6 ms·

I'm surprised that he didn't invest more than 0.3% of his net worth (if it really is $15B) into this. It's his choice, but I think that if I was in his position

I'm surprised that he didn't invest more than 0.3% of his net worth (if it really is $15B) into this. It's his choice, but I think that if I was in his position, I'd spend more than that (but yeah, I guess that's easier to say when it's not you). Maybe there are bottlenecks that make it so more money wouldn't speed things up, but I bet there are ways to use resources to help alleviate or remove these bottlenecks.

napierzaza 16y ago
I could be easily to do with how liquid all that money is too.
rada 16y ago
Why would it have to be a percentage of his net worth? He's contributed $50MM which he feels is enough to "move the needle". Medical research moves slowly and simply throwing money at it may not offer any incremental benefit. Edit: I thought I'd add an example, since my father has Parkinson's so I know a little bit about it. One promising area of research is stem cell therapy. However, one known side effect of stem cell injection is cancer. (It takes years to develop but there have been enough studies already to show a strong correlation). Now, Parkinson's doesn't kill per se - it makes life miserable towards the end, but as a rule, people with Parkinson's live just as long as people without. So let's say you had really high net worth and wanted to spend it all to cure Parkinson's. Would you be able to "buy" people to trade a low chance of improvement in their lifestyle for a very real chance of cancer? I don't think so. Of course, this is just one example, however, it shows that things are not that simple.
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  I'm just saying what I would do if I was worth 15 billion and knew that I had a high chance of having a serious disease like that. Throwing money blindly at a problem doesn't always help, that's very true. But I'm sure there are many intelligent ways to use more than 50m effectively. You mention stem cell therapies; helping get them to the point where they don't cause cancer anymore might be an area of research worth pushing, especially if some of it is under-funded. Giving out scholarships to people studying in areas related to the disease might be a way to help improve the supply of researchers. And when you can't hire more people, you can usually upgrade the equipment with faster/better stuff (shortening the upgrade cycle might help accelerate progress). You could help pay for conferences where the leading minds working on the problem can meet and exchange information (and if there's already enough of those, you can help make them better). You can probably find high-risk/high-reward research projects that aren't getting funded through the regular channels because those usually favor low-risk/low-reward projects. Etc. But I repeat: What Brin did is awesome. Kudos to him. All I'm saying is maybe I'd do it differently if I was in his shoes.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    Surely the most logical thing to is invest the $50M now to get things started and wait to see what needed funding next.. This almost certainly will not represent the sum total of his donations.
    - MikeCapone 16y ago
      Good point. We'll have to wait and see.
- pdx 16y ago
  one known side effect of stem cell injection is cancer. I found that to be an incredibly interesting sentence, after having previously watched this video. http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_vertes_looks_to_the_future_of_medicine.html http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_vertes_looks_to_the_future_of_m...
  - rada 16y ago
    Thank you so much for posting the video! (For those who might want to watch it also, the interesting stuff starts at the 5 and a half-minute mark). The re-framing of cancer as a desirable injury response is truly eye-opening.
mkramlich 16y ago
If he starts showing symptoms he may suddenly increase his spending.
jseliger 16y ago
I would guess that a) spending rapidly reaches the point of diminishing returns and b) it's probably very, very hard to effectively target research money. As such, it might simply not be effective to spend more. In addition, he'll probably continue investing in research going forward; $50M to date might eventually increase depending on what's found.
metamemetics 16y ago
The amount of money you give doesn't matter. What matters is who you give it to and for what purpose. Specific conditions like Alzheimer's get massive research funding. But if the majority if that money had been invested in research targeted to expand basic knowledge of brain neurobiology, then we would be MUCH further along on real treatments that are actually effective. When you invest heavily into research for one specific neurodegenerative disorder you are investing in specific and superficial symptom treatment. Investing in neurbio research expanding basic knowledge of the brain instead will give you more results in treating a wider range of neurodegenerative disorders.
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  I totally agree with you on the importance of targeting, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that the "amount of money [...] doesn't matter". A lot of money going to really good things is still better than a little money going to really good things.
  - metamemetics 16y ago
    In this specific context, I don't think appraising the total money Sergey Brin has given matters. I'm sure he has enough money to fund any/all decent research proposals. The decent proposals must come first though, one can't simply say he should be throwing X total number of dollars at a problem. Throwing more money at things does not always makes things better and sometimes can make things worse.

napierzaza 16y ago

I could be easily to do with how liquid all that money is too.

rada 16y ago

Why would it have to be a percentage of his net worth? He's contributed $50MM which he feels is enough to "move the needle". Medical research moves slowly and simply throwing money at it may not offer any incremental benefit. Edit: I thought I'd add an example, since my father has Parkinson's so I know a little bit about it. One promising area of research is stem cell therapy. However, one known side effect of stem cell injection is cancer. (It takes years to develop but there have been enough studies already to show a strong correlation). Now, Parkinson's doesn't kill per se - it makes life miserable towards the end, but as a rule, people with Parkinson's live just as long as people without. So let's say you had really high net worth and wanted to spend it all to cure Parkinson's. Would you be able to "buy" people to trade a low chance of improvement in their lifestyle for a very real chance of cancer? I don't think so. Of course, this is just one example, however, it shows that things are not that simple.

MikeCapone 16y ago
I'm just saying what I would do if I was worth 15 billion and knew that I had a high chance of having a serious disease like that. Throwing money blindly at a problem doesn't always help, that's very true. But I'm sure there are many intelligent ways to use more than 50m effectively. You mention stem cell therapies; helping get them to the point where they don't cause cancer anymore might be an area of research worth pushing, especially if some of it is under-funded. Giving out scholarships to people studying in areas related to the disease might be a way to help improve the supply of researchers. And when you can't hire more people, you can usually upgrade the equipment with faster/better stuff (shortening the upgrade cycle might help accelerate progress). You could help pay for conferences where the leading minds working on the problem can meet and exchange information (and if there's already enough of those, you can help make them better). You can probably find high-risk/high-reward research projects that aren't getting funded through the regular channels because those usually favor low-risk/low-reward projects. Etc. But I repeat: What Brin did is awesome. Kudos to him. All I'm saying is maybe I'd do it differently if I was in his shoes.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  Surely the most logical thing to is invest the $50M now to get things started and wait to see what needed funding next.. This almost certainly will not represent the sum total of his donations.
  - MikeCapone 16y ago
    Good point. We'll have to wait and see.
pdx 16y ago
one known side effect of stem cell injection is cancer. I found that to be an incredibly interesting sentence, after having previously watched this video. http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_vertes_looks_to_the_future_of_medicine.html http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_vertes_looks_to_the_future_of_m...
- rada 16y ago
  Thank you so much for posting the video! (For those who might want to watch it also, the interesting stuff starts at the 5 and a half-minute mark). The re-framing of cancer as a desirable injury response is truly eye-opening.

mkramlich 16y ago

If he starts showing symptoms he may suddenly increase his spending.

jseliger 16y ago

I would guess that a) spending rapidly reaches the point of diminishing returns and b) it's probably very, very hard to effectively target research money. As such, it might simply not be effective to spend more. In addition, he'll probably continue investing in research going forward; $50M to date might eventually increase depending on what's found.

metamemetics 16y ago

The amount of money you give doesn't matter. What matters is who you give it to and for what purpose. Specific conditions like Alzheimer's get massive research funding. But if the majority if that money had been invested in research targeted to expand basic knowledge of brain neurobiology, then we would be MUCH further along on real treatments that are actually effective. When you invest heavily into research for one specific neurodegenerative disorder you are investing in specific and superficial symptom treatment. Investing in neurbio research expanding basic knowledge of the brain instead will give you more results in treating a wider range of neurodegenerative disorders.

MikeCapone 16y ago
I totally agree with you on the importance of targeting, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that the "amount of money [...] doesn't matter". A lot of money going to really good things is still better than a little money going to really good things.
- metamemetics 16y ago
  In this specific context, I don't think appraising the total money Sergey Brin has given matters. I'm sure he has enough money to fund any/all decent research proposals. The decent proposals must come first though, one can't simply say he should be throwing X total number of dollars at a problem. Throwing more money at things does not always makes things better and sometimes can make things worse.