Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gatesnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

661–670 of 704 posts

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

#661

Post by bdhe »

Aeolun wrote: post #573
bdhe wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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" I understand the idea of learning from everyone, even those whose values I strongly disagree with. But after learning about everything Elon has done in the public sphere, would this statement be more likely just narcissism rather than a deep and insp…

That doesn’t really matter though? The end result is we’ll get to Mars faster than we’d otherwise do.

I think it matters a great deal! If that result comes at the expense of - let's say - progress fighting climate change because Elon also ended up defunding and destabilizing a lot of science with the same instincts that got him to proclaim his mission of going to Mars, it is not obvious that we only ought to focus on the end result, and even if we do, that only one set of end results need focus.

We may be closer to going to Mars, an extremely inhospitable place, at far greater expense than simply making the world we were evolved to survive in a little better.

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

#662

Post by bigfatkitten »

calepayson wrote: post #656
bigfatkitten wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the LLM tells the untrained passer-by to do a tracheotomy, it's not going to go well.

Emergencies can freak people out but not once in my eight years in rescue have I ever encountered a scenario where a random bystander might do as drastic of an intervention as as a tracheotomy. I have shown up at scenes where people have googled what to do though and, you know what, it was super helpful. If someone is dumb enough to perform a tracheotomy because an llm, google, or a passerby told them to. The issue i…

I've been a firefighter for 22 years. I'm sure neither of us will ever cease to be amazed at what otherwise intelligent people will do when they're in a panic.

People also do amazingly dumb things because a piece of software with a tone of authority told them to do it, even when they're not under duress. Look at the number of people who find themselves stranded or dead because they uncritically followed the directions of a navigation app, and who weren't in a panic state when they did it.

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

#663

Post by codr7 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #598
codr7 wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't collect these things, I prefer to spend as little time as possible thinking about Bill Gates. But everything you could possibly want to know is a Google search away.

I tried to find something but couldn't find any evidence that he's received a kickback for any charity

Right, and what did you search for if I may ask?

This took me about three clicks to find:

https://cagj.org/2020/04/the-nation-bill-gatess-charity-para...

Which sounds more like the BG I know from back in the days.

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

#664

Post by [deleted] »

codr7 wrote: post #663
mgraczyk wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to find something but couldn't find any evidence that he's received a kickback for any charity

Right, and what did you search for if I may ask? This took me about three clicks to find: https://cagj.org/2020/04/the-nation-bill-gatess-charity-para... Which sounds more like the BG I know from back in the days.

[deleted]

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

#665

Post by robocat »

conception wrote: post #611
fallingknife wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Actually the highest leverage would be to bribe electable politicians to get governments to be willing to fund your projects. It’s remarkably cheap apparently to do.

Numbers:

  > but I expect the [Gates] foundation will spend more than $200 billion between now and 2045

  Top 10 individuals in the world worth $1.77 trillion

  The U.S. government has spent $ 3.57 trillion in fiscal year 2025
So Gates spends 10 billion/year which is an astonishing 0.2% of US government budget

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

#666

Post by keernan »

otteromkram wrote: post #11
earlyriser wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates has been advocating for higher taxes to people like him for a while.

Is anyone stopping him, et al, from just paying more? There's an option for that on US tax forms (though I'm guessing tax returns for billionaires are a little more complex than what a Form 1040 can handle).

>Though I'm guessing tax returns for billionaires are a little more complex than what a Form 1040 can handle

When it comes to wealth, the world is divided into two basic groups: 1. Those with sufficient wealth that they and their family members will never need to hold a job in order to earn an income to survive.

2. Everyone else who must earn an income to survive.

It is important to understand that, in the United States, Group One people only pay taxes because they invest their money. They have enough money right now (100 million or more) that they could simply put the money in a bank vault and rely upon those funds for the rest of their lives without the need to even file tax returns.

They don't do that because they want more wealth. They want to invest their wealth such that it doubles every 10 years or so. And so they incur taxes to the extent their investments produce dividends or if they sell some stock for the purpose of investing the proceeds into a different investment. Of course, they only do this because they are convinced the new investment will return a much higher rate then the investment they are moving out of - after taxes. Otherwise, they wouldn't change investments.

Group Two has no choice in the matter. They do not have sufficient wealth to not work. So they work and earn wages which is always taxed.

Group One hold power and they essentially hold a veto over laws they are absolutely opposed to. Why do you think the US Government obtains its funds via a tax on income? Group One does not have income and thus contributes nothing to the cost of running the government - unless, as I've already addressed, they DECIDE for themselves that it is worthwhile to invest their money - and even then they only get taxed when they switch investments (or dividends). But they are not being taxed because they must work.

That is why it is laughable for Trump and the Republicans to be "debating" whether or not to tax the rich. But do not believe for one second that taxing the rich is the same thing as taxing the wealthy. The rich are Group Two people who earn very high wages. But the taxes being discussed are of no real interest or concern to Group One people.

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

#667

Post by nearbuy »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #597
nearbuy wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polio type 2 and 3 were eradicated and overall we went from 400k cases of paralytic polio per year down to less than 1% of that.

You may want to check your numbers because polio type 2 and type 3 are both still around (in fact, cVDPV type 2 is very, very common). The GPEI website has the recent numbers, updated weekly (although with ~3 month lag). 400k to 4k is not 400k to 0. Eradication means 0. People don't get smallpox vaccines today because we hit 0. American children get ~4 doses of IPV still, despite what you are claiming as "eradication…

You're conflating cVDPV with WPV. Despite both having a "type 2", they are not the same virus.

Calling a few hundred reported cases a year globally "very, very common" is... a stretch. You have better odds of getting struck by lightning.

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

#668

Post by RataNova »

freeamz wrote: post #344
RataNova wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some foundations have been used that way, no doubt. But I think there's a difference between setting up a tax shelter with vague goals and actively committing to spend down the entire endowment in a specific timeframe

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

#669

Post by RataNova »

lostmsu wrote: post #440
RataNova wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> letting it sit in investments Depends on investments. Arguably tech advances are more effective for alleviating hunger than direct food donations long term.

I think the ideal is a mix: fund near-term needs like healthcare and food access and invest in the systems and tools that prevent future crises

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

#670

Post by RataNova »

adverbly wrote: post #171
RataNova wrote: post #33

How much power is concentrated in the hands of individuals... It's great that Gates is choosing to use that power philanthropically, but it also raises questions about the long-term role of private wealth in solving public problems.

+1 This is great, but what about the rich people who don't give? Won't they just continue to get more and more power? The scales are tipped and this is not sustainable. Gary Stevenson is a bit extreme, but he's not wrong about centralization and it's dangers!

The system relies too much on the whims of individuals rather than building durable, democratic institutions that tackle these problems consistently
Post reply on HN