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Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

nytimes.com

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Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#51

Post by frankbreetz »

cure wrote: post #49
olivermarks wrote: post #43

'Mr. Doerr joins a growing list of ultrawealthy men donating huge sums of money to the fight against global warming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2020 said he was committing $10 billion of his own money to a new initiative he called the Bezos Earth Fund, and last year detailed how some of the money would be spent. Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close co…

Bill Gates also has a $500M short bet against Tesla. Exactly how big are all those efforts he's allegedly making to do something about climate change?

You can think Tesla stock is overvalued AND want to do something about climate change. It looks like he wrote a book and donate 2 billion with another 2 billion promised[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2021/heres-bill-gates-not-help-figh...

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#52

Post by unmole »

aresant wrote: post #13

The most encouraging signal on climate to me is that the “money” seems to finally be waking up. ESG policies - backed by data monitoring requirements to combat greenwashing from sovereign wealth funds are real, arduous, and creating business and capital incentives with environmental alignment. Early stage climate tech funds - of which their are many today where there were few even a few years ago - are giving a new g…

As it stands stakeholder capitalism is a scam perpetrated by the professional-managerial class on everyone else.

ESG offers a viable career path for people who don't actually like finance but want the money it pays. Plus, you get to tell yourself you're Making the world a better place. What's not to like?

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#53

Post by xiphias2 »

frankbreetz wrote: post #51
cure wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates also has a $500M short bet against Tesla. Exactly how big are all those efforts he's allegedly making to do something about climate change?

You can think Tesla stock is overvalued AND want to do something about climate change. It looks like he wrote a book and donate 2 billion with another 2 billion promised[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2021/heres-bill-gates-not-help-figh...

He was trash talking Tesla for a long time because his friend Warren Buffet invested in Chinese copy cats. He could have helped Tesla in 2008 a lot, but now his opinion and money doesn't count that much actually, as there's a healthy clean energy investor base at this point.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#54

Post by sixQuarks »

aresant wrote: post #39
sixQuarks wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESG is a joke. Chevron has a higher ESG score than Tesla. How can anybody argue this is a fair assessment?

ESG scoring agreed is a work in progress currently gameable with greenwashing strategies (carbon credits) What I am referencing is ESG for fundraising at institutional level which is the money that actually drives the world Major pensions are prioritizing selecting managers with legit, objectively good esg policies and road maps with hard and enforceable targets that are tied to compensation

This is precisely the reason ESG should be abolished. It’s driving a huge amount of investment into companies that don’t deserve it

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#55

Post by olivermarks »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #48
olivermarks wrote: post #43

'Mr. Doerr joins a growing list of ultrawealthy men donating huge sums of money to the fight against global warming. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2020 said he was committing $10 billion of his own money to a new initiative he called the Bezos Earth Fund, and last year detailed how some of the money would be spent. Mr. Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, said in 2019 he would spend $500 million to help close co…

I too feel somewhat skeptical & cynical... but given the political situation in the US, and specifically the deadlock in the US Senate (filibuster), the philanthropy of billionaires seems like one of the most viable ways towards making progress at this point. It's not ideal, but we don't seem to have a lot of other viable options at this point.

@uncleOxidant (great screen name!) Don't disagree but a weak deadlocked 'democracy'. with uberrich globalists making key decisions and funding them is not a good way forward either. The German National Socialists were great 'green' investors in the 1930's, that didn't end well...

https://www.amazon.com/Green-Tyranny-Exposing-Totalitarian-I...

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#56

Post by jgalt212 »

ensan wrote: post #23
daterdots wrote: post #11

I am concerned about the incredible concentration of money and resources into a few academic institutions. Obviously Stanford is an incredible school, but I am not sure Stanford will do more with $1B than 10 2nd tier schools would do with $100M each.

Isn't there a tax deduction aspect to a lot of these donations? Anyways, 100 more Nature-level articles about climate change is not going to change the situation if there is no political will (or if it seesaws every 4-8 years at best).

Indeed.

It probably would have been much better to plant $1B worth of trees, or buy $1B of the Brazilian Rain Forest. But for similar reasons that Robert Moses loved bridges and hated tunnels, putting your name on a building at Stanford wins.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#57

Post by rdtwo »

MR4D wrote: post #9
rdtwo wrote: post #5

What do your do with a degree in climatology? It’s not a good idea to get these odd degrees as they are not good for signaling to potential employers.

How would that be any different than the people who get a degree in Petroleum Engineering (aside from the audience they are signaling) ?

It’s a bad choice too better to generalize in chem e

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#58

Post by pmyteh »

scythe wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure Stanford will do more with $1B than 10 2nd tier schools would do with $100M each Absent data, it's difficult to say. There are economies of scale, even if just in experience administering such projects.

In order to have an economy of scale, first you need scale. But Stanford does not stand out in terms of the size of its faculty or enrollment, certainly not to the degree it does in terms of money. In fact, Stanford has fewer tenured faculty members (832) than UC Davis (1,126): https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/stanford-university/... https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-califo...

There are diseconomies of scale too. My experience is mostly of UK higher education, but my feeling is that most universities are a bit too large for their governing structures, and are poorly run as a result.

Re: Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr

#59

Post by KMag »

ensan wrote: post #23
daterdots wrote: post #11

I am concerned about the incredible concentration of money and resources into a few academic institutions. Obviously Stanford is an incredible school, but I am not sure Stanford will do more with $1B than 10 2nd tier schools would do with $100M each.

Isn't there a tax deduction aspect to a lot of these donations? Anyways, 100 more Nature-level articles about climate change is not going to change the situation if there is no political will (or if it seesaws every 4-8 years at best).

There are some loopholes with donations, mostly regarding difficult-to-value benefits and also around donating dificult-to-value things rather than cash, stocks, and/or bonds.

But, if you donate $1.1 billion to an eligible charity (and claim to have gotten nothing in return), then the US government basically pretends that you never made that money, and your tax bill goes down by roughly your marginal tax rate times the size of the donation. There are limits and caveats, but in general, it's a pretty fair treatment. I'm pretty sure big donors generally under-report the value of having their name on a building, etc. However, I believe it's nearly impossible to wind up with more money in your pocket post-tax by donating cash instead of keeping the cash. (I'm not an accountant. This isn't tax advice.)

I'm not saying you in particular are claiming people are donating cash out of greed, but the way I hear some people talk about tax write-offs is very misleading. It seems many Americans believe that donating $1.1 billion in cash can result in a $1.1 billion reduction in tax owed (assuming a marginal tax rate under 100%). Presumably, someone that wealthy gets their marginal tax rate down around the long-term capital gains rate, so they're probably getting about $165 million in tax reduction in exchange for that $1.1 billion donation. (Again, I'm not an accountant. This isn't tax advice.)

(Now, one could buy $1 million in art, get it appraised for $4 million, and if your marginal tax rate is under 25%, get more than $1 million knocked off your tax bill. Like I said, there are some loopholes in valuation, but not for cash and marketable securities.)

That being said, it would be nice to see something where getting your name on a building or an event in your honor would come with some automatic accounting assumption that the value of the publicity is worth at least 25% of the donation. If you want the full write-off, take your name off the building.

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