Now would be a good time for the return of the "gentleman scientist" of the 19th century. Not just passively giving money away to worthy organizations, but educ

Now would be a good time for the return of the "gentleman scientist" of the 19th century. Not just passively giving money away to worthy organizations, but educating yourself enough to be an authority in that field. Wealth on the order of hundreds of millions affords your own private research team with a good enough budget for many fields, the possibility of pursuing high-risk basic research with no expectation of immediate financial gain and the ability to sidestep the trappings of the academic environment. It will be impossible to have more money than you can spend in that scenario - the capital demands of global scientific research far exceed the liquid net worth of any single human individual.