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I'd rather see more people following the lead of Elon Musk than Bill Gates. Instead of throwing money at problems that will always exist and producing no real value, Musk is creating high-tech jobs and advancing the state of humanity.
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I disagree. I've heard Bill Gates speak and spoken with profs who worked with him; he is deeply informed on the health and edu issues he works on. If we can get smart, creative people tackling those, all the better. Some problems don't have a market solution.
Gates might be the exception, and I do admire his work on malaria. But I really do wonder if there isn't a bigger idea that he's cowering away from in his quest to simply give his fortune away.
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It may seem that they are just giving it away to charity. But many of the donations that Bill Gates provides are making new waves in terms of research, development techniques and expanding microfinance. They are not just pledging money away. These are serious investments that are evaluated in the same way a VC/Angel pick a startup. A colleague of mine tried to apply/pitch to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and…
I realize Gates does this and I think it's great. I just wonder if Gates might have the ability to do far more if he just invested in himself.
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Gates might be the exception, and I do admire his work on malaria. But I really do wonder if there isn't a bigger idea that he's cowering away from in his quest to simply give his fortune away.
The quest to give his fortune away and cowering from a bigger idea? He is changing the way development works. He is better funded than almost anyone else with no obligation to any other stakeholders (namely governments and political entities that use aid as a political chip). He gets the opportunity to, as a private individual, challenge the market failures of our time. Who else is going to fund research aimed at sav…
But philanthropy is an old fashioned way to solve problems. I guess I have this hope that someone like Gates would see a solution that took a very unexpected path.
It would be wonderful to see some of SV's glitterati create more for-profit investment networks (bigger than Kiva, smaller than VC (...YC?)) in other hungry markets.
Kudos to Mark for committing to this. If he applies his product-brilliance to how he goes about it I'm sure he will do wonderful things.
(Alexis this has your name written all over it BTW ;)
I happen to have just watched a brilliant TED talk on the value of angel investment (not aid) in Africa. The talk underlined how it is capitalism rather than charity that creates wealth. It would be wonderful to see some of SV's glitterati create more for-profit investment networks (bigger than Kiva, smaller than VC (...YC?)) in other hungry markets. Kudos to Mark for committing to this. If he applies his product-bri…
I'd rather see more people following the lead of Elon Musk than Bill Gates. Instead of throwing money at problems that will always exist and producing no real value, Musk is creating high-tech jobs and advancing the state of humanity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realize Gates does this and I think it's great. I just wonder if Gates might have the ability to do far more if he just invested in himself.
No, not a fair question. What does this even mean? If you really think you know anything at all about how Bill Gates should spend his time and money, feel free to go ahead and actually say what you think he should be spending it on, instead of mouthing platitudes about "bigger ideas" and "investing in himself."
Personally, I'd like to see him start a company that would invent a mobile phone battery that lasts for a month and can power an RC aircraft to fly all the way around the world.
I also worry about the overall risklessness of what he's doing. He's pledged all of his money, so who can criticize it? For most people it's beyond reproach just because of the stated goals.
When Gates dropped out of Harvard he was doing something that a lot of people thought was stupid. That's how big ideas are. I'd like to see him doing something that might actually result in people mocking him for having lost his fortune on a bad idea.
zuckerberg doesn't even have $10mil cash, let alone billions. it's all on paper.
This is from the PDF on the giving pledge website: "The pledge does not involve pooling money or supporting a particular set of causes or organizations. The pledge asks only that the individual give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charitable organizations either before or after their death." Interesting way to do this. I still don't really understand the need for a pledge of this magnitude, bu…
Do you really think so? Mark is a few years older than me, and I've already arrived at the decision that I'd do much the same as him if I ever had the same cash. He's bright, quite savvy regarding the public, and he's got a great inner stamina. I doubt he worries if he's capable of making money — maybe he'll never equal Facebook's success, in fact probably he won't, but I doubt if he started all over again today he'd fail to make himself a comfortable, cozy living.
It's not like he's being asked to live an ascetic lifestyle, though all stories I've read say that he's fairly minimal. He's just being asked to give away most of his money to help other people. In his case, "most of his wealth" still leaves him more than I've got at present.