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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

#341

Post by vinceguidry »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #244
vinceguidry wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaires become billionaires because of preferential treatment by governments, not out of any kind of merit. There are lots of better things the world could have had, Linux and the software commons would be much much much better if Microsoft hadn't hired all the best software engineers to make proprietary software and if the federal government hadn't coddled it and overlooked its monopolistic practices. The Inter…

Why did Bill Gates get preferential treatment for his operating system over others like Steve Jobs or Vinod Khosla? Government connections?

Sure. They ask him for government backdoors, to add stuff to it for military purposes. It's quid pro quo. Bill Gates gets to capture the lion's share of the wealth from his government-protected monopoly with all its anti-competitive practices and the public is left out in the cold.

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

#342

Post by jonas21 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #259
swiftcoder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The antivax movement is a tiny number of fringe wackos. Normal people are not against normal vaccines, even if some of them had concerns about one recent one in particular.

16% of American adults believe that vaccines are unsafe [1]. That's 40 million people, which is not exactly a tiny number.

While concerns about the Covid-19 vaccine are highest (24%), significant numbers of people still feel that "normal" vaccines are unsafe, like MMR (9%) and flu (11%).

[1] https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/vaccine-confiden...

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

#344

Post by freeamz »

RataNova wrote: post #46
jarbus wrote: post #16

Say what you want, but I respect this a lot. Sure as hell beats giving it all to your kids.

You don't have to love Gates or everything the foundation does to recognize that putting billions toward global health and poverty is way better than setting up a dynasty or letting it sit in investments

Foundation is a way to set a dynasty! Just look at all the robber baron foundations out there.

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

#345

Post by mmooss »

toast0 wrote: post #242
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 goes out of their way to encourage it. Let's say you just won the startup lottery and you've got a significant amount of now tradable stock. Some of which was early exercised and the cost basis is effectively zero. Some of which was RSUs or non-qualified options and you owe ordinary income. And that you're way over into the top tax brackets. If your zero cost basis stock is Qualified Small Business Stock (Q…

> The state goes out of their way to encourage it.

People with lots of money and power get their representatives to pass laws that reduce their taxes.

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

#346

Post by staticman2 »

haarolean wrote: post #263
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.

It's hard to take him seriously or consider him a good guy. While advocating for the environment, he doesn't hesitate to short tesla, an EV company (questionable nature aside). There are two possible reasons for this (the 'why' remains -- not enough money?): - He's admitting he doesn't care about the environmental mission, just the returns - He thinks tesla is a fraud, but isn't saying it publicly Either way, it's su…

[flagged]

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

#347

Post by toenail »

mithametacs wrote: post #221
toenail wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You don’t hold onto it. It’s just lost when you die. Heaven has no bitcoin ATMs.

You can’t know the unknown.

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

#348

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

eej71 wrote: post #332
GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as naive as you're painting it to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money_(book)

I'm sure a similar book could be written where the political stripes are all changed. Instead of Koch, we have Soros. Instead of Musk, it would be Gates. Instead of whoever owns Sinclair Media, its Carlos Slim or Lauren Powell Jobs.

And? I would welcome that. This isn't team sports where I'm rooting for my favorite billionaire.

That said, this book actually exists.

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

#350

Post by toenail »

bombcar wrote: post #204
toenail wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nobody magically knows why coins don’t move. Could just be generational savings.
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