My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by fallingknife » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:39 PM UTC

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…

If you have more money than anyone else on earth, the highest leverage use of that money is going to be to fund projects that require more capital than anyone else can afford to fund and that governments are unwilling to fund. That way you know you are actually adding to the opportunity set and not just displacing someone else. The difficult part is, of course, deciding which of those projects that only you can fund will actually be a good bet, but that doesn't change the fundamental calculation. Not sure if that's Gates' strategy, but it would make sense if it was.

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

#462

Post by keybored » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:40 PM UTC

I try not to spare a thought to what the true person or character is when they have the means to buy their reputation a hundred times over.

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

#463

Post by CIPHERSTONE » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:42 PM UTC

I don't see his post as an attempt to self-promote as some commenters here have made. To what purpose? He's already known to most adults, already rich beyond anyone could possibly dream to be. And it sounds like from the post that he already had this path planned albeit several decades after his death.

I think accelerating that timeline is a good thing as I think he will be better than anyone who came after to direct how the funds as applied.

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

#464

Post by fallingknife » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

brutuscat wrote: post #452

Nice! And with what he will be left he could, if he deploys it also during 20y, help 1200 people per month. With 1k daily give aways. https://ayudaefectiva.org/simula Or with 10k daily, 310k monthly, adjusted by historical inflation it’s 100 million during 20 years. That’s 3 million people helped.

The only less beneficial way I can think of to use his money would be to turn it all into cash and set it on fire to lower the money supply.

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

#465

Post by jayd16 » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

nicce wrote: post #253

rendaw wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

We don't have general system in place that would somehow prevent this. The world runs on capitalism and everyone needs food and roof. Whoever has the power to give them or take them, has the total power, and can play with the system more they have wealth. Social democracy is some sort of middle-ground but it is not enough, because it is not applied everywhere equally, and it is hard to define what is selfish and non-…

Laissez-faire capitalism is not synonymous with all forms of capitalism. We could and have in the past curbed runaway wealth and power. Pretending nothing can be done is, at best, ignoring history.

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

#466

Post by Blankono » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:46 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #460

nostromo wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked there and would encourage you not to do that. It'd be smarter to see who they are giving money to (which is all public) and give directly to those orgs. The Gates foundation itself spends a lot of money on consultants, "government engagement" (aka lobbying by another name), and fancy dinners. That's fine or maybe even noble for a family foundation, but it's probably not something individuals would want to fu…

Exactly. He doesn't need 20 years. That's just him trying to draw attention to himself. If he was really serious about giving away his money, he could write a single check to the Red Cross || Doctors Without Borders || insert charity here and in five minutes be done with it. The world doesn't need more vanity charities. It needs its existing charities to be better funded.

I don't think you understand really how thngs work if you believe, giving something like the Red Cross Billions would just work.

Just googling it delivers enough critisism on worst level than you think Bill Gates Foundation is: "misusing funds, poor logistical planning, inadequate responses to specific crises, and even allegations of fraud and theft. "

Impact matters. Impact doesn't mean to just give money to some organization. Bill Gates actually played a significant role in Ebola vacination. Why? Because he/his team revisted why just giving out vacines was not enough.

Impact means helping as efficient as possible with the money.

And btw. a lot of other charities of this style (especially christians ones we all know) have also borderline ways of missusing believers to do their work. My aunt worked for nuns and got paid shit. This is now a problem for her retirment. Guess who pays that? Yeah the state...

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

#467

Post by Blankono » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:49 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #459

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…

I worked there and would encourage you not to do that. It'd be smarter to see who they are giving money to (which is all public) and give directly to those orgs. The Gates foundation itself spends a lot of money on consultants, "government engagement" (aka lobbying by another name), and fancy dinners. That's fine or maybe even noble for a family foundation, but it's probably not something individuals would want to fu…

So you appreachiate that the Bill Gates Foundation takes the time and energy / Resources to figure out whom to give money for the best impact, but you don't suggest others to give an organization, which actually takes the time and effort to figoure out how to spend money properly?

I find this dishonest.

And i find your point regarding 'fancy dinners' weird. You do know why they might spend money on this right? For doing lobbying which leads to real impact. Your 'fancy dinner' might be the difference between a political decision in favour for the right thing vs. some other company lobbying for the opposition.

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

#468

Post by keybored » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:54 PM UTC

Azkron wrote: post #192

BSOhealth wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For many people "wealthy = evil". And "poor = good". It is easier to demonize someone that is doing better than you than to admit that maybe he is just making better choices.

The poor can be anything. A wealthy person could have worked hard for it. A wealthy person could have also exploited others in order to get wealthy.

Virtually all (meaning systemically) very wealthy people had to exploit others to get to their very wealthy state.

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

#469

Post by eastbound » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:55 PM UTC

abound wrote: post #411

yodsanklai wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with Gates is that he wants to fight climate change, yet he's personally an environmental disaster with his yachts and jets. I'm not saying he has to live like a monk to be credible, and maybe his foundation is doing a good job (never looked into it), but either he's an hypocrite, or I disagree with him on how to fight climate change.

I think it's pretty clearly hypocritical, but also if his actions are (far) more than offsetting his own emissions and impact, it's still a net positive. Of course, he could choose to not live a super-high consumption lifestyle in addition to his climate philanthopy, but if I had to take one or the other, I'd rather him continue throwing money at climate work than take fewer private jet rides.

My issue is, he wants to fight climate change… then tries to spend $200bn in less than 20 years. This afflux of money creates a spike of consumerism, then a sudden dip after that. Consultants in foundations will scramble to spend that money for sure, and they themselves will buy private jets for that.

The way to fight climate change is to keep people at a low level of consumption, and spend his own money very slowly, very scarcely. And keep people with small cars, no Cadillac for any consultant.

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

#470

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, May 08, 2025, 7:56 PM UTC

alabastervlog wrote: post #449

eej71 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the book exists as I'm very familiar with the kinds of claims that get repeated in threads like this. To me - these claims seem to fuel a conspiracy like mind set about why certain efforts or movements fail. "Because the billionares didn't want it to". "Or they bought the media and control the narrative". "Its all just a uniparty!". If I were to replace the word billionare with the name of the first Abrahamic…

Boiled down, all I'm really claiming is that some rich people spent a bunch of money on lobbying, largely in favor of making money better for buying influence and in favor of making it easier for the rich to get richer with some populist culture-war-stoking side-quests to drum up the necessary votes, and the effort was pretty successful. I don't think that's an out-there or "conspiracy like mind"ed take, especially g…

Except it's not what just happened. More billionaires supported the Harris ticket than the Trump ticket. It's just that Trump's pet billionaires -- especially one in particular -- hustled harder for him.