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I've been pretty disappointed that I haven't heard people mention charitable donations as something to do once you've hit it big. That we have talents and oppor

• JMiao 16y ago
  being charitable is admirable and all, but i'd be pretty disappointed to see someone turn this type of article into an opportunity to impose their personal beliefs on others.
  • deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
    • pwhelan 16y ago
      I fail to see how saying that I am disappointed that something hasn't been mentioned is saying "most of the adivce in the HN comments is crap" or is imposing my beliefs on others. Saying people should think about something does neither and makes strong assumptions about what I think without evidence. And btw -- I have found the advice across the recent threads to be high quality, particularly that relating to the Graham/Buffet value investing.
      • duck 16y ago
        Yeah, that didn't come out like I wanted it to and I didn't really mean to say anything about your article, but rather the comment... I was going to edit it, but I guess I just deleted it, so either way never mind.
• MikeCapone 16y ago
  Especially if it's in high-impact/low-probability causes that are starved for money. Small amounts there could make big differences if they pay off. Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a lot about this on LessWrong.com, about how dog shelters get a lot more money than existential risk prevention (singinst.org or Lifeboat.com), Friendly AI research (singinst.org again) or finding cures to the diseases of aging (sens.org). Of course, puppies deserve our help. But do they deserve more resources than the kinds of things I mentioned above? Or is this just the way our cognitive biases steer us, pulling at our heart strings against our best interest? A couple of wealthy people could easily double the amount of research in those fields (in fact, Peter Thiel, formely of Paypal did pledge a few millions, but more are needed).
  • vl 16y ago
    While I understand your point, I think that most people don't know what "existential risk prevention" is. And quite frankly, websites you linked to (except sens.org) convey impression of overly-paranoid semi-crazy science fiction, which is unlikely to win funding over puppies.
    • khafra 16y ago
      That's part of the point--people irrationally care more about the marginal puppy than the marginal degree of killer asteroid/supervolcano/nuclear war prevention. If you're one of the few people who care about making a small contribution toward preventing nuclear war than a large contribution toward saving a single puppy, the websites look much saner.
      • ahoyhere 16y ago
        I'm late to the party, but rationally speaking... Chance that a bunch of nice, sane, ordinary people can save the lives of lots of cute animals (or hell, humans)? Very good. Chance that a bunch of crazy people with their crazy web site can stop aging, or better yet, stop an asteroid? Slim to none.
        • khafra 16y ago
          In order to speak rationally about it, you would have to give the likelihood ratio you believe they could reduce the sum of existential threats by, however low that is; then multiply that by the utility you would receive from saving human civilization. Compare this to the utility you receive from saving a puppy, multiplied by the probability of saving that puppy. Compare the two numbers. Rationality means thinking quantitatively where applicable, not qualitatively.
    • MikeCapone 16y ago
      For those who want to learn more: http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk
• benatkin 16y ago
  If you think the decision of whether to give away money isn't one that can wait, you disagree on the main point of the article's advice, which is that you can go wrong by spending your money quickly, and should therefore wait until you're ready before doing anything major with your money. Perhaps he could have given philanthropy a little mention where he suggested investing a tiny bit in startups, for experience, but his genearl advice was, "Do something remarkable." He didn't suggest investing a big chunk of the money in startups, or founding a startup, or anything else. There are plenty of unremarkable ways to donate money to non-profits. Anyone can start a non-profit. They claim to be benevolent. So does the government. If you donate to some non-profits, you might as well be donating to the government by optimizing for high taxes. He could find someone to advise him to donate to a good organization, so the money doesn't get wasted, but that brings us back to the point about not trusting every financial advisor on the planet.
• rwhitman 16y ago
  I've always felt that if I ever cashed out big on something, I'd probably put a good chunk of the money into building a charitable foundation and make the foundation my fulltime job. If you have the money to invest and you've already been successful at founding an organization, why not invest in something that can continue to fund raise and keep giving over the long term?
  • alain94040 16y ago
    Great. One more foundation to which I have to apply, pitch and convince the decision makers. More red tape. Seriously, when you are faced with that problem (of having too much money), please look around. Just maybe, there might be something that already does what it is that you want to do. You do not have to reinvent the wheel to satisfy your ego by having a foundation with your name on it.
    • rwhitman 16y ago
      I've worked with plenty of nonprofits over the years. More than I can count. The point here isn't about putting a name on something for an ego boost, its about effectively managing my (hypothetical) money in a controlled and sustainable way over a longer period of time so it can be put into multiple causes, rather than dumping it all into someone's lap one day and saying 'go'. And by moving this hypothetical money into a 501(c), it puts the money to work over time while keeping it out of reach to blow on tempting luxuries. I stand behind this idea.
• pfedor 16y ago
  Philip Greenspun did address this in an article on a similar subject: http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/ http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/ (scroll down to section "Non-profits are NOT the Answer" if you don't want to read the whole thing).
  • nlwhittemore 16y ago
    Greenspun's piece on nonprofits is a hackjob written by someone who hasn't spent enough time around them to know much other than his own perception. The idea that the nonprofit world is filled with people who just couldn't make it in the corporate sector is a fallacy, plain and simple.
    • tomh 16y ago
      And let's not forget that Philip's own non-profit enterprises - namely, ArsDigita University and the ArsDigita Foundation - collapsed long before the company did. Why was that? Probably because Philip ran them like a business, and decided that, when the going gets tough, the tough fire their Executive Directors and half the paid staff.
      • kscaldef 16y ago
        I feel like Philip had already been pushed out of the company before the university and the foundation shut down. But, it's been almost 10 years, my memory could be faulty.
• paul 16y ago
  That's a pretty difficult topic of its own. Philanthropy is like investing, except much more difficult. The good news is, like investing, you have time to think and learn. Philip Greenspun has some interesting thoughts: http://philip.greenspun.com/non-profit/ http://philip.greenspun.com/non-profit/ and http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/ http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/
  • michaelneale 16y ago
    Very well put. If you find your self with a few spare million, I would think it is good stewardship to apply that advice to selecting charities, with as much care as you would investments. It also helps with the "purpose" aspect paul mentions. It would be pretty frustrating if you quickly did a sizeable donation (sizable compared to the norm for that charity) and find out a month later about some scandal, or how only a small portion of what you thought was a donation really was a donation etc... you would just get on with life, but it would innoculate you against further causes in future which is a loss for everyone. So good advice, think of it as an investment (in terms of dilligence, time etc). That and giving stupendous tips and totally making someones day, that must be a whole lot of fun.
  • mattm 16y ago
    Plus, it is very difficult to tell if charitable giving is actually helping or if it is only helping people to rely on you.
    • iamelgringo 16y ago
      Wow. I couldn't disagree more. I grew up the child of missionaries in Central America in the 70's and 80's. My parents ran a school for Hondurans during a time when 1 out of 100 kids graduated from High School. Half the students paid tuition and half were scholarship students. In 1997, my parents went back to Honduras to help with the disaster relief after a hurricane destroyed much of the Honduran infrastructure. And over the course of 6 months they were there, they had dozens and dozens of former students find them after hearing that they were in the country, and they stopped by to say "thank you". Those former students were now Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, Company owners etc... So, I'd disagree rather heartily with the idea that charity increases dependency.
• jacquesm 16y ago
  Why not take that money and instead of tossing it to 'charitable' destinations use it to create an investment fund to help jumpstart people with projects that will create jobs and/or are aimed at sustainable living or 'green' technologies ? That would be a lot more effective in the long run than it would be to just pass the responsibility for the spending off to some overhead ridden charity.
• disposable 16y ago
  Frequently quoted number is the 80% that are spent by the charities on supporting themselves and 20% reaching the actual people they are helping. A friend of mine worked for a larger charity and the level of self-indulgement was astounding. Especially around the end of fiscal year when they had to spend the whatever budgeted cash left on something... anything, so not to have the budget cut next year.
  • rwhitman 16y ago
    Ok, but isn't it better that at least 20% goes to charity than 100% towards buying luxury cars or other less constructive ways of using that money? Also, doesn't a very large percent of the money invested in a business go towards supporting themselves too? To keep things running, people have to be rewarded, just like any other organization. Bills have to be paid, people have to be fed. And its even harder to keep good people on board at a nonprofit when they could be making 3x as much at a for-profit company. I've worked with dozens of nonprofits and have a bunch of friends that do. They drive me completely insane with disorganization, red tape and horror stories of mismanagement. But I've never met someone who worked in a legitimate nonprofit who's heart wasn't in the right place. At the end of the day, the money is usually doing something good