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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

#551

Post by jokethrowaway »

energy123 wrote: post #369
toenail wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn’t answer the question. I get it, you think capitalism is bad. What do you propose instead?

Regulated capitalism, where cases of market failure are addressed.

Regulation never works because people can be corrupted and banks can be bailed. Regulation might look like it's protecting the little guy for PR reasons, but it will always leave a way out for the big guy. This is why inequality keeps raising.

I wish we had completely unregulated capitalism, so that middle class people would have more weapons to climb up society instead of paying the bill for everyone while drowning in debt and soulcrushing careers.

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

#552

Post by nashashmi »

If Bill Gates gave away 10% every year of the wealth he has, after 20 years, he would have remaining 12%.

He should dedicate the remaining 12% to venture capital for all of the businesses he crushed and the people who suffered, for “boiling the tech space” and killing the innovation. The least he can do.

And the rest of the rich crooks should do the same dedicating their wealth to reversing the harm that they caused.

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

#553

Post by Wowfunhappy »

calepayson wrote: post #529
gwern wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can have other motivations. Between 2020, 2024, Mackenzie Bezos & Laurene Powell Jobs, the deeply unimpressive philanthropy of the Buffett children, and his own divorce, a very rich philanthropist has excellent reasons to aim for the foundation being liquidated in his lifetime, and not handed off to administrators like, yes, the Ford Foundation or Harvard... (And then, of course, given his enthusiasm for AI, there…

I'm an AI skeptic when it comes to business cases. I think AI is great at getting to average and the whole point of a business is that you're paying them to do better than average. But I think current AI (not where it might be in a few months or years) is absolutely amazing for disadvantaged people. Access to someone who's average is so freaking cool if you don't already have it. Used correctly it's a free math tutor…

> The whole point of a business is that you're paying them to do better than average.

...this is a really interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it's entirely true?

If we're talking about a business's core competency, I think the assertion makes sense. You need to be better than your competition.

But businesses also need a whole lot of people to work in human resources, file taxes, and so on. (Not to mention clean bathrooms, but that's less relevant to the generative AI discussion.) I can certainly imagine how having a world-class human resource team could provide a tire manufacturer with a competitive advantage. However, if those incredible HR employees are also more expensive, it might make more sense to hire below-average people to do your HR and invest more in tire R&D.

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

#554

Post by heresie-dabord »

srvo wrote: post #330

This is the way that foundations and endowments should operate. Too many well-intentioned organizations wind up milquetoast tax-exempt hedge funds aimed primarily at self-preservation because the received wisdom is that they should focus on building endowments and keep their withdrawal rates below 4% in order to achieve immortality. I'm a big believer in research-driven philanthropy and mission-driven organizations.…

> Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Ha ha, well here's mine. First, I'm way ahead of Mr Gates: I'm already worth almost nothing.

But if I had billions to give, I would be supporting Science Education, Democracy and Journalism. Scholarships for bright, motivated students.

With all due respect to Mr G, I don't believe any of his objectives is possible with stable, educated, science-orientated social progress. Humanity depends on it.

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

#555

Post by ivape »

ghaff wrote: post #71
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…

Was just talking with some folks last weekend about this in a different context. Open-ended foundations can easily have their missions drift and also become essentially sinecures for an executive director. Ford Foundation is a great example of what can happen. Olin is a good example of a foundation that was set up to dissolve after some length of time.

I've always wondered about the Gates and Buffets commitment about giving away their wealth in death. It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now. Whatever poverty will exist in the future also exists now. I suspect they've thought about this too, hence the acceleration. If anything, addressing the issues now has a chance of reducing the issues in the future.

There's always something to learn from everyone. Elon reiterated one thing frequently - "We have to get to Mars soon because I don't want to be dead before it happens" (paraphrasing). If this philosophy is used for the right purpose, we can get some cool things happening sooner. Recent events also show that there are people who are not interested in being charitable at all, so it's even more of an imperative.

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

#556

Post by mmooss »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #549
9rx wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People getting together and doing things as a community does not require a government. That may be true, but government (at least a democratic one) is just people getting together and doing things, so if you already have one you can save the effort of the community trying to organize a second community on top of the community they already have for no good reason. > But labeling them as "people getting together and…

There are plenty of such organisations. Some are legal, some are not. The government is the only one with a legal monopoly on violence; it redistributes resources in the society and it's not run by incorruptible angels but by fallible human beings - human beings who were put there thanks to investments of millions of dollars. It's a recipe for disaster.

> It's a recipe for disaster.

Government is a recipe for disaster? Democratic government has worked for centuries without disaster.

> it's not run by incorruptible angels but by fallible human beings - human beings who were put there thanks to investments of millions of dollars.

Yes, that is the trick of every human endeavor, the great ones and the failures. It depends on you and me - let's make it happen.

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

#557

Post by owebmaster »

ivape wrote: post #555
ghaff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was just talking with some folks last weekend about this in a different context. Open-ended foundations can easily have their missions drift and also become essentially sinecures for an executive director. Ford Foundation is a great example of what can happen. Olin is a good example of a foundation that was set up to dissolve after some length of time.

I've always wondered about the Gates and Buffets commitment about giving away their wealth in death. It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now. Whatever poverty will exist in the future also exists now. I suspect they've thought about this too, hence the acceleration. If anything, addressing the issues now has a chance of reducing the issues in the future. There's always so…

> It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now

I don't think that is the assumption. The assumption is that people will treat them well for planning to give away their money without them needing to live their life without their precious wealth.

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

#558

Post by mmooss »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #550
9rx wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do If it is authoritarian, perhaps, but even that is still a matter of a group of people. Most seem to believe that government should be democratic. You may not find yourself in a democratic state, but that would only continue to contribute to what makes the day funny. Perhaps you didn't read the entire thread and are posting this without underst…

Democracy is the dictatorship of the majority on the minority. It's nothing to be proud of. What you can be proud of is in REDUCING dictatorship, by removing power in centralised entities and giving it back to the individuals.

> Democracy is the dictatorship of the majority on the minority.

It is not - that would be some theoretical pure democracy, also called 'mob rule'. Democracy, as the word is actually used, requires universal human rights which protect the minority. For example, freedom of speech means the majority can't control the minority's speech, whether they like it or not.

Democracy also includes separation of powers, usually between legislature, executive, and judicial, which prevents the concentration of power.

> It's nothing to be proud of.

It's only something to be proud of if we make it that way.

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

#559

Post by ChristopherDrum »

I have seriously mixed feelings about this kind of philanthropy. Yes, it is good that he's going to give his wealth away like this. I do not want to diminish his efforts in that!

But also, why collect such wealth in the first place? What was the point? Was the money really better off being hoarded by one person with the fingers crossed hope that they'll spend it altruistically someday? The existence of the wealth imbalance itself, and the general practice of wealth hoarding, are frustrating counterbalances to the good of giving it away.

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

#560

Post by ghaff »

ivape wrote: post #555
ghaff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was just talking with some folks last weekend about this in a different context. Open-ended foundations can easily have their missions drift and also become essentially sinecures for an executive director. Ford Foundation is a great example of what can happen. Olin is a good example of a foundation that was set up to dissolve after some length of time.

I've always wondered about the Gates and Buffets commitment about giving away their wealth in death. It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now. Whatever poverty will exist in the future also exists now. I suspect they've thought about this too, hence the acceleration. If anything, addressing the issues now has a chance of reducing the issues in the future. There's always so…

Many things take time. And it may be good to fund them. But outsized contributions don't necessarily make them happen that much faster.
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