, so we can read up on it?

Not OP, but this information is easily available by Googling ‘Bill Gates Epstein’. I’m not trying to be snarky. It’s just a widely covered news story.

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

#207

Post by marssaxman »

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.

Al Capone ran a Chicago soup kitchen during the Great Depression, serving hundreds of thousands of free meals. Did this philanthropy absolve him of the harm done while acquiring the fortune which paid for the charity?

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

#208

Post by coryfklein »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #112
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.

When the government doesn't do it, private parties have to; when there's a significant percentage of the population voting for "small government" parties, more responsibility goes to (wealthy) individuals.

> private parties have to

No they don't. It can also be that neither the government nor private parties give.

Making it an either/or often makes space for the individual to make excuses for why they don't share because out there somewhere there exists some government program that vaguely looks like charity.

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

#209

Post by bombcar »

Invictus0 wrote: post #75
burkaman wrote: post #60

I don't think promises like this should be considered news. Take a look at the list of people who have signed Gates' own Giving Pledge and ask yourself if making the pledge changed their behavior at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge .

Historically, it's pretty typical that rich people don't give their money away until their death, and the Pledge itself is not a statement of intent to give the money away during their life.

Giving during your lifetime is a much, much better way of ensuring that it does what you want. It is very hard to control things from the grave, as someone administers it and can do what they want, as long as they follow the letter.

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

#210

Post by amanaplanacanal »

toenail wrote: post #143
devenson wrote: post #89

>There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. You can't hold onto it regardless. The best you can do is choose who gets it.

> You can't hold onto it regardless. I can, I can take my bitcoin private keys with me when I die. He could do the same if he wanted to.

In theory, doesn't that just distribute the value to all other Bitcoin holders? I dunno. It's hard to think about the value of something this abstract.
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