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My life plan has been to succeed in business, then spend my time and money trying to make the word better in innovative ways. Step one is just taking longer tha

• DanHulton 18y ago
  Hey Bill Gates from twenty years ago, how's it going? Seriously, though. This is not a bad approach. I don't know anything at all about bioengineering a more plague-resistant wheat crop. I don't know anything at all about how to calm two nations dead-set on the destruction of each other. And I sure don't know ANYTHING at all about how to practically and easily reduce our dependance on greenhouse-gas-producing oil. That said, if I put my knowledge about how the web works into an application that people use and like and buy, then build up enough capital, I can fund the people who DO know those things, or at least know how to approach learning them. It's not a bad plan. You're life's not wasted unless you waste it. I hardly consider what I do a waste. It's all building towards a larger goal.
  • paraschopra 18y ago
    Maybe, we are just deluding ourselves all the way when we should doing stuff that matters. You know what the irony is. Even if some bioengineer makes a more plague resistant wheat crop, it wont solve world's hunger problem. India produces surplus crops. Even then it imports crops from outside. Even then people are dying here from hunger. So, part of the solution is to come up with right supply channels. This is just an example. We can always find ways where we could contribute more directly instead of waiting for things to get lucky so that we could fund other people.
• wallflower 18y ago
  The classic paradox is 'When I win the lottery, I'll build a hospital, school, homeless shelter'. Of course, you can always start small - volunteer to help the homeless before you have the means to build a shelter. I am already doing that. You can, too.
  • Retric 18y ago
    I don't think charity really helps the world much. If you want to help poor people you need to create an economy that creates steady jobs for people that can work and can sustain the dead weight from people incapable of holding down jobs.
    • swombat 18y ago
      Agreed. You can bitch and moan at Bill Gates all you want, but he's directly responsible for creating gigantic amounts of wealth that benefit us all - and that's even without counting any of his not-insignificant charity work.
• babul 18y ago
  Thats a good plan! By helping ourselves we become in the best position(s) to help others? ...but what if you never get past step 1?
• Prrometheus 18y ago
  >My life plan has been to succeed in business, then spend my time and money trying to make the word better in innovative ways. Step one is just taking longer than I hoped... Step one also makes the world a better place. Most of the phenomenal standard of living that we enjoy comes from people trying to make themselves a buck by improving production and distribution processes and inventing new technology. GE has done more good for the world that any charity ever has.