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"donated" to his Melinda and gates foundation to get out of paying taxes and buy influence all over the world. He does it every single year, he simply and legal

"donated" to his Melinda and gates foundation to get out of paying taxes and buy influence all over the world. He does it every single year, he simply and legally can claim zero profit by doing so. He's continuing to screw US citizens by not paying taxes at all and buys influence using the profits. He simply got smarter than the shenanigans he did in 90's when almost got buried. Stop worshiping him, he's still evil to the core.

josephg 6y ago
> Stop worshiping him, he's still evil to the core. Its not that simple. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does amazing, mostly unsexy charity work the world over. Governmental aid organizations rarely want to fund boring infrastructure work like building roads in poor countries, or (before the pandemic) overfunding the world's vaccine manufacturing capability. Nobody wants to fund things like that because it doesn't sound sexy to voters or at charity fundraising events. The B&M Gates foundation does this stuff - and they have for years. Through their principled giving they've improved the lives of millions of people. And selfishly, there would be fewer doses of covid vaccines today without them. Did they make that money through shady business practices at Microsoft? Yes. Are they using the charity to get out of paying US taxes? Yes. Is the money doing good in the world? Also yes. The world today would look different without Bill Gates. Microsoft strangled tech innovation for decades, but their charity work has had a massively positive impact on people's lives. Bill Gates also deserves credit for that.
- croes 6y ago
  But they convinced Oxford it would be better to sell their vaccine to AstraZeneca instead of donating it to the world for free. BG is a techno capitalist. He thinks technology and capitalism are the solutions to everything.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  They also use their money to shout down competing approaches to problem solving. They were a big force in "high stakes testing" and "pay teachers who have higher performing students" backed by shoddy statistical analysis.
  - josephg 6y ago
    The B&M Gates foundation has given 23261 grants[1]. Of course some of those projects turned out in retrospect to be regrettable. Thats way too many projects to get a 100% rate when vetting. Or to put it the other way, if you had to be 100% sure when giving money that it would work out well, there would be a lot of great causes you wouldn't be able to contribute to because of outcome risk. But even if the high stakes testing problem was entirely forseeable, thats my point! Its not simple. Bill Gates isn't Simple. He's not a comic book villain - Nobody is outside maybe mass murderers. Comic book heroes and villains don't exist in the real world. (And increasingly they don't exist in comic books either.) If you want to know what he's like, watch some interviews with the man. Gates is obviously trying to make the world a better place. And he's going to continue to do that imperfectly, because he's made out of meat like the rest of us. And yes, I'm also angry about standardized testing, and the historical stain microsoft has left on computing from the 90s. Angry and grateful, all at once. [1] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants

josephg 6y ago

> Stop worshiping him, he's still evil to the core. Its not that simple. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation does amazing, mostly unsexy charity work the world over. Governmental aid organizations rarely want to fund boring infrastructure work like building roads in poor countries, or (before the pandemic) overfunding the world's vaccine manufacturing capability. Nobody wants to fund things like that because it doesn't sound sexy to voters or at charity fundraising events. The B&M Gates foundation does this stuff - and they have for years. Through their principled giving they've improved the lives of millions of people. And selfishly, there would be fewer doses of covid vaccines today without them. Did they make that money through shady business practices at Microsoft? Yes. Are they using the charity to get out of paying US taxes? Yes. Is the money doing good in the world? Also yes. The world today would look different without Bill Gates. Microsoft strangled tech innovation for decades, but their charity work has had a massively positive impact on people's lives. Bill Gates also deserves credit for that.

croes 6y ago
But they convinced Oxford it would be better to sell their vaccine to AstraZeneca instead of donating it to the world for free. BG is a techno capitalist. He thinks technology and capitalism are the solutions to everything.
alisonkisk 6y ago
They also use their money to shout down competing approaches to problem solving. They were a big force in "high stakes testing" and "pay teachers who have higher performing students" backed by shoddy statistical analysis.
- josephg 6y ago
  The B&M Gates foundation has given 23261 grants[1]. Of course some of those projects turned out in retrospect to be regrettable. Thats way too many projects to get a 100% rate when vetting. Or to put it the other way, if you had to be 100% sure when giving money that it would work out well, there would be a lot of great causes you wouldn't be able to contribute to because of outcome risk. But even if the high stakes testing problem was entirely forseeable, thats my point! Its not simple. Bill Gates isn't Simple. He's not a comic book villain - Nobody is outside maybe mass murderers. Comic book heroes and villains don't exist in the real world. (And increasingly they don't exist in comic books either.) If you want to know what he's like, watch some interviews with the man. Gates is obviously trying to make the world a better place. And he's going to continue to do that imperfectly, because he's made out of meat like the rest of us. And yes, I'm also angry about standardized testing, and the historical stain microsoft has left on computing from the 90s. Angry and grateful, all at once. [1] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/committed-grants