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This entire story is just so heart warming and I don't know if the title/discussions right now are doing it justice. 1. The fact that this donation is 100% goi

This entire story is just so heart warming and I don't know if the title/discussions right now are doing it justice. 1. The fact that this donation is 100% going towards tuition. My university has a few B's in endowment, but those money are most definitely not going towards making the tuition fees lower lol. Hopefully this will allow them to select some candidate that are struggling the most financially... 2. The donor being a 93 year old doctor/alumni of that school that studied "learning disabilities and developed screening protocols". 3. The money was from her late husband's "whole portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway stock". And before he passed, he told her to "do whatever you think is right with it" and the article ends with her saying "I hope he's smiling and not frowning". Makes me cry a little.

louwrentius 3y ago
[flagged]
- nolongerthere 3y ago
  Because our elected officials have been shown to be fantastic stewards of our money? Said no one ever. The truth is that this is a fantastic use of the money and no politician would ever have used it more effectively.
  - cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
    You’ve got the cause and effect the wrong way around.
  - digging 3y ago
    > Because our elected officials have been shown to be fantastic stewards of our money? Compared to the billionaires who currently steward our money? Absolutely. For example, I just flushed a toilet and I'll never have to think about that shit again, except perhaps to marvel at how it may one day fertilize shade trees in my city.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - 2rok 3y ago
      Our money? It's not your money. It's not my money. It's their money. Do something productive, and you may get rewarded too, rather than engaging in the politics of resentment and envy.
      - nicoburns 3y ago
        > It's not your money. > It's not my money. > It's their money. Only because our society is setup to grant it to them. It need not be that way. That billionaires deserve such outsized reward is dubious at best.
      - cdelsolar 3y ago
        All billionaires come from people whose wages have been stolen to some degree.
        latency-guy2 3y ago
        The degree is none.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    Those who champion federalism will often say that they believe that government power should be spread as widely as possible; that local control is best because it gives power to those closest to the problems. I see no reason why that should be limited to government; a billion dollars is a lot of power for one person to wield.
    - nolongerthere 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - silverquiet 3y ago
        [flagged]
        nolongerthere 3y ago
        Pretending that “those who champion” is somehow better than “so you’re” is just the height of elitism and condescension. Additionally, this comment is also disrespectfully condescending, using the third person, euphemism, and innuendo doesn’t make it any less rude, in fact it makes it worse, it shows you know what you’re doing is wrong but you’re gonna do it anyway and be insulting at the same time. Why not actually address the argument instead of impolitely calling me gauche.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      > Those who champion federalism will often say that they believe that government power should be spread as widely as possible; that local control is best because it gives power to those closest to the problems. The counterpoint to this is zoning rules. Sometimes you actually want the people who are furthest away from local problems to set policy. There's no new housing in major metros because wealthy landholders vote in people who set policy to prevent construction. After all, more supply means lower home prices. Setting that policy at the top allows for global optimization - nobody in DC cares that a building throws a two inch shadow over your park for half an hour during the vernal equinox. The reality is both approaches have pros and cons. Ditto with individual direction of funds. There's no reason to think all individual directions of funds are local let alone globally optimal. An individual or two can use their money to halt progress like the Kochs do, and the Murdochs do. This one is great. However, one data point doesn't make a trend, and there's no reason to think this individual act is representative of directed contributions. That said this is a lovely gesture and I appreciate it.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    I disagree - I think this act was amazing and great but it only happened because of one person's personal decision. Plenty of billionaires chose to spend their money in other ways and, while we could afford to freely educate everyone if we worked together, education is currently the source of a lot of financial stress. There's the old Churchill quote "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Autocracy is extremely effective in some circumstances and absolutely atrocious in most. The public should have some say in expenditures of this size - and if our current government has grown too corrupt to be trusted with that expenditure than that's a separate problem that we also need to solve. There will always be inefficiency and corruption - but the more eyes and transparency we have the more we can combat that corruption.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      My problem with relying on philanthropy is: What happens when the donor is not so wholesome, and instead donates their $1B to a terrible or deadly cause, like a group bent on hate, discrimination, erasing people's rights, ethnic cleansing or some other evil? Is that just as OK from the "let people do what they want with their money" point of view? What if a billionaire donated their fortune to a cause that would result in your suffering?
- digging 3y ago
  Probably getting too political here but I fully agree. The fact that this is such a remarkable story is a sign of how rare it is.
- bombcar 3y ago
  True, elected officials could have bought a stealth jet for that kind of dosh!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ajkjk 3y ago
  That argument doesn't really work in a world where you don't really see anyone except other private interests spending money in more agreeable ways.
- layer8 3y ago
  I agree with your first two paragraphs, but not with your last, coming from a country where college tuition is free.
- chenxi9649 3y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with the notion that no individual should hold "THAT" much power. But I haven't read/heard of a way of implementation that actually sounds like it can work. Since most of the asset is in stock, does one tax ie - Mr. Bezos on his Amazon stock? Would Amazon shareholders want that?
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  >Because I don’t think it should be up to an unelected individual what to do with this kind of money. Take that to its logical conclusion: where is the line? Are you not allowed to donate $50 to a charity of your choosing because The Government knows better? There's plenty of reasons to hate billionaires but this one doesn't seem sound.
  - geysersam 3y ago
    It seems plausible to me that we can agree on a reasonable limit somewhere in the interval $50 and $1B.
    - 000ooo000 3y ago
      Good luck
- takinola 3y ago
  I don't follow this argument. The amount of money is fantastic and its effects enormous but I don't see why it should be out of the reach of any singular person. The issue of effectiveness shouldn't come into play at all. In a society with any modicum of freedom, I should be able to decide what to do with my resources. Why should I (or anyone else) get to weigh in on whether she gives her money to this college or goes to Vegas for a (really amazing) party? As long as she pays her taxes, she should be free to use the rest for whatever she wants. If the issue is whether she pays her taxes, then by all means we can tighten whatever loopholes exist but after all is said and done, people should be able to do whatever they want with their wealth. Also, legislating billionaires out of existence is impracticable. People would simply put their resources into other vehicles that shield against the law. We would end up in a cat and mouse game that used up resources with dubious benefits.
  - btbuildem 3y ago
    I follow it partially -- in that when several individuals hoard the majority of money, it leaves less for everyone else, which is profoundly undemocratic in a society that aspires to be market-driven. Money supply is a zero-sum game - yes, you can print more, but that devalues what exists in circulation, so the have-nots remain the have-nots, and the haves remain the haves. I think the existence of billionaires is absurd, and a giant red flag indicating that this in fact is a broken system. No single person should have command over such a disproportionate amount of resources, if only because not a single person can possibly choose well how to employ such resources. Money is violence (in that it compels people to do what they otherwise wouldn't) and billionaires are grotesquely mega-violent individuals.
    - Frogeman 3y ago
      Money supply is a zero sum game... If you only view the game instantaneously. Wealth grows, production increases the wealth of everyone around you. If a few people hoard all of the money, they're not putting that money to useful work and those that do do this will make all the returns (which is why people don't really horde money, it's all being used in the form of investments in businesses).
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  I think the counter argument is, sometimes it is absolutely necessary for a single individual to decide what to do with the money. Elected officials will only spend money on things that get them re-elected and stay away from spending that is unpopular. Which means, things that actually improve lives but people are split on it because the issue is politicized, will never get the funding. E.g. Free public transportation
deadghost 3y ago
I've currently reading Warren Buffett's biography, The Snowball by Alice Shroeder and "Sandy" Gottesman frequently appears. When I saw 2, I thought that sounds awfully like someone I read about in Buffett's Graham group. After 3, it was definitely someone in the Graham group I've read about. The Graham gatherings that included Buffett and Gottesman had fine gentlemen, at least one of which has championed a similar cause in the past, whether that was Gottesman or another one of his peers, my memory fails me. While it's sad to see someone I am still reading about pass away, it's heartening to know that he ended on a high note and that he continues to leave a positive impact from beyond the grave.
- boppo1 3y ago
  As someone who studied/follows finance, but doesn't work in it, BH is about as 'The Good Guys' as it gets in the investing business. Pick stuff that matters & works, fund it, don't sell it.
  - Nullabillity 3y ago
    BH is perfectly happy to run predatory loan businesses. It's also worth remembering Munger's nightmarish forays into architecture.
- chenxi9649 3y ago
  Oh that's super cool to know!
dilawar 3y ago
"if you decide to die poor, a great many things can be done with your life". Heard it from a friend whose thesis advisor loved to say it occassionally.
- nine_k 3y ago
  It only works when first you accumulate some resources (knowledge, money, wisdom, strength, whatever) which you can then spend on others. Just staying poor and spending your whole days on searching for food (or a drink, or a dose) does not provide one with many opportunities to do interesting things with their life. Giving is what makes a life great. But you have to have something to give first.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    True. I think it can also mean that you are free to do things which are not possible if you chain your actions to the goal of financial success.
    - ponector 3y ago
      But if you are poor and live in poverty - there is almost nothing you can do, only to struggle to get by another day.
    - nine_k 3y ago
      Yes, not necessarily a financial success. Success or resource of any kind, taken widely. Prince Gautama did not share his inherited riches, instead he shared the information about the path to enlightenment. William Shakespeare was apparently tight with money, what he shared was his mastery of English language. Etc.
madsbuch 3y ago
> ... I don't know if the title/discussions right now are doing it justice. I grew up and did my education in Denmark. Here we have another sentiment on philanthropy than the anglo world has. Generally I don't like when a single person decide the destiny for many people, as in this case. It as anti democratic and concentrates power. Stories like these are heartwarming indeed, but they also help keep status quo. In a more fair world a person should probably not be able to amass more than USD 1B by making the right bet on the stock market. That wealth is build in this way is anti-meritocratic. Stories like this highlight an interesting paradox of the anglo world: The relationsship between democracy and large scale individual impact and the relationsship between allowing people to make their own wealth while the really rich people are merely early, passive, investors. (It is hard to write critical comments like this when "The donor being a 93 year old doctor/alumni of that school that studied "learning disabilities and developed screening protocols"." - I hope you can forgive me.)
- shafyy 3y ago
  I'm from Switzerland / Germany, and thought exactly the same. It's like, great in this specific case that she did this, but boy, are you fucked as a country if you rely on the good will of multi-billionaires to fix your problems.
- 4wsn 3y ago
  > In a more fair world a person should probably not be able to amass more than USD 1B by making the right bet on the stock market. That wealth is build in this way is anti-meritocratic. It's anti-meritocratic for someone to invest their money intelligently in the stock market? How do you determine the threshold where on one side they're entitled to the wealth they earned, and on the other side their wealth is unfairly earned?
  - fennecbutt 3y ago
    Algorithmic trading produces nothing of value and yet we allow it for some reason. It actually detracts from the entire purpose of a stock market. It has also created our poisonous modern environment where companies chase record profits every year, endless unsustainable growth with the added side effect of ass-covering for all their bad investments. A lucky investment like this guy is probably fine but the truth is that the system is set up so that wealth begets more wealth; the wealthiest people have so much money that they don't have to be careful with it, look at how much Musk spent on Twitter as a toy for him to destroy, it doesn't matter because record profits and valuations ensure that dumbfuck CEOs and investors are bailed out of their dumb decisions. Meanwhile we live in a biological society where our evolutionary path has made it exceedingly easy to manipulate people to hate based on sexuality, gender, race, etc ignoring the class war going on. We're too apathetic and ignorant to vote together, we could all share in our species' accomplishments but no, the suit and tie ruling class can have all the Bentleys they like so long as I get to vote for the guy that'll let me hate the people I want to hate.
rldjbpin 3y ago
> My university has a few B's in endowment weird flex but ok

louwrentius 3y ago

[flagged]

nolongerthere 3y ago
Because our elected officials have been shown to be fantastic stewards of our money? Said no one ever. The truth is that this is a fantastic use of the money and no politician would ever have used it more effectively.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
  You’ve got the cause and effect the wrong way around.
- digging 3y ago
  > Because our elected officials have been shown to be fantastic stewards of our money? Compared to the billionaires who currently steward our money? Absolutely. For example, I just flushed a toilet and I'll never have to think about that shit again, except perhaps to marvel at how it may one day fertilize shade trees in my city.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2rok 3y ago
    Our money? It's not your money. It's not my money. It's their money. Do something productive, and you may get rewarded too, rather than engaging in the politics of resentment and envy.
    - nicoburns 3y ago
      > It's not your money. > It's not my money. > It's their money. Only because our society is setup to grant it to them. It need not be that way. That billionaires deserve such outsized reward is dubious at best.
    - cdelsolar 3y ago
      All billionaires come from people whose wages have been stolen to some degree.
      - latency-guy2 3y ago
        The degree is none.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  Those who champion federalism will often say that they believe that government power should be spread as widely as possible; that local control is best because it gives power to those closest to the problems. I see no reason why that should be limited to government; a billion dollars is a lot of power for one person to wield.
  - nolongerthere 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - nolongerthere 3y ago
        Pretending that “those who champion” is somehow better than “so you’re” is just the height of elitism and condescension. Additionally, this comment is also disrespectfully condescending, using the third person, euphemism, and innuendo doesn’t make it any less rude, in fact it makes it worse, it shows you know what you’re doing is wrong but you’re gonna do it anyway and be insulting at the same time. Why not actually address the argument instead of impolitely calling me gauche.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    > Those who champion federalism will often say that they believe that government power should be spread as widely as possible; that local control is best because it gives power to those closest to the problems. The counterpoint to this is zoning rules. Sometimes you actually want the people who are furthest away from local problems to set policy. There's no new housing in major metros because wealthy landholders vote in people who set policy to prevent construction. After all, more supply means lower home prices. Setting that policy at the top allows for global optimization - nobody in DC cares that a building throws a two inch shadow over your park for half an hour during the vernal equinox. The reality is both approaches have pros and cons. Ditto with individual direction of funds. There's no reason to think all individual directions of funds are local let alone globally optimal. An individual or two can use their money to halt progress like the Kochs do, and the Murdochs do. This one is great. However, one data point doesn't make a trend, and there's no reason to think this individual act is representative of directed contributions. That said this is a lovely gesture and I appreciate it.
- munk-a 3y ago
  I disagree - I think this act was amazing and great but it only happened because of one person's personal decision. Plenty of billionaires chose to spend their money in other ways and, while we could afford to freely educate everyone if we worked together, education is currently the source of a lot of financial stress. There's the old Churchill quote "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Autocracy is extremely effective in some circumstances and absolutely atrocious in most. The public should have some say in expenditures of this size - and if our current government has grown too corrupt to be trusted with that expenditure than that's a separate problem that we also need to solve. There will always be inefficiency and corruption - but the more eyes and transparency we have the more we can combat that corruption.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    My problem with relying on philanthropy is: What happens when the donor is not so wholesome, and instead donates their $1B to a terrible or deadly cause, like a group bent on hate, discrimination, erasing people's rights, ethnic cleansing or some other evil? Is that just as OK from the "let people do what they want with their money" point of view? What if a billionaire donated their fortune to a cause that would result in your suffering?
digging 3y ago
Probably getting too political here but I fully agree. The fact that this is such a remarkable story is a sign of how rare it is.
bombcar 3y ago
True, elected officials could have bought a stealth jet for that kind of dosh!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ajkjk 3y ago
That argument doesn't really work in a world where you don't really see anyone except other private interests spending money in more agreeable ways.
layer8 3y ago
I agree with your first two paragraphs, but not with your last, coming from a country where college tuition is free.
chenxi9649 3y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with the notion that no individual should hold "THAT" much power. But I haven't read/heard of a way of implementation that actually sounds like it can work. Since most of the asset is in stock, does one tax ie - Mr. Bezos on his Amazon stock? Would Amazon shareholders want that?
000ooo000 3y ago
>Because I don’t think it should be up to an unelected individual what to do with this kind of money. Take that to its logical conclusion: where is the line? Are you not allowed to donate $50 to a charity of your choosing because The Government knows better? There's plenty of reasons to hate billionaires but this one doesn't seem sound.
- geysersam 3y ago
  It seems plausible to me that we can agree on a reasonable limit somewhere in the interval $50 and $1B.
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    Good luck
takinola 3y ago
I don't follow this argument. The amount of money is fantastic and its effects enormous but I don't see why it should be out of the reach of any singular person. The issue of effectiveness shouldn't come into play at all. In a society with any modicum of freedom, I should be able to decide what to do with my resources. Why should I (or anyone else) get to weigh in on whether she gives her money to this college or goes to Vegas for a (really amazing) party? As long as she pays her taxes, she should be free to use the rest for whatever she wants. If the issue is whether she pays her taxes, then by all means we can tighten whatever loopholes exist but after all is said and done, people should be able to do whatever they want with their wealth. Also, legislating billionaires out of existence is impracticable. People would simply put their resources into other vehicles that shield against the law. We would end up in a cat and mouse game that used up resources with dubious benefits.
- btbuildem 3y ago
  I follow it partially -- in that when several individuals hoard the majority of money, it leaves less for everyone else, which is profoundly undemocratic in a society that aspires to be market-driven. Money supply is a zero-sum game - yes, you can print more, but that devalues what exists in circulation, so the have-nots remain the have-nots, and the haves remain the haves. I think the existence of billionaires is absurd, and a giant red flag indicating that this in fact is a broken system. No single person should have command over such a disproportionate amount of resources, if only because not a single person can possibly choose well how to employ such resources. Money is violence (in that it compels people to do what they otherwise wouldn't) and billionaires are grotesquely mega-violent individuals.
  - Frogeman 3y ago
    Money supply is a zero sum game... If you only view the game instantaneously. Wealth grows, production increases the wealth of everyone around you. If a few people hoard all of the money, they're not putting that money to useful work and those that do do this will make all the returns (which is why people don't really horde money, it's all being used in the form of investments in businesses).
darth_avocado 3y ago
I think the counter argument is, sometimes it is absolutely necessary for a single individual to decide what to do with the money. Elected officials will only spend money on things that get them re-elected and stay away from spending that is unpopular. Which means, things that actually improve lives but people are split on it because the issue is politicized, will never get the funding. E.g. Free public transportation

deadghost 3y ago

I've currently reading Warren Buffett's biography, The Snowball by Alice Shroeder and "Sandy" Gottesman frequently appears. When I saw 2, I thought that sounds awfully like someone I read about in Buffett's Graham group. After 3, it was definitely someone in the Graham group I've read about. The Graham gatherings that included Buffett and Gottesman had fine gentlemen, at least one of which has championed a similar cause in the past, whether that was Gottesman or another one of his peers, my memory fails me. While it's sad to see someone I am still reading about pass away, it's heartening to know that he ended on a high note and that he continues to leave a positive impact from beyond the grave.

boppo1 3y ago
As someone who studied/follows finance, but doesn't work in it, BH is about as 'The Good Guys' as it gets in the investing business. Pick stuff that matters & works, fund it, don't sell it.
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  BH is perfectly happy to run predatory loan businesses. It's also worth remembering Munger's nightmarish forays into architecture.
chenxi9649 3y ago
Oh that's super cool to know!

dilawar 3y ago

"if you decide to die poor, a great many things can be done with your life". Heard it from a friend whose thesis advisor loved to say it occassionally.

nine_k 3y ago
It only works when first you accumulate some resources (knowledge, money, wisdom, strength, whatever) which you can then spend on others. Just staying poor and spending your whole days on searching for food (or a drink, or a dose) does not provide one with many opportunities to do interesting things with their life. Giving is what makes a life great. But you have to have something to give first.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  True. I think it can also mean that you are free to do things which are not possible if you chain your actions to the goal of financial success.
  - ponector 3y ago
    But if you are poor and live in poverty - there is almost nothing you can do, only to struggle to get by another day.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    Yes, not necessarily a financial success. Success or resource of any kind, taken widely. Prince Gautama did not share his inherited riches, instead he shared the information about the path to enlightenment. William Shakespeare was apparently tight with money, what he shared was his mastery of English language. Etc.

madsbuch 3y ago

> ... I don't know if the title/discussions right now are doing it justice. I grew up and did my education in Denmark. Here we have another sentiment on philanthropy than the anglo world has. Generally I don't like when a single person decide the destiny for many people, as in this case. It as anti democratic and concentrates power. Stories like these are heartwarming indeed, but they also help keep status quo. In a more fair world a person should probably not be able to amass more than USD 1B by making the right bet on the stock market. That wealth is build in this way is anti-meritocratic. Stories like this highlight an interesting paradox of the anglo world: The relationsship between democracy and large scale individual impact and the relationsship between allowing people to make their own wealth while the really rich people are merely early, passive, investors. (It is hard to write critical comments like this when "The donor being a 93 year old doctor/alumni of that school that studied "learning disabilities and developed screening protocols"." - I hope you can forgive me.)

shafyy 3y ago
I'm from Switzerland / Germany, and thought exactly the same. It's like, great in this specific case that she did this, but boy, are you fucked as a country if you rely on the good will of multi-billionaires to fix your problems.
4wsn 3y ago
> In a more fair world a person should probably not be able to amass more than USD 1B by making the right bet on the stock market. That wealth is build in this way is anti-meritocratic. It's anti-meritocratic for someone to invest their money intelligently in the stock market? How do you determine the threshold where on one side they're entitled to the wealth they earned, and on the other side their wealth is unfairly earned?
- fennecbutt 3y ago
  Algorithmic trading produces nothing of value and yet we allow it for some reason. It actually detracts from the entire purpose of a stock market. It has also created our poisonous modern environment where companies chase record profits every year, endless unsustainable growth with the added side effect of ass-covering for all their bad investments. A lucky investment like this guy is probably fine but the truth is that the system is set up so that wealth begets more wealth; the wealthiest people have so much money that they don't have to be careful with it, look at how much Musk spent on Twitter as a toy for him to destroy, it doesn't matter because record profits and valuations ensure that dumbfuck CEOs and investors are bailed out of their dumb decisions. Meanwhile we live in a biological society where our evolutionary path has made it exceedingly easy to manipulate people to hate based on sexuality, gender, race, etc ignoring the class war going on. We're too apathetic and ignorant to vote together, we could all share in our species' accomplishments but no, the suit and tie ruling class can have all the Bentleys they like so long as I get to vote for the guy that'll let me hate the people I want to hate.

rldjbpin 3y ago

> My university has a few B's in endowment weird flex but ok