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Compare two billionaires. One stops and carefully donates his money to have the most impact. He ends up "officially broke." The other doubles down on for prof
by hirundo 6y ago
Compare two billionaires.
One stops and carefully donates his money to have the most impact. He ends up "officially broke."
The other doubles down on for profit enterprises, but focuses on those with the most impact, like electrifying a fossil fueled sector of the economy or making us a multi-planetary species. The profits are reinvested to accomplish these goals. He ends up richer than ever.
It isn't clear that the second billionaire is less admirable than the first.
- strikelaserclaw 6y agoyea but who knows how your money is going to be used once you are dead.
- switch11 6y agocan we please keep the pro Tesla posts on Tesla threads For God's Sake Let this great guy who gave away $8 billion of his hard earned money get proper credit without dragging a @#$#$ subsidy entrepreneur into it
- batsigner 6y agoHirundo is a Branch Elonian. His religion stipulates that failing to promote Elon whenever posssible is grounds for shunning.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoMusk has signed the giving pledge, so he might end up doing both. He wants to die on Mars, and it seems likely that if it would require the bulk of his fortune to make us a multi-planetary species, he would commit it.
- Paul-ish 6y agoIt is not a competition.
- Vervious 6y agoDepends on your definition of impact. Tesla certainly is not improving education outcomes worldwide, nor funding healthcare research; nor is spaceX saving rainforests from being cut down every day, or helping sustain democracy. I guess EVs have less environmental impact after four years of use, but do Teslas last that long? The intent there (and the impact) is still very much to monetize
- 54mf 6y agoThis is one hell of a strawman. You know the "carefully donated" money doesn't just end up in a black hole, right?
- batsigner 6y agoImagine being this much of an Elon Musk bootlicker that you completely miss that 90% of his wealth is from a leveraged stock bubble
- zzapplezz 6y agoBuffett & Munger agree with you. (paraphrasing here) Munger cited Costco as an incredibly important, effective, and efficient institution that couldn't be replaced by a non-profit or government. It has lowered the costs of essential goods while treating its workers well.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads on generic tangents. We have enough celebrity flamewars as it is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html