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My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
- toomuchtodo 1y agoRelated: Bill Gates pledges 99% of his fortune to Gates Foundation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43926212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43926212 - May 2025
- modo_mario 1y agoLast time he pledged to give away half his wealth over x years didn't it basically tripple during that period?
- jsbg 1y agoDid it triple because the assets he owns tripled in value?
- modo_mario 1y agoIn which case he didn't actually charitably give away any of those assets I'd assume?
- melling 1y agoMaybe it’ll triple again and he’ll throw in a cure for cancer(s) or Alzheimer’s.
- bravoetch 1y agoHe does mention existing support for programs related to Alzheimer's research in the article.
- legitster 1y agoSame thing happened to Buffet.
- gtirloni 1y agoThe end goal isn't for him to be poor-ish but to do something supposedly useful with the money he has today.
- bee_rider 1y agoIt seems weird to write this, but: In the billionaire’s defense, he probably didn’t plan on us as a society deciding to shoveling money at his class as quickly as we possibly could.
- jjj123 1y agoYou really think his team didn’t plan on or even help lobby for that?
- DavidSJ 1y agoMSFT is up 18x during that time and the S&P 500 is up 5x during that time. His investments are some mixture of MSFT and other things, so we might say he would have been up around 10x if he'd given no money away. Since his net worth is only up 3x, that means he gave away about 70% of his wealth.
- willvarfar 1y agoHe won't have given away 70% of his wealth. If he gave away a dollar at the beginning that is 10 dollars that dollar didn't turn into etc.
- monooso 1y agoAFAIK he didn't give it all away in one lump sum at the start.
- DavidSJ 1y agoFirst giving away X% and then getting a Y% return on investment has exactly the same effect on his wealth as first getting a Y% return and then giving away X%. So to determine X, we can just ask how much money he’d have now had he not given any away, and it looks like he has about 70% less than that.
- modo_mario 1y agoHe said he would do it over 5 years. MSFT was up roughly 2x not 18x
- DavidSJ 1y agoHowever long he took, he has ~70% less wealth than he would have had if he didn't do it. If it took him longer, that only means he gave the wealth after it had more time to appreciate.
- modo_mario 1y agoHow? Why do you take him at face value? You confidently gave an explanation earlier that was hogwash.
- tootie 1y agoIt's part of the strategy. He endowed a giant philanthropic org. You can leverage an endowment by investing it aggressively and spending the proceeds to keep the fund running indefinitely. What he is now announcing is a pivot to start spending principal so the endowment starts to shrink until it hits zero.
- oceanhaiyang 1y ago[flagged]
- earlyriser 1y agoGates has been advocating for higher taxes to people like him for a while.
- otteromkram 1y agoIs anyone stopping him, et al, from just paying more? There's an option for that on US tax forms (though I'm guessing tax returns for billionaires are a little more complex than what a Form 1040 can handle).
- alabastervlog 1y agoIt's not hypocritical to advocate for everyone like you to pay higher taxes, while not unilaterally paying higher taxes in the meantime.
- Windchaser 1y agoI would expect that he wants all billionaires to pay more taxes, not only himself.
- 9283409232 1y agoPeople suggest this often whenever a rich person says they should pay more taxes but unless I can specifically say I want my extra taxes to go to a specific government agency or office, I have no idea why I would do this. Just so Boeing can get a larger contract with my extra taxes? At that point I would just donate directly to causes that support what I want instead of dealing with the middle man.
- toast0 1y agoYou can give to state and local governments and get a federal tax deduction [1], per 26 U.S. Code § 170 (c) (1) > (1) A State, a possession of the United States, or any political subdivision of any of the foregoing, or the United States or the District of Columbia, but only if the contribution or gift is made for exclusively public purposes. But not if you make a gift to federal agency (unless that's listed somewhere else) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/170 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/170
- dfaiv 1y agoIt _feels_ like none of this works without functioning governments
- senko 1y ago$108B net worth now (per chart in the article), so he will be left with paltry $1B. Still, would be beautiful to see all megarich do the same. Keep a few yachts, mansions and planes if you give back a few small countries' worth of GDP back.
- bombcar 1y agoApparently billionaires in the USA hold 4.48 trillion, 756 of them or so. So if they all dumped their wealth and saved a billion (should be enough to retire on, even for the conservative portfolio!) we would have 3.72 trillion - it would cover the US deficit for two, maybe three years.
- senko 1y agoOr to spin this another way: Americans spend around $200B* annually on education (private spend, on top of federal/state/local education spend), so this would provide all-expenses-paid free tuition for everyone for 18 years, or more than 50 years if focusing on primary/secondary education. In that time, there might be a new crop of megarich to continue the cycle :) ([*] $50B for primary/secondary ed, $150B for higher - figures via Kagi Assistant, which I didn't double-check).
- seeknotfind 1y ago"virtually" wonder why it needs to be qualified like this.
- esafak 1y agoMaybe because he promised his kids a few million, or fail to give it away on his terms, and he doesn't want to be nagged about it.
- bdcravens 1y agoBecause there will probably be enough left at the end that for most would be wealthy beyond their richest dreams.
- zellyn 1y agoIt's hard to get by with only 1.08 billion dollars… Not that I think giving away most of his money isn't admirable. But I think he'll still qualify for "he died rich".
- 9rx 1y agoBecause "20 years to give away all my wealth" would be misleading? He plans to retain some of his wealth.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoNot to mention it's pretty difficult to give away all money. Some of it will need to pay for the administration of programs in existence after these 20 years, accountants, and of course himself - if he's still alive by then.
- netsharc 1y agoBecause keyboard-warrior pedants will moan if he bought himself a $200K Porsche (0.0001% of that $200B) or even just a dinner for his kids...
- geodel 1y ago
- jarbus 1y agoSay what you want, but I respect this a lot. Sure as hell beats giving it all to your kids.
- RataNova 1y agoYou don't have to love Gates or everything the foundation does to recognize that putting billions toward global health and poverty is way better than setting up a dynasty or letting it sit in investments
- freeamz 1y agoFoundation is a way to set a dynasty! Just look at all the robber baron foundations out there.
- RataNova 1y agoSome foundations have been used that way, no doubt. But I think there's a difference between setting up a tax shelter with vague goals and actively committing to spend down the entire endowment in a specific timeframe
- freeamz 1y agoTrue. Actively committing to spend down the entire endowment in a specific timeframe does not mean it is not used create a dynasty. In the 50's the Congress in US was getting suspicious about those foundations already. There were a investigation for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_to_Investigate_Tax-Exempt_Foundations_and_Comparable_Organizations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Com...
- lostmsu 1y ago> letting it sit in investments Depends on investments. Arguably tech advances are more effective for alleviating hunger than direct food donations long term.
- beyondCritics 1y ago[flagged]
- RajT88 1y agoHe might say he did it, and just pretend. Probably hire a bot army to spread it further.
- gtirloni 1y agoBeing the person that understands more about charity than anyone else, nobody has donated more than him in the history of charity but the radical left doesn't want you to know this. /s
- beyondCritics 1y agoI am not sure this is serious though ...
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoHe'd say he does, and I'm sure he and all the other rich people use the philanthropy tax loophole to avoid paying much of it.
- ipunchghosts 1y agoHow can u get some of this funding to do fundamental AI research?
- lknuth 1y agoAren't there more important issues than tossing more money into that particular furnace? Touch some grass man.
- tootie 1y agoGates is betting very heavily on AI and thinks it will greatly improve health outcomes. Both for medical research and even primary care. You may not like it, but I'm sure he is offering grants for AI research. Not necessarily for training models, but for finding effective ways to apply models to achieve the foundation's goals. So, it's not a stupid question to ask at all.
- ipunchghosts 1y agoAI as defined today is brittle. I am interested in understanding the fundamentals of learning so that systems can be learn as quickly as humans and have thier same level of robustness. Such a breakthrough would have a worldwide impact.
- rswail 1y agoWhy do you think something that is getting extensive investment from private sources needs philanthropy? Also, billg has laid out the goals of his Foundation and what they aspire to achieve. Which one of those aspirations do you think should be replaced with "fundamental AI research"? A lot of the Foundation money goes on disease research and preventative and curative vaccine and medicine development. All of those areas are already being transformed by AI as a tool, and a lot of that development happens as a result of philanthropic, government, and private investment.
- ipunchghosts 1y agoAI as defined today is brittle. I am interested in understanding the fundamentals of learning so that systems can be learn as quickly as humans and have thier same level of robustness. Such a breakthrough would have a worldwide impact. As far as I can tell, very few places are looking into this topic area. Jeff Hawkins group is one of the few places. I would like to get involved as this area is my passion but I can't connected to funding to do so.
- 1970-01-01 1y ago99% of 100B puts him with 1B in wealth remaining in 20 years. Bill will die extremely wealthy by any measure.
- tantalor 1y agoThat would put him in the ranks of Marissa Mayer, Sundar Pichai, Sheryl Sandberg, Reid Hoffman, Palmer Luckey, Tim Cook, Evan Spiegel.
- RataNova 1y agoHow much power is concentrated in the hands of individuals... It's great that Gates is choosing to use that power philanthropically, but it also raises questions about the long-term role of private wealth in solving public problems.
- CamperBob2 1y agoWell, it's not as if the public sector is solving many problems these days. We seem to have decided, collectively, that we'd rather have more problems. At least that's what we've been voting for.
- whattheheckheck 1y agoHow can it when it's a thankless job that other psychopathic politicians will rally the people you're trying to help against you?
- alabastervlog 1y ago> We seem to have decided, collectively, that we'd rather have more problems. ... because a faction of the rich decided they wanted the poors to believe government can't do anything useful, and launched an ongoing decades-long propaganda campaign to that effect.
- eej71 1y agoI think that's an incredibly simplistic and naive view of why large public projects gobble up colossal sums of money and don't have much to show for it.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y agoA lot of that public money somehow ends up in the private sector, usually as corporate profits. Libertarians may want to ask themselves what happens to the private sector - aerospace, energy, R&D, infrastructure, education - when public investment stops.
- wing-_-nuts 1y agoHis foundation really does seem to do a good job with 'effective altruism'. There's a reason they're marked as secondary beneficiaries on all my accounts. Also, as a recommendation, you guys should look into whether your employer matches charitable donations to 501Cs in any amount. I find giving a solid chunk of my discretionary budget to charity every year lends a sense of purpose to a job that wouldn't otherwise have much (at least, in the sense of helping others). I enjoy being a dev, and I've given serious thought to simply continuing working once I reach my FIRE number and donating half of what I earn to charity. I think most charities would have more use for my money than my time, given my disability
- Ozzie_osman 1y agoFor you (or other folks) working in tech and giving to charity, apart from corporate match, another couple pieces of advice are to consider a Donor Advised Fund. They are really easy to set up, and then you get some benefits, like the ability to "bunch" your donations (can help with tax deductions) or donate appreciated investments (like RSUs) without paying capital gains tax.
- wing-_-nuts 1y agoYep, I've considered a DAF and donating stock, but it wouldn't be eligible for my employer match.
- dmoy 1y agoDepends on the employer I guess. Some companies will do match even for DAF distributions (not the initial transfer obviously)
- 9rx 1y ago> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.
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- skandium 1y agoOne of the great tragedies of the world is that while he is arguably the philanthropist with the highest positive impact in human history, a significant part of the population seems to still think he is the literal Antichrist.
- sam_lowry_ 1y agoHe is literally buying indulgence for his earlier sins.
- sailingparrot 1y agoAh yes, saving millions of kids’ lives through vaccination and virtually eradicating polio is a way to make up for … checks notes… bundling a browser into an OS and not being nice with open source. Some grass is in need of touching.
- dekrg 1y agoYes and Bill Gates is such a good guy that he even remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein's conviction. To help children of course. Truly a Bill Gates is a true hero looking out for all the children.
- legitster 1y agoIt's interesting he decided to go this way rather than put it into a sustainable trust and just trickle money out indefinitely. I suspect he believes that these causes need shock therapy. To eradicate a disease, you are better off doing it all in one go. I also wonder if he looks at something like the Ford Foundation and realize in the long run that any charitable trust will just turn into an overstuffed political advocacy group that does little to advance his charities or even his legacy.
- biophysboy 1y agoHis strategy also may have changed due to recent events affecting foreign aid...
- susiecambria 1y agoTrue. But remember that Gates said he could not fill the hole left by funding cuts to USAID: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/gates-warns-white-house-he-cant-fill-shortfalls-us-global-health-funding-2025-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/....
- biophysboy 1y agoTo be clear, I'm speculating; it does seem plausible that he is trying to slow the bleeding even if he knows full well it won't stop it.
- ghaff 1y agoWas just talking with some folks last weekend about this in a different context. Open-ended foundations can easily have their missions drift and also become essentially sinecures for an executive director. Ford Foundation is a great example of what can happen. Olin is a good example of a foundation that was set up to dissolve after some length of time.
- ivape 1y agoI've always wondered about the Gates and Buffets commitment about giving away their wealth in death. It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now. Whatever poverty will exist in the future also exists now. I suspect they've thought about this too, hence the acceleration. If anything, addressing the issues now has a chance of reducing the issues in the future. There's always something to learn from everyone. Elon reiterated one thing frequently - "We have to get to Mars soon because I don't want to be dead before it happens" (paraphrasing). If this philosophy is used for the right purpose, we can get some cool things happening sooner. Recent events also show that there are people who are not interested in being charitable at all, so it's even more of an imperative.
- yoyohello13 1y agoGates seems like a real embodiment of "Effective Altruism". 1. Get a bunch of money by any means necessary. 2. Donate/invest in altruistic causes. Unfortunately, most people that use effective altruism to justify themselves hoarding wealth seem to forget the second part.
- ascagnel_ 1y agoI was talking about this with a friend recently -- Romans flaunted their wealth by improving shared social infrastructure (open market spaces, parks, etc), and the robber barons of the 19th century flaunted their wealth by building cultural institutions (eg Carnegie libraries). It seems like most "effective altruists" want to do things that help "humanity" but don't help "people" -- so developing technology to explore the stars is on the table, but fighting poverty is not.
- zozbot234 1y ago> It seems like most "effective altruists" want to do things that help "humanity" but don't help "people" -- so developing technology to explore the stars is on the table, but fighting poverty is not. You seem to have very weird ideas about how EA funding works in practice. Long-termism is flashy and peculiar so it gets a lot of excess visibility, but "fighting poverty" tends to get the bulk of EA money, and the most controversial cause that still gets real sizeable funding seems to be animal welfare.
- kridsdale1 1y agoWell all we in HN-adjacent spaces hear about is the EA people getting rich so they can build a RoccoBasilisc-countering super weapon or something.
- zozbot234 1y agoThat's the e/acc folks actually. Different acronym.
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- kcatskcolbdi 1y ago> We now understand the essential role nutrition—and especially the gut microbiome—plays in not only helping kids survive but thrive. Glad we finally know now that babies need nutrition.
- rswail 1y agowhich part of "not only" and "but thrive" weren't relevant to his point? We've always known that babies need nutrition, but knowledge of the role of the gut microbiome, how to develop it and ensure it is healthy is relatively new.
- kcatskcolbdi 1y agoWe have known well before the gates foundation descended their giant pile of gold coin that nutrition was required for children to thrive.
- rswail 1y agoAgain, you missed the point about the knowledge about the function of the gut biome in maintaining health.
- kcatskcolbdi 1y agoOh, the gut biome! Dang, I thought it was magic spirits that caused the benefit of nutrition. Thanks Mr Gates for explaining to everyone that it was the gut's micro biome!
- rswail 1y agoOK, now you're being deliberately obtuse. The impact of the type and capacity of the gut biome is relatively new research. The impact of having caeserian delivery on an infant's initial gut biome is relatively new knowledge, which is leading to changes in healthcare delivery for child health. Maintaining good gut biome health is also still being researched, as well as what actually is a good gut biome. Whether it is dependent on different locations, or diets and what are the side effects. This is not just "good food is good for you" research that the Gates Foundation is funding. It's fundamental basic research that pharma development is not focused on delivering that will lead to better health worldwide.
- dfilppi 1y ago[dead]
- burkaman 1y agoI don't think promises like this should be considered news. Take a look at the list of people who have signed Gates' own Giving Pledge and ask yourself if making the pledge changed their behavior at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge.
- Invictus0 1y agoHistorically, it's pretty typical that rich people don't give their money away until their death, and the Pledge itself is not a statement of intent to give the money away during their life.
- bombcar 1y agoGiving during your lifetime is a much, much better way of ensuring that it does what you want. It is very hard to control things from the grave, as someone administers it and can do what they want, as long as they follow the letter.
- abetaha 1y agoIt is heartwarming to see him continuing to give away most of his wealth even if he's left with a billion or more at the end, and I wish other uber-rich would follow suit.
- joezydeco 1y agoYou could maybe compensate all the people and companies you put out of business by throwing your weight around in the 80s and 90s. Maybe throw Jerry Kaplan a billion or two for fucking up his launch of the Go Communicator. Seeing downvotes, which means you haven't been around long enough to remember all the shit Gates pulled back in the go-go 90s. ANY new technology would instantly get a press release from Microsoft saying they were working on the same thing, leaving customers and investors to wait for Microsoft's product. Which most of the time never came or was stillborn. Gates was an asshole, and he might still be, but a tidal wave of greenwashing can fix anything in the good 'ol USA. Now he's a fucking saint, right?
- geoka9 1y agoMy (bigger) problem with his legacy is Windows on every government (or otherwise important) computer and all the botnets and compromised elections, espionage and destruction enabled by it over the years.
- ChicagoDave 1y agoThat’s a people problem. Not a Bill Gates problem. Any system will eventually attract corrupt people.
- cruffle_duffle 1y agoIt’s too bad this guy turned into one of the bigger fear mongers during Covid times. He was one of the main pushers of the whole “New Normal” narrative and his doomsday prognostications did significant damage to society and generally went completely against every value he claimed to have. But hey, people like him got a free pass to spit whatever nonsense came out of their mouth as long as it was pro-doom. Good news was never allowed and Gates was great at stirring up fear, panic and bad news.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoIt's 1999 over again. The whole world was panicking that all the computers would blow up over the Y2K problem. Which mostly didn't happen because we spent billions fixing the problem. Were the doomsayers wrong?
- bigstrat2003 1y ago> Were the doomsayers wrong? They certainly were, but you've elided the reason why. The doomsayers were predicting that we would have complete civilization collapse when the year rolled over to 2000. Vast quantities of wealth erased by bank computer errors, planes falling from the sky and killing thousands upon thousands, etc. Such extreme scenarios were never plausible. The doomsayers were wrong because there was a real problem and it did get fixed, but that problem would never have amounted to the apocalyptic event they said it was going to.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mrtksn 1y agoIt seems like he intends to give away the same way he did until now. How is this a good idea considering that a political instability can wipe out all that effort? Here's an idea: Give away your wealth to run unprofitable but essential "machines" like social media and news organizations to stop the vicious circle the humanity plunged in. Do it just like Musk but hand it to an independent organization that does't push for an agenda or profits. Russians for example, pay social media personalities to push their talking points or even better they pay people who push talking points that are beneficial to them without directly agreeing on the transaction. Hijack the method, pay influencers you believe are beneficial for your causes and ideals. It may look like just another billionaire trying to influence politics but you can make it into transparent institution. You can award prizes(monetary and honorary) like Nobel did. Wouldn't be great if Twitter was run buy a transparent institution that releases logs, stats and full source code and doesn't need to do sketchy shit? Sure it would be imperfect but it can be beneficial, like Wikipedia for example. Make social media into an impartial infrastructure with decades of runway and let people build the specialized things around it.
- tootie 1y agoFrom his perspective, there are millions of people dying of infectious diseases and other very treatable conditions. That's the urgent problem and the one he can solve very directly.
- mrtksn 1y agoTrue but he also says that Trump policies might kill millions: https://www.ft.com/content/bdd9bb89-ac3c-4043-9ca4-bc7efbd41fed https://www.ft.com/content/bdd9bb89-ac3c-4043-9ca4-bc7efbd41... https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/gates-warns-white-house-he-cant-fill-shortfalls-us-global-health-funding-2025-03-18/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... He seems to agree that politics are just as consequential
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoThrowing money at media just turns it into a financial arms race against other rich forces like that, with the recipients of that media (you and I) as the targets. The only way to win is not to play. Or at least support independent media, use the money to boost politicians that will advocate for and defend the free media.
- Calliope1 1y ago[flagged]
- gwern 1y agoThank you, ChatGPT, but these are all obvious questions to ask, and more valuable would be some answers.
- dematz 1y agoDoes OpenAI deliberately splatter em dashes everywhere by default to give us false confidence for how easy it is to detect AI text?
- Lalabadie 1y agoI don't think I've read it written directly in this thread yet, but philanthropy ideally exists to fix gaps that public services and initiatives don't address. It is a way of acting and holding public power outside of democratic accountability. I'm with Gates' implicit vision here, that the end-goal is for philanthropic initiatives towards a given problem to eventually not be needed. Philanthropy is often used as a way to curry public (and government) gratitude for a rich person who deigned to direct crumbs of their wealth towards the public, which in turn one uses to amass or solidify power – again, outside of democratic structures. By demanding that matters of public welfare be properly handled by the state, shift power back to democratic processes. As a bonus, government has an incentive to actually address issues. Performative philanthropy thrives on the continued existence of the problems they claim to address.
- devenson 1y ago>There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. You can't hold onto it regardless. The best you can do is choose who gets it.
- toenail 1y ago> You can't hold onto it regardless. I can, I can take my bitcoin private keys with me when I die. He could do the same if he wanted to.
- bombcar 1y agoEven that doesn't hold onto it. It just inflates the value of the remaining stash, and effectively "donates" it to all other holders. Of course, if the keys are later found, then you crash everyone out.
- toenail 1y agoNobody magically knows why coins don’t move. Could just be generational savings.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoIn theory, doesn't that just distribute the value to all other Bitcoin holders? I dunno. It's hard to think about the value of something this abstract.
- mithametacs 1y agoYou don’t hold onto it. It’s just lost when you die. Heaven has no bitcoin ATMs.
- toenail 1y agoYou can’t know the unknown.
- wormlord 1y agoRemember when Gates refused to lift IP restrictions on the COVID vaccine https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bi...
- argsnd 1y agoThere were, I think, fair reasons to do this. A patent-free "people's vaccine" may well have reached fewer people because there's got to be money in scaling up the production of something like this.
- wormlord 1y agoIt also conveniently benefits him greatly.
- PieTime 1y agoHe’s also buying up a lot of farm land in US…
- ChicagoDave 1y agoHow? Guy doesn’t need anything. He’s never played the greedy billionaire part. Vaccine IP is also a moving target. You need experts to work at it non-stop. Covid-19 mutates every three months.
- dyauspitr 1y agoThank you Mr. Gates, for everything your foundation has accomplished.
- WillAdams 1y agoCan he do something to make up for taking away MacBasic? https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ferguess_k 1y agoI actually do believe that he genuinely wants to give all of his money to some purposes. I mean money is just a number to him now. You definitely don't want to die with a huge pile of assets left behind. It's just that I might not agree with the purposes he chose. But hey, he is the boss, he can do whatever he wants.
- 999900000999 1y ago>The Gates Foundation’s mission remains rooted in the idea that where you are born should not determine your opportunities. Arguably he's already done so much for billions of people. Had typing on computers not became the main way businesses communicate , anyone with bad, handwriting would be stuck in menial work. When I was growing up in the 90s my hand writing was so bad it was assumed I would never amount to anything. Then computers completely take over all aspects of business in the early 2000s. No one is writing TPS reports by hand. All of a sudden my horrible handwriting doesn't matter. It's still really bad. But I've made 6 figures for well over a decade, along with an amazing year at about 200k. None of this would of been possible without Gates. I also owe the creator of Android Andy Rubin. It's been a while ( and it might of been one of the other co founders), but I was able to thank Rubin. His response was something like "Well, we still need to get building applications working on Android." I've also been able to thank( on this forum) Brendan Eich, the inventor of my first programming language, JavaScript. Amazingly humble for someone who helped create trillions in wealth. Apart of me thinks Gates could still lead some innovation in computing. I hope somehow he's still coding under a pseudonym perhaps, and occasionally answering tech questions. His gift to us has been this amazing industry.
- sokoloff 1y ago> None of this would have been possible without Gates. Though he and his company did a lot to change the prevalence of typing, if he or Microsoft didn’t come along, someone else would have led the computing revolution with probability 1.
- perilunar 1y agoThey didn't even lead — everything they did was unoriginal.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoI feel like if, in the counterfactual where people continued writing things by hand, as an adult you thought your handwriting was holding you back, you could probably improve it? It’s not an innate property of a human, it’s a practiced skill. And as a child there is not a good incentive structure to make kids who aren’t for some reason perfectionistic learn to write really well.
- adverbly 1y agoAmazing to see how much wealth he was still gaining these past years. This giving will have a huge impact. It sure is needed at the moment!
- xlbuttplug2 1y agoSurely the people with these knee-jerk reactions lead lives that would hold up under similar scrutiny :)
- lapcat 1y ago> Today, the list of human diseases the world has eradicated has just one entry: smallpox... I’m optimistic that, by the time the foundation shuts down, we can also add malaria and measles. What is Gates going to do about the anti-vaxxers, especially now that they're running the US government health programs? Many of the problems that the Gates Foundation wants to solve are effectively political. In other words, the dysfunction of governments allows these problems to fester, such that the only, temporary solution is for someone like Gates to step in. What is Gates doing to solve the fundamental political problems? The foundation is trying to do the work that governments should be doing, so what happens after Gates dies and/or his money runs out? Gates has a scathing critique of Elon Musk, accusing Musk of killing millions of children, but that's the inevitable outcome of a system where everything depends on the whims of billionaires. Gates himself appears like a rarity among them now, with a bit of a conscience and sense of public responsibility. We may praise Gates for his philanthropy, but it would be irresponsible of us, the non-billionaires, to leave the public's welfare to chance like that, and neither should Gates, about to turn 70 years old, support a world that depends on his personal existence in that world.
- remus 1y agoNo criticism of the man, but I think he may fail in this part of his goal > People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that "he died rich" will not be one of them. It's easy to forget how absurdly wealthy the very richest in society are. Say he started this initiative on his 70th birthday and he's spreading his giving fairly lineraly over the next 20 years but dies just 1 day short of his 90th birthday, he'd still have about $13,698,630 to his name. I think most would consider someone with that money to their name rich.
- tough 1y agoEvery billionaire running these are just doing tax avoidalnce at the highest levels i assume?
- PieTime 1y agoYes, https://youtu.be/KO3-xkVACgE?si=suWJxu_TCPq37V6W https://youtu.be/KO3-xkVACgE?si=suWJxu_TCPq37V6W Cannot ignore that his communicable disease research and treatment has been effective. But his school voucher and farming initiative have been awful. Ultimately it would have been better as general revenue to provide these services through government.
- tough 1y agohey at least they’re doing things. i guess tbh seems a lot of this setup is also good ole corruption with a legal veneer of goodwill wrapping
- Spinnaker_ 1y agoYou think that they hate paying the government money so much that they.... give it all away instead? Yeah, that's some brilliant tax avoidance.
- tough 1y agoAren't those donations the equivalent of buying out foreign governments through these? Seems like that to me
- GeoAtreides 1y agothey ''''give'''' it to their own foundation, controlled by their heirs....
- Disposal8433 1y agoIn a democracy, they would give it indirectly through taxes. That should teach you something about both their goals and the world we're living in.
- hiuyty 1y ago[flagged]
- akomtu 1y agoWhat would you do with so much money? At his level, he doesn't just spend or give away a pile of money, he is somewhat like a force of nature: he controls and directs a significant portion of the money stream in the world. Think of what the Gulfstream does for air, but for money. His story started with computers: he was among the few who built the foundation of the technocratic civilization. Computers and machinery have created a good deal of prosperity, but there is a grave problem with it: computers and machinery have been completely isolated from ethics. Research in AI is no longer guided by what's good for humanity, but by what's possible. Today this manifests in such relatively innocent crimes as disregarding copyright and data privacy when training AI. But that's a sign of a deeper disease: the isolation from ethics. If it's allowed to continue like that, in a few decades this anti-ethical AI will kill at first humanity within humans and then the civilization itself. IMO, the biggest difference he can make now is finishing the story that he started long ago, by bringing the AI beast under the umbrella of ethical control. It won't stop it, but will significantly reduce the fall out.
- revskill 1y agoThe website is fast, Gates knows how to make a website !
- adamc 1y agoIt's a noble goal. But the track record of the rich does not inspire confidence that this is the route our society should take in reclaiming these assets.
- SoftTalker 1y agoHe's almost 70. Pretty optimistic of him to think he's still got 20 years.
- dexwiz 1y agoHigh 80s is doable with the best care in the world and no chronic health issues.
- IncreasePosts 1y agoAnd his dad lived for 94 years
- xyst 1y agoThe thought that a _few_ benevolent billionaires will save the world was a preposterous notion in the 2000s and is still an absurd notion today. This is nothing more than a billionaire (with a rich history of his own in destroying society) trying to buy his reputation back. Reminds me of all of the billionaire shitheads (Walmart/Walton Family, Purdue Pharma/Sacklers, …) that buy the naming rights on education facilities, dying arts academies, and even libraries. Nothing but trying to wash away the guilt. Our shitty family contributed to the opioid addiction en masse all in the name of profit, but hey at least you get a reduced or free tuition to pristine art academy or academic institution (if you meet criteria). Tax the rich. End subsidies given to ultra wealthy.
- jmward01 1y agoI am glad to see this approach by Gates, but relying on billionaires to do the right thing is not a reliable strategy for society.
- justanotheratom 1y agoUse to admire Gates, and good on him for doing what he is doing. For me now, this statement by Larry Page resonates better: “You know, if I were to get hit by a bus today, I should leave all of it to Elon Musk.”
- mikkelam 1y ago>While I respect anyone’s decision to spend their days playing pickleball, that life isn’t quite for me—at least not full time. I’m lucky to wake up every day energized to go to work Bit of an unfair comparison though.. Most people dont retire from a job where you're literally handing people money. That said, I'm a huge fan Bill's work post-microsoft :)
- codr7 1y agoHe did a good job at cleaning up his public image, no doubt that cost quite a fortune. Still the same greedy asshole though.
- Blankono 1y agoI don't think at all he is a greedy asshole. He did more good than anywone else on the planet at this point. Alone his money and the pledge he pused is breathaking. Why would you say he is a greedy asshole while he spends all his money to help humans? Trump is greedy. Musk thinks probably he is good but is greedy as f and wants to go to mars because he thinks earth cant be saved anymore. But Gates?
- codr7 1y agoI don't need you to repeat the propaganda, I know what the official narrative is. And it's mostly lies, especially the part about Gates suddenly turning from asshole to saint.
- Blankono 1y ago'propaganda'? First of, i do know his history very well, i'm quite aware that he was not a saint before but that doesn't change the fact what he is currently doing and it is very good. Do you have anything real? Like real talking points? Real sources? aything besides just shitting at him?
- Blankono 1y ago[flagged]
- beloch 1y agoThe one problem Gates doesn't seem willing to tackle in earnest is the billionaire problem. i.e. Somebody close to the control of money funnels a disproportionate (based on expertise, intelligence, effort, contribution, etc.) amount to themselves. They quickly come to view this as the just natural order and view anyone who disagrees as a communist hater. Elon Musk is the current best example. Despite spending most of his time at twitter last year, Tesla was trying to set Musk's compensation at over $100 billion[1]. For what, exactly? Bill Gates was every bit the problem billionaire in his own time. Only a tiny proportion of billionaires ever decide to engage in significant philanthropy, much of which wouldn't be necessary if their peers weren't draining society of the capital to do it's own research and building. Some argue that billionaires can serve society by hoarding resources and then directing them intelligently in directions governments are too stupid to consider, but that argument falls flat if most billionaires never get past the hoarding stage. Gates has called on his peers to do more. Few have listened. It's great that a few former robber barons are engaged in serious philanthropy, but it's like slapping a band-aid on a bullet wound. It would be far better to stop the shooting. Reigning in executive pay would be a solid start. How do we do that? [1]https://www.investopedia.com/elon-musks-multi-billion-dollar-pay-package-8757243 https://www.investopedia.com/elon-musks-multi-billion-dollar...
- bilbo0s 1y agoSorry. But you don't get to be a billionaire working as an executive. Don't misunderstand me, I'm all for reigning in excessive executive pay. We should do so in any case. However, what I'm trying to say is, we can reign in executive pay as much as we like, and billionaires will simply siphon that leftover money to themselves in addition to the money they currently hoover up.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- srvo 1y agoThis is the way that foundations and endowments should operate. Too many well-intentioned organizations wind up milquetoast tax-exempt hedge funds aimed primarily at self-preservation because the received wisdom is that they should focus on building endowments and keep their withdrawal rates below 4% in order to achieve immortality. I'm a big believer in research-driven philanthropy and mission-driven organizations. But i've seen the institutional desire for self-preservation supersede essential purposes at a few of them, with disastrous implications for their effectiveness. The Gates foundation probably controls ~5% of the ~$2T that charitable foundations have in endowments globally. If the majority of these organizations adopted these sorts of depletion goals, their program budgets could probably more than double. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
- nojvek 1y agoIf wealth can be immortal why deplete it? All money spent is voting for allocation of resource. Sometimes there is too much money fighting the same goods in which case it may not be a good allocation of resources. That money can sit to become more money.
- Arainach 1y agoAt a societal level, immortal wealth is incredibly bad. At a personal level, because wealth sitting still, having 4% pay for the overhead of maintaining the 96% and then using the pennies left doesn't accomplish much of significance.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y agoYou can always wait another year. And then another. When is it time? 50 years? 100 years? "We will maximise good by donating it all in 1000 years" is questionably not a charity at all; it's just a massive pile of money that isn't used for anyone but paying the people sitting on it. Even if you trick-feed donations to charity over 100 years, the sums may be insufficient to reach a usable scale. - A big investment in research. - A concentrated push to vaccinate against a Disease so it goes away for good. - An infrastructure investment that lifts a community out of poverty. These themselves produce "good over time," perhaps even faster than the money in the fund rises in value. It's a balance, but immortal trickle donations are likely quite far off to one direction of that scale.
- peter-m80 1y agoBullshit. He's not donating. He's investing. It would be more effective to use his wealth to put a president that is not a war criminal and stop making US the bully of the world. That would be a blessing for humanity
- swyx 1y agoi think it is telling that we trust Bill Gates to give away his wealth more effectively than if the same assets were handed over to the UN or some other global health charity. why?
- iancmceachern 1y agoGood, I hope they distribute it in ways that last, and have lasting positive impact.
- MagicMoonlight 1y agoHow brave, giving all your money away by the time you will die. When you’ve got absolutely no skin in the game. Why not just do it now? Why did you act so evil for decades? You don’t just get to “be good” now
- Levitz 1y agoI can go on and on on how Bill Gates has done immense damage to software freedom etc and that is precisely the reason I will very much allow him to "be good" now. Doesn't fix what he has already done, totally, but not only is he away from that now, he is doing stuff I actually respect. Absolute best case scenario.
- rvnx 1y agoIt could have an unintended effect. Injecting this money may create inflation and accidentally increase poverty as more money becomes freely available and circulating. Could be in some way better to just destroy it ?
- guywithahat 1y agoWhile I agree giving away money can have negative secondary effects, destroying the money makes no sense and is positively moronic. He should just give it to his kids if he doesn't know what to do with it.
- rvnx 1y agoIt’s like during the coronavirus, more money was given to people without related increase in real-world generated value: result, prices increase and people who had savings can now do less with them.
- BirAdam 1y agoI’ll take a million, thanks.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dayvid 1y agoI really like the idea of a non-profit with an end goal. It makes it much more targeted and accountable. Even providing bonuses (within reason and making it difficult to game) for completing the goal quicker would work as well.
- sfcurryniggers 1y ago[flagged]
- astrolx 1y ago"Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion." https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/30/18203911/davos-rutger-bregman-historian-taxes-philanthropy https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/30/18203911/davos-...
- seraphsf 1y agoBravo! Future generation will be richer and better-off than the present. Saving your charity for the future is, effectively, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. Also, giving now maximizes the compounding effect of your charity. Saving 100 lives today is way better than saving 10 lives every decade for the next 10 decades.
- brutuscat 1y agoNice! And with what he will be left he could, if he deploys it also during 20y, help 1200 people per month. With 1k daily give aways. https://ayudaefectiva.org/simula https://ayudaefectiva.org/simula Or with 10k daily, 310k monthly, adjusted by historical inflation it’s 100 million during 20 years. That’s 3 million people helped.
- fallingknife 1y agoThe only less beneficial way I can think of to use his money would be to turn it all into cash and set it on fire to lower the money supply.
- toast0 1y agoI've been getting email for 3 decades about Bill Gates giving away his money like this.
- keybored 1y agoI try not to spare a thought to what the true person or character is when they have the means to buy their reputation a hundred times over.
- CIPHERSTONE 1y agoI don't see his post as an attempt to self-promote as some commenters here have made. To what purpose? He's already known to most adults, already rich beyond anyone could possibly dream to be. And it sounds like from the post that he already had this path planned albeit several decades after his death. I think accelerating that timeline is a good thing as I think he will be better than anyone who came after to direct how the funds as applied.
- Ecstatify 1y agoIt looks like he’s been focused on building his public image over the past few years, perhaps aiming for a Nobel Prize.
- dennis_jeeves2 1y ago>I don't see his post as an attempt to self-promote Appears to be more along lines of approval from others, which is a type of self-promotion if you will. IMHO a true do-gooder would go about his philanthropy/help/charity with zero publicity and would actively shun any.
- gantron 1y ago> To what purpose? Steel-manning: Gates has run a deliberate PR campaign for decades to rehabilitate his reputation. In the 80s & 90s (before the Gates Foundation) he was known as a ruthless corporate tactician who crushed competitors like ants and earned a federal antitrust suit against Microsoft. Prior to his divorce he had a widely-publicized affair with a subordinate. He befriended Jeffrey Epstein and appeared in his flight logs after Epstein had already been convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. (Gates has worked very hard to distance himself from Epstein since then - another example of the PR machine at work). Someone who wants to paint the least charitable picture possible of Gates could factually describe him as a cutthroat businessman and a philanderer who associated with a pedophile on at least a few documented occasions. And that's ignoring the nuttier Gates conspiracy theories (e.g., Covid microchips). Sure, everyone knows him. But he'd rather be known as a voracious reader who fought polio & malaria and provided drinkable water to millions. Not a bad use of his billions - what else could he spend those on that would materially affect his life?
- Beijinger 1y agoNot all of his wealth is so clean as it looks. The competition against Linux was often nasty. Governments often got a bad deal. Think Munich and Linux. And I still remember ugly stories about licensing of windows and Africa. This was not necessary Billy who did it, but he profited from the corruption. Admire Linus. Admire Richard Stallmann. Don't admire Bill.
- Beijinger 1y agoI am not sure why this gets downvoted. Just google it. https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribes-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-why-is-the-sec-turning-a-blind-eye https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribe...
- ghssds 1y agoLook at me! Look at me! I give money! Look at me while I'm doing it!
- esoterae 1y agoThe fact that this must occur to address even a portion of humanitarian necessity is an indelible indication that our current government systems are incompetent likely through capture.
- golemiprague 1y ago[dead]
- Taqas 1y agoI've been reading about him giving away his fortune for 20 years. If I say I give away my fortune it's done within a week. Yet, he is still one of the richest people on earth. He's done good, but still I'm cynical about his motives.
- johnwheeler 1y agoYou can’t spend 2 hundred billion dollars in “weeks”. Haven’t you seen Brewster’s Millions?
- Falimonda 1y agoWhat do you believe are his motives?
- n2dasun 1y agoMy body is ready
- dhosek 1y agoOh man, I shouldn’t have deleted that email from Bill Gates offering me four million dollars that ended up in my spam folder.
- jll29 1y agoIt is an interesting game-theoretic question how to spend money x (say, hundreds of billions) to maximize good. - Should you first educate anyone who cannot read or write? - Should you first feed anyone hungry/thirsty? - Should you first provide shelter for all without homes? - Should you first make peace for all without safety? (all the way down the Maslow pyramid of needs) How would the philanthropic billaires united ensure peace, if he had even more money? (Should one "buy" a military force that is mightier than any country's, to send out the message that every nation that started an armed conflict would regret it? Not sure if that could suppress war, but perhaps one would not feel inclined to call that "peace"...) If I had the financial means, by gut instinct I would start out with the most vulnerable, those that can least help themselves, e.g. orphaned small children, the handicapped, the unborn. However, in a geopolitically unstable world one could then argue it is a "waste" of resources to help people by first feeding them when they get invaded and killed by their neighboring country soon after. But creating world peace has historically not been something that a single person - billionair or otherwise - has been able to solve.
- daveguy 1y ago> If I had the financial means, by gut instinct I would start out with the most vulnerable, those that can least help themselves, e.g. orphaned small children, the handicapped, the unborn. You left out expectant mothers under control of a repressive regime that demands their death sacrifice.
- svieira 1y agoMothers are vulnerable too. All that means is that two vulnerable people need care. The law in some places says that only one of them does. Anywhere that it says that, it is wrong.
- perilunar 1y ago> Should one "buy" a military force that is mightier than any country's You'd be better off starting a clandestine agency that simply assassinates evil people. If anyone who started a war or oppressed their people was bumped off they would soon learn.
- wewewedxfgdf 1y agoThe only billionaire worthy of deep respect. And I don't care about your Gates hating, for whatever reasons you have I am just not interested the cynicism and conspiracy theories about Gates - tell it to the hand.
- calepayson 1y agohigh-fives the hand
- akudha 1y agoGood on him for giving away his fortune. Anyone else feeling uneasy that society is increasingly dependent on a handful of ultra wealthy people's generosity for investment in certain good initiatives? We live in a time where there are individuals who have more money than many small countries, governments are cutting funding for good programs while individuals are stepping in to help. What is the point of living in a democracy if big investments depend on the mood of some billionaire?
- eirikbakke 1y agoThe government has a fixed pie to allocate to various projects. Businesses, by contrast, can create more pie, from labor and raw materials that cost less than the value of the final product. So funding charitable causes with money earned from honest business is a win-win for society. But then we can debate if Microsoft made their money honestly or not. If Microsoft exploited their monopoly, then perhaps Bill Gates stole from the rich to give to the poor...
- TacticalCoder 1y ago[dead]
- purpleidea 1y agoBill Gates has done more harm to software and innovation than anyone in history. He's a bad dude, and the only reason he does all this is so that waiters don't spit in his food at fancy restaurants. The world suffers under the crippling weight of proprietary M$ Windoze everywhere, and we're far worse off because of it. Want to help, donate money to support Free Software projects with strong copyleft licenses.
- piyuv 1y agoWrong crowd, but upvoted nonetheless.
- mancerayder 1y agoWhile many of us Linux and open source nerds share the sentiment you described, I seriously doubt waiters see him and remember how they murdered the competition by bundling software with Windows OS in the 90s and 2000s.
- mancerayder 1y agoUnless those waiters are unemployed local tech workers who aged out.
- orochimaaru 1y agoYou could always buy a Linux laptop or an android tablet. Tablets and smartphones is where windows lost. Those devices far outnumber PCs. Your complaint about windows is old. You have options to not use it today. Now he did lose my trust and that’s because of two things: 1. His association with Epstein. It is documented and quite possibly the reason for his divorce. 2. His trust made controversial deals during Covid. The poorer countries wanted the formula so that they could scale up production themselves. However, the gates foundation supported the patent on the vaccines instead and had themselves and middlemen to arbitrate price on the supply
- nashashmi 1y agoIf Bill Gates gave away 10% every year of the wealth he has, after 20 years, he would have remaining 12%. He should dedicate the remaining 12% to venture capital for all of the businesses he crushed and the people who suffered, for “boiling the tech space” and killing the innovation. The least he can do. And the rest of the rich crooks should do the same dedicating their wealth to reversing the harm that they caused.
- ChristopherDrum 1y agoI have seriously mixed feelings about this kind of philanthropy. Yes, it is good that he's going to give his wealth away like this. I do not want to diminish his efforts in that! But also, why collect such wealth in the first place? What was the point? Was the money really better off being hoarded by one person with the fingers crossed hope that they'll spend it altruistically someday? The existence of the wealth imbalance itself, and the general practice of wealth hoarding, are frustrating counterbalances to the good of giving it away.
- zelon88 1y agoAbout time. Where the hell has this guy been? Guy makes hundreds of billions of dollars off the backs of working Americans and then leaves to donate all that American money to India in the form of public toilets under the guise of philanthropy. Meanwhile the country that made him a billionaire is literally falling to a fascist coup. Seriously, just screw off. We needed you 3 months ago. We'll call you when it's time for your day in court at Nuremburg 2.0.
- MR4D 1y agoAs a guy who on numerous occasions has been in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy, why doesn’t he just write a huge check to the IRS and be done with it? At least that would make him consistent.
- kevinventullo 1y ago“Donating” to the IRS is an imperfect solution that scales to all billionaires. If he’s only solving for his individual wealth, he can fine tune it to more specific causes.
- MR4D 1y agoBut think of all the people who will die before he donates it all. Thats why he’s being inconsistent.
- perilunar 1y agoBill Gates is rich in part because his company screwed over so many people. Sure they made some products that people wanted and needed, but they also shipped some real crap and behaved like arseholes. It's good that he's giving it all away; it would have been better if he had less because his company was more ethical.
- dzamo_norton 1y agoSomething like Robin Hood in the final analysis?
- gantron 1y agoAgreed. You can really tell commenters' ages based on whether they recall this. The Gates you describe is the one I remember from the '90s. I have to assume that anyone who thinks of Gates as a rich old man who just wants to cure Malaria is quite a bit younger (or their memory is easily overwritten).
- steakscience 1y agoWhere do I sign up?
- lm28469 1y agoPffff, preventing disease and helping people get out of poverty are such bad goals, what about AGI ??? What about sending Katy Perry to Mars ??? Self driving cars ??? The metaverse ??? Are Musk, Bezos and Zuck the only one brave enough to work on REAL and HARD problems ? /s
- csense 1y agoThere's been a lot of news about how US government funding cuts to programs like USAID, people say those programs are vital. Could some of those initiatives be picked up by private philanthropy from Gates and others?
- Slava_Propanei 1y ago[dead]
- pcdoodle 1y agoI'm sorry: Fuck Bill Gates.
- iamleppert 1y agoIt's never made sense to me that the ultra rich wouldn't want to give their money away while they are still living? You know, to see the actual results and impact of that money and make sure it is having the impact you want? What is the point of holding onto it until you die? Meanwhile you see the world's problems getting worse and worse, yet you hold on to the money waiting for your own death? It makes no sense if you truly are altruistic. It's the same thing as if a child who was given all the toys decided they want to hoard them for themself until after they were no longer a child.
- VGS7 1y agoSeveral of you mentioned mission drift. I wholeheartedly agree - just look at Harvard Divinity School. Regardless of your religious beliefs, that drift is insane. However, isn’t one fix for organizations simply to have committee by-laws that say the mission statement can’t be altered? Seems obvious yet a neglected item.
- etruong42 1y agoWill the Gates Foundation help keep alive USAID programs? Should it?
- devops000 1y agoHis son must be happy