4 ms·

If I had known how Gates would spend his fortune, I wouldn't have spent all those years griping about Micro$haft.

Iolaum 6y ago
You are assuming that the information that is publicly available is a representative sample of how Bill Gates spends his money. That may or may not be true.
- ryan93 6y ago
  It’s a fact he’s given tens of billions to charity. What evidence do you have of him spending similar amounts on other things?
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    I too would like to donate a few billions from my 100 billion pile of cash.
    - cinntaile 6y ago
      I mean why would he donate everything at once? That wouldn't really make sense.
      - chiefalchemist 6y ago
        Perhaps not all at once, but there are plenty of problems with underfunded solutions. A few years back, I was fortunate to have a random conversation with a reknown researcher from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was lucid and blunt: if we had more money we could solve fusion. A couple days later there was news of China having done the longest running fusion reactor burst (?) to date. Two-plus minutes. I keep thinking about that conversation and his "promise."
  - josefx 6y ago
    Except most of those tens of billions haven't gone anywhere and are still held by a foundation fully controlled by bill gates. The amount of it that drips down to actual charities is a small percentage of these tens of billions each year.
    - tzs 6y ago
      They are currently giving away about $5 billion a year.
mrtksn 6y ago
I don’t understand this reasoning? Isn’t it exactly the same of approval of a centralized government dictatorship if you know that after the destruction of the contenders handouts would be made to survivors?
- awillen 6y ago
  It sounds like you're implying that in this dictatorship people have been killed and their property distributed among people who haven't been killed. If so, no it is very clearly not the same because Bill Gates is not a dictator nor is he responsible for killing people. To compare a wealthy monopolist to a murderous dictator lacks perspective, to say the least.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    Do you need to have dead bodies to have an evil empire? Careers denied, businesses destroyed, ideals stifled are widespread in modern dictatorships. Erdogan haven’t executed a single person and yet Turkey has become a terrible place for people with ambition, sky high brain drain is the norm, almost all public contracts are won by the same few businessmen however the government has widespread social programs so no one is actually starving or lacks access to modern medicine. Should people be grateful? Probably not as much as the businessmen that get all the contracts and becoming the biggest in the world.
molmalo 6y ago
I believe he has the soul of a gamer. (heck, he ran a regular poker game at Harvard). And when he was immersed into the money-making game, he was all in, willing to do anything to win. But when you eventually beat the game, you don't get that thrilled anymore, there's no big challenge ahead. You can play for a while to see how far can you go, but it ends up being boring after a while. So, I think he moved on to basically a real life version of reversal Plague Inc (instead of trying to infect everyone, he tries to beat a disease). This is a harder challenge in many ways, because he needs to deal with tons of geopolitics, international affairs, research and development, human behavior, etc. If you see it from that perspective, you can still see that he is still a hard player, but this time, he is playing a game that can be beneficial for everybody, not just himself.
- crgwbr 6y ago
  > real life version of reversal Plague Inc To be pedantic, Plague Inc is just a reversed clone of the board game Pandemic. But overall, I think you’re spot on with his motivation.
phreack 6y ago
Some days I keep thinking that it shouldn't be a nice oddity, that it should actually be mandatory at some point to give back wealth to humanity. I'm not sure how and how to prevent abuses, but I feel it should be oh so much more common that if one single person gets to be able make such an impact on the world for good, they must.
xlm1717 6y ago
He's a good guy now, right?

You are assuming that the information that is publicly available is a representative sample of how Bill Gates spends his money. That may or may not be true.

ryan93 6y ago
It’s a fact he’s given tens of billions to charity. What evidence do you have of him spending similar amounts on other things?
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I too would like to donate a few billions from my 100 billion pile of cash.
  - cinntaile 6y ago
    I mean why would he donate everything at once? That wouldn't really make sense.
    - chiefalchemist 6y ago
      Perhaps not all at once, but there are plenty of problems with underfunded solutions. A few years back, I was fortunate to have a random conversation with a reknown researcher from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was lucid and blunt: if we had more money we could solve fusion. A couple days later there was news of China having done the longest running fusion reactor burst (?) to date. Two-plus minutes. I keep thinking about that conversation and his "promise."
- josefx 6y ago
  Except most of those tens of billions haven't gone anywhere and are still held by a foundation fully controlled by bill gates. The amount of it that drips down to actual charities is a small percentage of these tens of billions each year.
  - tzs 6y ago
    They are currently giving away about $5 billion a year.

mrtksn 6y ago

I don’t understand this reasoning? Isn’t it exactly the same of approval of a centralized government dictatorship if you know that after the destruction of the contenders handouts would be made to survivors?

awillen 6y ago
It sounds like you're implying that in this dictatorship people have been killed and their property distributed among people who haven't been killed. If so, no it is very clearly not the same because Bill Gates is not a dictator nor is he responsible for killing people. To compare a wealthy monopolist to a murderous dictator lacks perspective, to say the least.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  Do you need to have dead bodies to have an evil empire? Careers denied, businesses destroyed, ideals stifled are widespread in modern dictatorships. Erdogan haven’t executed a single person and yet Turkey has become a terrible place for people with ambition, sky high brain drain is the norm, almost all public contracts are won by the same few businessmen however the government has widespread social programs so no one is actually starving or lacks access to modern medicine. Should people be grateful? Probably not as much as the businessmen that get all the contracts and becoming the biggest in the world.

molmalo 6y ago

I believe he has the soul of a gamer. (heck, he ran a regular poker game at Harvard). And when he was immersed into the money-making game, he was all in, willing to do anything to win. But when you eventually beat the game, you don't get that thrilled anymore, there's no big challenge ahead. You can play for a while to see how far can you go, but it ends up being boring after a while. So, I think he moved on to basically a real life version of reversal Plague Inc (instead of trying to infect everyone, he tries to beat a disease). This is a harder challenge in many ways, because he needs to deal with tons of geopolitics, international affairs, research and development, human behavior, etc. If you see it from that perspective, you can still see that he is still a hard player, but this time, he is playing a game that can be beneficial for everybody, not just himself.

crgwbr 6y ago
> real life version of reversal Plague Inc To be pedantic, Plague Inc is just a reversed clone of the board game Pandemic. But overall, I think you’re spot on with his motivation.

phreack 6y ago

Some days I keep thinking that it shouldn't be a nice oddity, that it should actually be mandatory at some point to give back wealth to humanity. I'm not sure how and how to prevent abuses, but I feel it should be oh so much more common that if one single person gets to be able make such an impact on the world for good, they must.

xlm1717 6y ago

He's a good guy now, right?