7 ms·

Reflecting on the first two decades of our foundation

82 points by sturza 7y ago

d-d 7y ago
Can someone explain to me why it's more philanthropic to amass billions instead of sharing profits with employees? Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a billion?
- ggtfggyyy 7y ago
  You need it explained why helping vulnerable and poor groups instead of giving a bonus to your already well payed employees is considered philanthropic? I really don't see what you're driving at here.
  - d-d 7y ago
    Isn't it just depriving the employees of the philanthropy money they labored to produce?
    - gargs 7y ago
      It is. Also, philanthropy is tax advantaged. It's the giving that keeps on giving back.
      - ggtfggyyy 7y ago
        This is rediculous and dripping with silicon valley "we're workers too" attitude. Employees, especially tech employees, have the luxury of being able to go elsewhere if they don't feel they're being adequately compensated. There is no comparison between helping poor african groups or donating to education and giving your employees, who agreed their wages were fair, a raise. Even if you don't like it, it's ultimately his money. This isn't the alms that could have kept the poor coders from having to endure hardahip. It's difficult to comprehend the mentality that could see the workers as the victims in this situation. They were paid the wages they were promised, is the argument that somehow he's a bad person for amassing more than them?
      - darawk 7y ago
        "Philanthropy is tax advantaged" just means that you don't have to pay tax on the money you donate. You don't keep any extra money for yourself.
        gargs 7y ago
        Unless the philanthropy is run like a business with you as the investor/stakeholder.
    - darawk 7y ago
      They are not being 'deprived' of anything. They agreed to exchange their labor for a fixed price, and they received that price. There was no 'deprivation' anywhere in the system.
      - d-d 7y ago
        That's legalistic though. If you're withholding the fruits of labor from workers because "too bad, bro; you signed the paper" then you're not really trying to be kind to anyone. You just want to be rich and appear to be kind.
        mamon 7y ago
        >> withholding fruits of labor from worker How much of the worker output actually is his personal accomplishment, and how much is synergy effect coming from the fact that the employer gave them tools, materials, support of other workers, standard operating procedures, know-how? Therefore not all "fruits of labor" actually belong to a worker.
        darawk 7y ago
        Respecting human choices and agency is 'legalistic'? That's quite the reductionist leap.
  - cjslep 7y ago
    Let the market decide. Paying your employees better would be "trickle down economics" in actual action. If those employees decide to use it for philanthropy then the "trickle down" continues. Except "trickle down" hasn't happened, isn't happening, and won't happen.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      There’s no such thing as “trickle down economics”, the phrase “trickle down” was a joke created by a comedian named Will Rogers. So if you’re waiting for a satirical critique of politics to start shaping the economy, then I don’t know what to tell you. What growth does do is increase competition for labor, so if your economic life plan resolves around earning income from labour, then you benefit from growth. You can see the effect our most recent growth trend has had in the fact that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since the 60s [0], wage growth is double CPI [1], and workforce participation is starting to creep back up after a rather long downward trend [2]. [0] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/mobile/median-weekly-earnings-of-full-time-workers-increased-4-point-0-percent-in-2019.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/mobile/median-weekly-earni... [2] https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
      - cjslep 7y ago
        I think giving me a charitable interpretation would be a good start. The origin of the phrase is lost in modern day culture and has a well understood meaning, and you denying me that makes it clear what kind of engagement you are looking for: one in which you feel justified and correct. I'll give it to you: You're right! Good facts! Moving on now... I don't care if my neighbors can get one decent job or more-than-one-shitty job (your [0] and [2]) nor do I care that for X years we had growth in wages (your [1]) when the previous N*X years (for large N) that "real growth in wages" was 0. I would love to sell you stock that will grow at 0% for 30 years and only the last 5 have 2% over inflation. I don't want that toxic shit in my portfolio. What I care about is the mentality that is justifying making "the market" be one or a handful of people, who happen to own a massive amount of wealth. It's no longer a free market. They are the market. Its self delusional to think someone shouting "I am the State!" has a democratic government, just as someone shouting "I am the market!" is a free and open capitalist market. Basically, I can't believe my free-market loving friends are ok with its own dismantlement by the concentration of wealth by the ultra wealthy. And I am trying to get through to them. Give the money to the employees. Who cares if they're already overpaid, because if they are then they'll also make philanthropic donations.
- chii 7y ago
  > Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a billion? If you're looking to do philanthropic actions, giving all employees $100k doesn't do anything. It merely increases the wealth of those employees by a bit. What about fighting malaria? What about fighting climate change? Do you seriously expect all those recipients of $100k would all contribute as much proportionally? And those employees have already been paid their agreed wages/salaries. So why does giving them extra money makes it more philanthropic?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - js8 7y ago
    > It merely increases the wealth of those employees by a bit. What about fighting malaria? What about fighting climate change? Do you seriously expect all those recipients of $100k would all contribute as much proportionally? Yes. In a sane democratic system, I would expect government to finance these projects. And it does. Now you can somehow make an argument that people in democracy are less likely to support these projects than they are alone as wealthy people. I don't see how it would work. Self-selected billionaires are on average less selfish than ordinary people?
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      There are more important observations to make: - The budget of a democratic nation isn't under direct control of its constituents, so average selfishness of the citizens has nothing to do with it. - A democratic nation has lots of interests jockeying for the budget, and can easily swallow arbitrary amounts of money. - Almost all of that money is spent on improving the things for that nation, so a nation state is not the best organization to task with solving a global/international problem. Most importantly though, the more diffused the money, the less effective it is. Coordinating people costs a lot (think of how much charities spend on advertising!). With his fortune, Gates can just drop $60M on some promising anti-malaria activity; in the alternative reality d-d/you are proposing, it's unlikely that 600 of his employees would suddenly coordinate to drop their $100k on that operation; most likely, no money would be donated at all. So the argument essentially boils down to focus. Much like with distractions and personal productivity, both the market and a government budget can absorb arbitrary amounts of diffuse money with little of value to show for it; it takes focused, bulk money under control of a person to move the needle on some issue.
- oblio 7y ago
  As much as I'm generally for wealth redistribution, that's not how it works. Gates and probably Bezos especially want to control their companies. They founded them, after all. So for that they own shares and those shares are the bulk of their money. Also, I don't know about Amazon, but Microsoft was actually famous for distributing wealth quite well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft > The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    That doesn't stop them from sharing the profits if they want to.
    - oblio 7y ago
      True, but does any mega corp do that? I wish it did...
    - koffiezet 7y ago
      Ehm giving shares to employees is exactly that: sharing the profits.
      - oblio 7y ago
        I think his point is for the on-going operations of the company. Employees there at the IPO make a lot of money but those afterwards probably make way less. At many companies employees don't even get any kind of RSU/ESPP/stock option grants, etc. Just as a though experiment, Apple Inc. has about 140k employees and had a net profit of $55bn last year. If they'd keep half the profit, you know, for a rainy day, they could give a yearly bonus of ~$20k$ to each employee. With 0 risk for the company, financially. Now, I'm not sure how this would work out since generally cash based bonuses are considered bad for long term motivation, but it is something worth pondering, at least.
- adventured 7y ago
  > Can someone explain to me why it's more philanthropic to amass billions instead of sharing profits with employees? Because you have to dedicate immense resources in a concentrated approach for an extremely long period of time, to conquer some major problems like Malaria or to develop an HIV vaccine or to drive down vaccine production & distribution costs (& difficulties) for the third world. Private philanthropy can often maneuver at speeds that government money can't, take risks governments don't like to, and go places that government money takes far longer to go (there are typically few stakeholders, decision makers - Bill Gates can just decide tomorrow to put a billion dollars behind a thing, whereas the same action might take many months or years by a government body). If you have 100,000 people and give them each $100,000, their actions will be wildly disparate and will make essentially no impact on major problems. They may make small dents in very local problems, at best (and or improve the well-being of their unit: their family, neighborhood, community and similar). There's nothing wrong with that mind you. However standard local problems already have heavily proven systems that work on them, particularly local government + taxation (this is obviously dependent on the effectiveness of the local government in question and the taxation; regardless it has been repeatedly shown to be highly effective all around the world).
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    But billionaires can also decide to spend their money on projects that work against the public good. Including those that subvert the value of government spending. Philanthropy is - at best - one side of the coin. The other side is the anti-democratic identity between >$1bn net worth and political leverage. (Actually that leverage probably starts at around $100m - although the more you can put on the table the harder you can push to tilt it.)
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Amassing the billions in itself is not philanthropic, it's how those billions are then used. You're certainly not being philanthropic giving those billions to your already handsomely paid employees whose welfare is already more than secured.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > sharing profits with employees? Microsoft had generous stock option grants to employees. The Seattle Times reported in the 1990s that there were 10,000 Microsoft millionaires in the area. Getting rejected by Microsoft in the 1980s is one of the ways I've cleverly avoided becoming a billionaire :-)
- j7ake 7y ago
  I believe Microsoft has created a huge amount of money for their employees (their IPO created billionaires and order of thousands or tens of thousands of millionaires). I don't think Microsofot employees feeling snubbed by their CEOs. So in this case Bill Gates is doing both. Sharing profit as well as being philanthropic.
- eru 7y ago
  Microsoft employees are already pretty well off. At least much better off than the people he's helping with malaria.
- 0xBA5ED 7y ago
  >Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a billion? Would be a neat social experiment. Give all your employees FU money and see how many show up the next day.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Your money just goes a lot further when paying for the general provision of public goods (not just giving someone a bonus and calling it "profit sharing") in very poor countries. Some social scientists and analysts are talking about a 1000x multiplier: the social benefit of spending $1 for targeted philanthropy in poorer countries might be the same as someone in a first-world country spending $1000 on their private consumption.
helsinkiandrew 7y ago
Off topic, but that headline instantly reminded me of the "In a world without fences who needs Gates" t-shirts popular at JavaOne in about 1997
- dotancohen 7y ago
  Thanks for mentioning the origin! As a Debian user I've only ever heard it told along with "In a world without walls who needs Windows".
Sebguer 7y ago
Where does the 600 million dollar superyacht fit into this all?
- gargs 7y ago
  Climate science research. 'The investment underlines Gates’s long-standing interest in alternative fuels, and his enthusiasm for new technology that could tackle emissions from industry and transport that together make up 75% of the world’s carbon footprint.' It's an 'investment'. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/09/bill-gates-orders-500m-hydrogen-powered-superyacht https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/09/bill-gate...
  - oblio 7y ago
    Well, as ridiculous as it sounds, this is bound to trigger some R&D for hydrogen powered ships. And from what I know, maritime transport is in dire need of clean tech, since it's actually a huge pollutant. Plus, there's many bad things to say about Bill Gates, but he's been the world's richest man for 20+ years. I find it a bit ludicrous that only now we'd be making fun of him for buying a superyacht when he could afford and could have bought one back in 1985 :-)))
    - cassianoleal 7y ago
      Allow me to pick a nit. You're argument still stands but he hasn't been consistently at number 1. He has been surpassed by Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim and now Jeff Bezos. What he has done is manage to stay at top three, and always recover the top position after a fall - that is, until Bezos came along.
    - pbalau 7y ago
      There are two well proven ways to get founding for research projects: 1) make it part of a sport (see Formula 1) 2) convince rich people this is a cool thing to have
  - m0zg 7y ago
    It's the same kind of "climate change research" as if I burned a bunch of tires in my backyard. The energy required to manufacture and operate that yacht far exceeds any imaginable reasonable threshold for anyone who truly cares about the environment. And that's something _he doesn't even need_. Same with his 30000sqft house. It's pure hypocrisy.
alecco 7y ago
I think Gates means well and it's commendable how he puts his money where his mouth is. But, blank aid only works as a a temporary fix. What drives society out of poverty is a mix of reasonably levels of free markets, respect of private property, security, affordable health, low corruption, low marginal economy, and a stable law system. Aid seems to be counter-productive in the long run because it kills the local markets and makes people dependent on it.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Good points, but the commonly stated objective of philanthropy is to solve entire categories of problems. You could go on giving billions of dollars to the poor just so they can get by, and eventually that money would run out, and if the people you were helping weren’t worse off, they likely wouldn’t be much better off by then. But money spent on attempting to eradicate malaria for example doesn’t have the same dynamics. There are also other forms of just regular old charity that have a similar ROI. Money spent on educating children had a tremendous ROI, so does investment in infrastructure.
  - alecco 7y ago
    We should work on helping people have the money to buy malaria medicine or whatever they need. This is a long term fix.
- jfoster 7y ago
  Actually, some of the problems he's tackling will unshackle certain parts of the world. It's hard for societies to lift themselves when they are encumbered by diseases. If they can free themselves from that situation, they'll do a lot better in future.
- jonathanstrange 7y ago
  You seriously underestimate the work of the Gates Foundation. It's not about aid as a temporary fix at all and they are well aware of the problems you mention.
- dennis_jeeves 7y ago
saadalem 7y ago
Anyone does know why he just purchased a superyacht for 645m $ ? It works on hydrogen and will travels 4000miles before needing to refuel.
- jonathanstrange 7y ago
  You have answered the question yourself. It's a showcase for innovative, low-carbon emission technology. Almost all of international commerce of tangible goods and resources is via ship traffic and ships are major polluters. Gates is always interested in technological solutions to problems.
- edhelas 7y ago
  How does the hydrogen is made? 48% Gaz, 30% Oil, 18% Coal so 96% carbon based and 4% Electrolisys, what a green technical solution!
- pg_bot 7y ago
  Seems to be fake news https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51446663 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51446663
reallydontask 7y ago
I remember in 2001 (could be 2002) having a discussion with a flat mate, in which he argued that ultimately, Bill Gates would be a force for good through his foundation. I was unconvinced, given the Microsoft of the 1990s, but I think that ultimately he was right. The more interesting question is: Would the world be a better place had MS not been so successful? A back of the envelope analysis would suggest that, given how Bill Gates has behaved with his fortune, who is likely to benefit from his foundation work and who suffered from MS practices, overall the world is a better place.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  Unfortunately, in economics not only we cannot perform randomized, controlled, double-blind studies, but also reproducibility is impossible.
- bobosha 7y ago
  I couldn't agree more. Bill G. is arguably the greatest philanthropist of our time, perhaps of all time. Not only does he bring his considerable wealth, but the business acumen to make sure the money is effectively spent, and a keen eye for detail into solving some of the world's toughest problems. I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bill & Melinda.
  - palae 7y ago
    > I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bill & Melinda. What about this, though: https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-surprise-winner-dollar10b-pentagon-contract/ https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-surprise-winner-dollar... "Late Friday, the Department of Defense announced that Microsoft has won the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, known as JEDI. The decision was the culmination of a two-year process that also included Google, IBM, and Oracle, and where Amazon was long seen as the favorite. JEDI, potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years, has been positioned by the Pentagon as crucial to modernizing its use of technology—and making the US military more deadly. “We must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernized technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform,” DoD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy said in a statement. At an event launching the bidding process in early 2018, the department’s chief management officer, John H. Gibson II, told tech industry leaders that one priority was “increasing the lethality of our department.” "
supernova87a 7y ago
I have a different question -- why is philanthropy on this scale such a predominantly American phenomenon? And even on smaller, less mega-wealthy scales? Why is European wealth not associated with charitable foundations and such kinds of global funding? Is it because the role of the state is supposed to be so much greater in Europe? Whereas in the US, personal / family charity takes the place of a less encompassing social role of government? Just doing some random searching, I find reports that US charitable giving is 2 to 5x greater than in European countries (as share of GDP). Maybe it's also tied up in the US tendency to give donations to political causes, etc? Or the idea that the newness of American cities, towns led to a culture of people contributing to civic works (whereas in Europe, most things already "existed")? Like how in the US, universities had to be founded and funded by benefactors in an ongoing way, whereas in Europe, they're so old and "set for life" that they don't need alumni to support them (or are more fully funded by the state)?
- discobot 7y ago
  could be related to higher taxes in Europe
  - adventured 7y ago
    Doesn't really explain why the super rich in Europe so rarely give their fortunes away. They pass the wealth down in dynastic manner perpetually. I've seen a few explanations that make sense at lower wealth levels, including very old land holdings in Europe that go back hundreds of years. The US also has clans (eg Waltons) that pass on heavily intact dynastic wealth, however it's more split / less common in the US. There is no European Rockefeller or Carnegie story, or Gates story, or Buffett story. There is no European Giving Pledge. The best explanation is that it's an American cultural distiction, as Rockefeller & Carnegie predate the modern European welfare state. Arnault, Pinault, Ortega, Bettencourt, Wertheimer, Schwarz, Quandt, and dozens more including the numerous large billionaires in Russia - they have no plans to give away all of their wealth (or eg at least half as in cases of those that signed the Giving Pledge), it's extremely rare there. Bernard Arnault has $100 billion, existing in an economy less than 1/7th the size of the US (ie he towers over France in a way that even Gates and Bezos don't in relation to the US; I'm not making a direct wealth-GDP comparison; indirect, in that national and individual wealth often heavily correlates to economic output). Why isn't he giving it all away right now? He's 71 years old, why doesn't he have a foundation with $50 billion in it? France has a lot of poverty and homelessness, among other problems that would obviously benefit from the money. Some people that signed the Giving Pledge: Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, MacKenzie Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Harold Hamm, Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones, George Lucas, Dustin Moskovitz, Gordon Moore, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Ronald Perelman, Paul Singer, Mark Zuckerberg. There is $600 billion in lifetime wealth right there, in that short part of the list. Gates and Buffett have tried to recruit the wealthy from all over the world to sign on. Where are all the great European fortunes? They won't do it.
thundergolfer 7y ago
I genuinely believe Bill and Melinda Gates care about child poverty and disease, but they do things which are just ethically broken. “At the core of our foundation’s work is the idea that every person deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life.” The issue of child poverty and disease is huge, as they know, and every dollar that goes to it can be put to useful work. How then, can they justify spending $625,000,000 on a mega yacht of obscene luxury? My donating $7000 dollars to the Against Malaria foundation statistically saves 1 child from dying of Malaria. That foundation is not saying “please stop sending money, we have enough”. They could use more. Given their stated “core” idea, and such a stark choice between a child’s life and just one $7000 fraction of their new yacht, how on earth did they justify the full 90,000 * $7000 cost?
RickJWagner 7y ago
I really like what Gates is doing with his money. He's making the world a better place, through a 'voluntary' tax. (People don't have to buy Microsoft products, if they don't want to. But when they do, they enrich Gates a bit more and thus contribute to his actions.) I hope to see more of this from other rich people. I think it may be one of the best and most efficient ways to equalize the world.

82 points by sturza 7y ago

d-d 7y ago

Can someone explain to me why it's more philanthropic to amass billions instead of sharing profits with employees? Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a billion?

ggtfggyyy 7y ago
You need it explained why helping vulnerable and poor groups instead of giving a bonus to your already well payed employees is considered philanthropic? I really don't see what you're driving at here.
- d-d 7y ago
  Isn't it just depriving the employees of the philanthropy money they labored to produce?
  - gargs 7y ago
    It is. Also, philanthropy is tax advantaged. It's the giving that keeps on giving back.
    - ggtfggyyy 7y ago
      This is rediculous and dripping with silicon valley "we're workers too" attitude. Employees, especially tech employees, have the luxury of being able to go elsewhere if they don't feel they're being adequately compensated. There is no comparison between helping poor african groups or donating to education and giving your employees, who agreed their wages were fair, a raise. Even if you don't like it, it's ultimately his money. This isn't the alms that could have kept the poor coders from having to endure hardahip. It's difficult to comprehend the mentality that could see the workers as the victims in this situation. They were paid the wages they were promised, is the argument that somehow he's a bad person for amassing more than them?
    - darawk 7y ago
      "Philanthropy is tax advantaged" just means that you don't have to pay tax on the money you donate. You don't keep any extra money for yourself.
      - gargs 7y ago
        Unless the philanthropy is run like a business with you as the investor/stakeholder.
  - darawk 7y ago
    They are not being 'deprived' of anything. They agreed to exchange their labor for a fixed price, and they received that price. There was no 'deprivation' anywhere in the system.
    - d-d 7y ago
      That's legalistic though. If you're withholding the fruits of labor from workers because "too bad, bro; you signed the paper" then you're not really trying to be kind to anyone. You just want to be rich and appear to be kind.
      - mamon 7y ago
        >> withholding fruits of labor from worker How much of the worker output actually is his personal accomplishment, and how much is synergy effect coming from the fact that the employer gave them tools, materials, support of other workers, standard operating procedures, know-how? Therefore not all "fruits of labor" actually belong to a worker.
      - darawk 7y ago
        Respecting human choices and agency is 'legalistic'? That's quite the reductionist leap.
- cjslep 7y ago
  Let the market decide. Paying your employees better would be "trickle down economics" in actual action. If those employees decide to use it for philanthropy then the "trickle down" continues. Except "trickle down" hasn't happened, isn't happening, and won't happen.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    There’s no such thing as “trickle down economics”, the phrase “trickle down” was a joke created by a comedian named Will Rogers. So if you’re waiting for a satirical critique of politics to start shaping the economy, then I don’t know what to tell you. What growth does do is increase competition for labor, so if your economic life plan resolves around earning income from labour, then you benefit from growth. You can see the effect our most recent growth trend has had in the fact that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since the 60s [0], wage growth is double CPI [1], and workforce participation is starting to creep back up after a rather long downward trend [2]. [0] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/mobile/median-weekly-earnings-of-full-time-workers-increased-4-point-0-percent-in-2019.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/mobile/median-weekly-earni... [2] https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
    - cjslep 7y ago
      I think giving me a charitable interpretation would be a good start. The origin of the phrase is lost in modern day culture and has a well understood meaning, and you denying me that makes it clear what kind of engagement you are looking for: one in which you feel justified and correct. I'll give it to you: You're right! Good facts! Moving on now... I don't care if my neighbors can get one decent job or more-than-one-shitty job (your [0] and [2]) nor do I care that for X years we had growth in wages (your [1]) when the previous N*X years (for large N) that "real growth in wages" was 0. I would love to sell you stock that will grow at 0% for 30 years and only the last 5 have 2% over inflation. I don't want that toxic shit in my portfolio. What I care about is the mentality that is justifying making "the market" be one or a handful of people, who happen to own a massive amount of wealth. It's no longer a free market. They are the market. Its self delusional to think someone shouting "I am the State!" has a democratic government, just as someone shouting "I am the market!" is a free and open capitalist market. Basically, I can't believe my free-market loving friends are ok with its own dismantlement by the concentration of wealth by the ultra wealthy. And I am trying to get through to them. Give the money to the employees. Who cares if they're already overpaid, because if they are then they'll also make philanthropic donations.
chii 7y ago
> Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a billion? If you're looking to do philanthropic actions, giving all employees $100k doesn't do anything. It merely increases the wealth of those employees by a bit. What about fighting malaria? What about fighting climate change? Do you seriously expect all those recipients of $100k would all contribute as much proportionally? And those employees have already been paid their agreed wages/salaries. So why does giving them extra money makes it more philanthropic?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- js8 7y ago
  > It merely increases the wealth of those employees by a bit. What about fighting malaria? What about fighting climate change? Do you seriously expect all those recipients of $100k would all contribute as much proportionally? Yes. In a sane democratic system, I would expect government to finance these projects. And it does. Now you can somehow make an argument that people in democracy are less likely to support these projects than they are alone as wealthy people. I don't see how it would work. Self-selected billionaires are on average less selfish than ordinary people?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    There are more important observations to make: - The budget of a democratic nation isn't under direct control of its constituents, so average selfishness of the citizens has nothing to do with it. - A democratic nation has lots of interests jockeying for the budget, and can easily swallow arbitrary amounts of money. - Almost all of that money is spent on improving the things for that nation, so a nation state is not the best organization to task with solving a global/international problem. Most importantly though, the more diffused the money, the less effective it is. Coordinating people costs a lot (think of how much charities spend on advertising!). With his fortune, Gates can just drop $60M on some promising anti-malaria activity; in the alternative reality d-d/you are proposing, it's unlikely that 600 of his employees would suddenly coordinate to drop their $100k on that operation; most likely, no money would be donated at all. So the argument essentially boils down to focus. Much like with distractions and personal productivity, both the market and a government budget can absorb arbitrary amounts of diffuse money with little of value to show for it; it takes focused, bulk money under control of a person to move the needle on some issue.
oblio 7y ago
As much as I'm generally for wealth redistribution, that's not how it works. Gates and probably Bezos especially want to control their companies. They founded them, after all. So for that they own shares and those shares are the bulk of their money. Also, I don't know about Amazon, but Microsoft was actually famous for distributing wealth quite well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft > The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  That doesn't stop them from sharing the profits if they want to.
  - oblio 7y ago
    True, but does any mega corp do that? I wish it did...
  - koffiezet 7y ago
    Ehm giving shares to employees is exactly that: sharing the profits.
    - oblio 7y ago
      I think his point is for the on-going operations of the company. Employees there at the IPO make a lot of money but those afterwards probably make way less. At many companies employees don't even get any kind of RSU/ESPP/stock option grants, etc. Just as a though experiment, Apple Inc. has about 140k employees and had a net profit of $55bn last year. If they'd keep half the profit, you know, for a rainy day, they could give a yearly bonus of ~$20k$ to each employee. With 0 risk for the company, financially. Now, I'm not sure how this would work out since generally cash based bonuses are considered bad for long term motivation, but it is something worth pondering, at least.
adventured 7y ago
> Can someone explain to me why it's more philanthropic to amass billions instead of sharing profits with employees? Because you have to dedicate immense resources in a concentrated approach for an extremely long period of time, to conquer some major problems like Malaria or to develop an HIV vaccine or to drive down vaccine production & distribution costs (& difficulties) for the third world. Private philanthropy can often maneuver at speeds that government money can't, take risks governments don't like to, and go places that government money takes far longer to go (there are typically few stakeholders, decision makers - Bill Gates can just decide tomorrow to put a billion dollars behind a thing, whereas the same action might take many months or years by a government body). If you have 100,000 people and give them each $100,000, their actions will be wildly disparate and will make essentially no impact on major problems. They may make small dents in very local problems, at best (and or improve the well-being of their unit: their family, neighborhood, community and similar). There's nothing wrong with that mind you. However standard local problems already have heavily proven systems that work on them, particularly local government + taxation (this is obviously dependent on the effectiveness of the local government in question and the taxation; regardless it has been repeatedly shown to be highly effective all around the world).
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  But billionaires can also decide to spend their money on projects that work against the public good. Including those that subvert the value of government spending. Philanthropy is - at best - one side of the coin. The other side is the anti-democratic identity between >$1bn net worth and political leverage. (Actually that leverage probably starts at around $100m - although the more you can put on the table the harder you can push to tilt it.)
newnewpdro 7y ago
Amassing the billions in itself is not philanthropic, it's how those billions are then used. You're certainly not being philanthropic giving those billions to your already handsomely paid employees whose welfare is already more than secured.
WalterBright 7y ago
> sharing profits with employees? Microsoft had generous stock option grants to employees. The Seattle Times reported in the 1990s that there were 10,000 Microsoft millionaires in the area. Getting rejected by Microsoft in the 1980s is one of the ways I've cleverly avoided becoming a billionaire :-)
j7ake 7y ago
I believe Microsoft has created a huge amount of money for their employees (their IPO created billionaires and order of thousands or tens of thousands of millionaires). I don't think Microsofot employees feeling snubbed by their CEOs. So in this case Bill Gates is doing both. Sharing profit as well as being philanthropic.
eru 7y ago
Microsoft employees are already pretty well off. At least much better off than the people he's helping with malaria.
0xBA5ED 7y ago
>Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a billion? Would be a neat social experiment. Give all your employees FU money and see how many show up the next day.
zozbot234 7y ago
Your money just goes a lot further when paying for the general provision of public goods (not just giving someone a bonus and calling it "profit sharing") in very poor countries. Some social scientists and analysts are talking about a 1000x multiplier: the social benefit of spending $1 for targeted philanthropy in poorer countries might be the same as someone in a first-world country spending $1000 on their private consumption.

helsinkiandrew 7y ago

Off topic, but that headline instantly reminded me of the "In a world without fences who needs Gates" t-shirts popular at JavaOne in about 1997

dotancohen 7y ago
Thanks for mentioning the origin! As a Debian user I've only ever heard it told along with "In a world without walls who needs Windows".

Sebguer 7y ago

Where does the 600 million dollar superyacht fit into this all?

gargs 7y ago
Climate science research. 'The investment underlines Gates’s long-standing interest in alternative fuels, and his enthusiasm for new technology that could tackle emissions from industry and transport that together make up 75% of the world’s carbon footprint.' It's an 'investment'. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/09/bill-gates-orders-500m-hydrogen-powered-superyacht https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/09/bill-gate...
- oblio 7y ago
  Well, as ridiculous as it sounds, this is bound to trigger some R&D for hydrogen powered ships. And from what I know, maritime transport is in dire need of clean tech, since it's actually a huge pollutant. Plus, there's many bad things to say about Bill Gates, but he's been the world's richest man for 20+ years. I find it a bit ludicrous that only now we'd be making fun of him for buying a superyacht when he could afford and could have bought one back in 1985 :-)))
  - cassianoleal 7y ago
    Allow me to pick a nit. You're argument still stands but he hasn't been consistently at number 1. He has been surpassed by Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim and now Jeff Bezos. What he has done is manage to stay at top three, and always recover the top position after a fall - that is, until Bezos came along.
  - pbalau 7y ago
    There are two well proven ways to get founding for research projects: 1) make it part of a sport (see Formula 1) 2) convince rich people this is a cool thing to have
- m0zg 7y ago
  It's the same kind of "climate change research" as if I burned a bunch of tires in my backyard. The energy required to manufacture and operate that yacht far exceeds any imaginable reasonable threshold for anyone who truly cares about the environment. And that's something _he doesn't even need_. Same with his 30000sqft house. It's pure hypocrisy.

alecco 7y ago

I think Gates means well and it's commendable how he puts his money where his mouth is. But, blank aid only works as a a temporary fix. What drives society out of poverty is a mix of reasonably levels of free markets, respect of private property, security, affordable health, low corruption, low marginal economy, and a stable law system. Aid seems to be counter-productive in the long run because it kills the local markets and makes people dependent on it.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
Good points, but the commonly stated objective of philanthropy is to solve entire categories of problems. You could go on giving billions of dollars to the poor just so they can get by, and eventually that money would run out, and if the people you were helping weren’t worse off, they likely wouldn’t be much better off by then. But money spent on attempting to eradicate malaria for example doesn’t have the same dynamics. There are also other forms of just regular old charity that have a similar ROI. Money spent on educating children had a tremendous ROI, so does investment in infrastructure.
- alecco 7y ago
  We should work on helping people have the money to buy malaria medicine or whatever they need. This is a long term fix.
jfoster 7y ago
Actually, some of the problems he's tackling will unshackle certain parts of the world. It's hard for societies to lift themselves when they are encumbered by diseases. If they can free themselves from that situation, they'll do a lot better in future.
jonathanstrange 7y ago
You seriously underestimate the work of the Gates Foundation. It's not about aid as a temporary fix at all and they are well aware of the problems you mention.
dennis_jeeves 7y ago

saadalem 7y ago

Anyone does know why he just purchased a superyacht for 645m $ ? It works on hydrogen and will travels 4000miles before needing to refuel.

jonathanstrange 7y ago
You have answered the question yourself. It's a showcase for innovative, low-carbon emission technology. Almost all of international commerce of tangible goods and resources is via ship traffic and ships are major polluters. Gates is always interested in technological solutions to problems.
edhelas 7y ago
How does the hydrogen is made? 48% Gaz, 30% Oil, 18% Coal so 96% carbon based and 4% Electrolisys, what a green technical solution!
pg_bot 7y ago
Seems to be fake news https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51446663 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51446663

reallydontask 7y ago

I remember in 2001 (could be 2002) having a discussion with a flat mate, in which he argued that ultimately, Bill Gates would be a force for good through his foundation. I was unconvinced, given the Microsoft of the 1990s, but I think that ultimately he was right. The more interesting question is: Would the world be a better place had MS not been so successful? A back of the envelope analysis would suggest that, given how Bill Gates has behaved with his fortune, who is likely to benefit from his foundation work and who suffered from MS practices, overall the world is a better place.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
Unfortunately, in economics not only we cannot perform randomized, controlled, double-blind studies, but also reproducibility is impossible.
bobosha 7y ago
I couldn't agree more. Bill G. is arguably the greatest philanthropist of our time, perhaps of all time. Not only does he bring his considerable wealth, but the business acumen to make sure the money is effectively spent, and a keen eye for detail into solving some of the world's toughest problems. I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bill & Melinda.
- palae 7y ago
  > I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bill & Melinda. What about this, though: https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-surprise-winner-dollar10b-pentagon-contract/ https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-surprise-winner-dollar... "Late Friday, the Department of Defense announced that Microsoft has won the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, known as JEDI. The decision was the culmination of a two-year process that also included Google, IBM, and Oracle, and where Amazon was long seen as the favorite. JEDI, potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years, has been positioned by the Pentagon as crucial to modernizing its use of technology—and making the US military more deadly. “We must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernized technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform,” DoD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy said in a statement. At an event launching the bidding process in early 2018, the department’s chief management officer, John H. Gibson II, told tech industry leaders that one priority was “increasing the lethality of our department.” "

supernova87a 7y ago

I have a different question -- why is philanthropy on this scale such a predominantly American phenomenon? And even on smaller, less mega-wealthy scales? Why is European wealth not associated with charitable foundations and such kinds of global funding? Is it because the role of the state is supposed to be so much greater in Europe? Whereas in the US, personal / family charity takes the place of a less encompassing social role of government? Just doing some random searching, I find reports that US charitable giving is 2 to 5x greater than in European countries (as share of GDP). Maybe it's also tied up in the US tendency to give donations to political causes, etc? Or the idea that the newness of American cities, towns led to a culture of people contributing to civic works (whereas in Europe, most things already "existed")? Like how in the US, universities had to be founded and funded by benefactors in an ongoing way, whereas in Europe, they're so old and "set for life" that they don't need alumni to support them (or are more fully funded by the state)?

discobot 7y ago
could be related to higher taxes in Europe
- adventured 7y ago
  Doesn't really explain why the super rich in Europe so rarely give their fortunes away. They pass the wealth down in dynastic manner perpetually. I've seen a few explanations that make sense at lower wealth levels, including very old land holdings in Europe that go back hundreds of years. The US also has clans (eg Waltons) that pass on heavily intact dynastic wealth, however it's more split / less common in the US. There is no European Rockefeller or Carnegie story, or Gates story, or Buffett story. There is no European Giving Pledge. The best explanation is that it's an American cultural distiction, as Rockefeller & Carnegie predate the modern European welfare state. Arnault, Pinault, Ortega, Bettencourt, Wertheimer, Schwarz, Quandt, and dozens more including the numerous large billionaires in Russia - they have no plans to give away all of their wealth (or eg at least half as in cases of those that signed the Giving Pledge), it's extremely rare there. Bernard Arnault has $100 billion, existing in an economy less than 1/7th the size of the US (ie he towers over France in a way that even Gates and Bezos don't in relation to the US; I'm not making a direct wealth-GDP comparison; indirect, in that national and individual wealth often heavily correlates to economic output). Why isn't he giving it all away right now? He's 71 years old, why doesn't he have a foundation with $50 billion in it? France has a lot of poverty and homelessness, among other problems that would obviously benefit from the money. Some people that signed the Giving Pledge: Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, MacKenzie Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Harold Hamm, Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones, George Lucas, Dustin Moskovitz, Gordon Moore, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Ronald Perelman, Paul Singer, Mark Zuckerberg. There is $600 billion in lifetime wealth right there, in that short part of the list. Gates and Buffett have tried to recruit the wealthy from all over the world to sign on. Where are all the great European fortunes? They won't do it.

thundergolfer 7y ago

I genuinely believe Bill and Melinda Gates care about child poverty and disease, but they do things which are just ethically broken. “At the core of our foundation’s work is the idea that every person deserves the chance to live a healthy and productive life.” The issue of child poverty and disease is huge, as they know, and every dollar that goes to it can be put to useful work. How then, can they justify spending $625,000,000 on a mega yacht of obscene luxury? My donating $7000 dollars to the Against Malaria foundation statistically saves 1 child from dying of Malaria. That foundation is not saying “please stop sending money, we have enough”. They could use more. Given their stated “core” idea, and such a stark choice between a child’s life and just one $7000 fraction of their new yacht, how on earth did they justify the full 90,000 * $7000 cost?

RickJWagner 7y ago

I really like what Gates is doing with his money. He's making the world a better place, through a 'voluntary' tax. (People don't have to buy Microsoft products, if they don't want to. But when they do, they enrich Gates a bit more and thus contribute to his actions.) I hope to see more of this from other rich people. I think it may be one of the best and most efficient ways to equalize the world.