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It'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 thes

It'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 ago
His strategy also may have changed due to recent events affecting foreign aid...
- susiecambria 1y ago
  True. 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 ago
    To 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 ago
Was 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 ago
  I'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.
  - owebmaster 1y ago
    > It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now I don't think that is the assumption. The assumption is that people will treat them well for planning to give away their money without them needing to live their life without their precious wealth.
    - lechatonnoir 1y ago
      This is a weirdly conspiratorial idea to my eyes. Not because people don't have unsavory hidden motivations that they give good excuses for, but because this doesn't really seem to confer any benefit. The benefit of wealth is your capacity to spend it. If they don't spend it in order to give it away on a future date, they have lived their lives without it. You can say that they are selfishly maintain optionality while they are alive, but that's a less biting critique, I guess.
      - card_zero 1y ago
        I might spend millions easily enough, but I might struggle to spend millions more on top of that. Bill Gates has a hundred thousand millions. Personally I probably wouldn't spend it because figuring out how to spend it sounds like hard work. I think this idea was first explored in trashy 1902 comedy novel Brewster's Millions, but is somewhat true.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Isn't the Gates Foundation effectively a trust in itself? I'm no economist, I don't know the exact definitions but the projects they do aren't overnight or one-off donations, they need long term (financial) support and guidance; vaccination development takes years, vaccination programs with the intent to eradicate diseases like polio take generations - e.g. the vaccine was developed in the 50's, it took ~70 years to mostly eradicate the virus in humans (only 30 known new cases in 3 countries in 2022).
adverbly 1y ago
Who manages that trust? There is not shortage of short term needs, and short term value added can compound over time. I think this is a fine approach. He's Bill Gates - his legacy is ensured regardless.
gwern 1y ago
He can have other motivations. Between 2020, 2024, Mackenzie Bezos & Laurene Powell Jobs, the deeply unimpressive philanthropy of the Buffett children, and his own divorce, a very rich philanthropist has excellent reasons to aim for the foundation being liquidated in his lifetime, and not handed off to administrators like, yes, the Ford Foundation or Harvard... (And then, of course, given his enthusiasm for AI, there is a major question of whether 'keeping your powder dry' is a huge mistake - one way or the other.)
- calepayson 1y ago
  I'm an AI skeptic when it comes to business cases. I think AI is great at getting to average and the whole point of a business is that you're paying them to do better than average. But I think current AI (not where it might be in a few months or years) is absolutely amazing for disadvantaged people. Access to someone who's average is so freaking cool if you don't already have it. Used correctly it's a free math tutor, a free editor for any papers you write, a free advice nurse. This sucks in a business setting but I could see it being incredible in a charitable setting. When businesses try to replace someone great with something average it sucks. But if you're replacing something non-existent with something average, that can be life changing. I'm an AI skeptic and I can empathize with his AI enthusiasm given the problems he's trying to address (or at least professes to be trying to address).
  - Wowfunhappy 1y ago
    > The whole point of a business is that you're paying them to do better than average. ...this is a really interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it's entirely true? If we're talking about a business's core competency, I think the assertion makes sense. You need to be better than your competition. But businesses also need a whole lot of people to work in human resources, file taxes, and so on. (Not to mention clean bathrooms, but that's less relevant to the generative AI discussion.) I can certainly imagine how having a world-class human resource team could provide a tire manufacturer with a competitive advantage. However, if those incredible HR employees are also more expensive, it might make more sense to hire below-average people to do your HR and invest more in tire R&D.
timewizard 1y ago
You could eradicate a disease by killing all the hosts. I worry that the people who want to "eradicate disease" don't actually care about long term outcomes, they just want to have their likeness cast in bronze, with a nice plaque beneath it, lauding their "oversized" achievements in life. Anyways, the type of person who can earn a lot of money in this economy, and the type of person who can best decide how to spend it altruistically, are almost certainly not the same person. The person who earned the money certainly understand this. Yet. Here we are.
- blitzar 1y ago
  > The person who earned the money certainly understand this Your cynicism is failing you. The psycopaths that have accumilated all the money in the world are certain that they are the type of person who can best decide everything in the world on any topic, especially when it comes to people poorer than them - which is of course everyone.
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
Economies of scale could vastly benefit a lot of charity work, but few charities can attain sufficient scale to achieve that. There is an unfortunate amount of overhead and administration in charities that do not directly benefit the cause. In that sense, I suspect targeted and planned large investments into charities with scalable plans is a lot more efficient than years of trickle donations.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
fallingknife 1y ago
If you have more money than anyone else on earth, the highest leverage use of that money is going to be to fund projects that require more capital than anyone else can afford to fund and that governments are unwilling to fund. That way you know you are actually adding to the opportunity set and not just displacing someone else. The difficult part is, of course, deciding which of those projects that only you can fund will actually be a good bet, but that doesn't change the fundamental calculation. Not sure if that's Gates' strategy, but it would make sense if it was.
- conception 1y ago
  Actually the highest leverage would be to bribe electable politicians to get governments to be willing to fund your projects. It’s remarkably cheap apparently to do.
  - robocat 1y ago
    Numbers: > but I expect the [Gates] foundation will spend more than $200 billion between now and 2045 Top 10 individuals in the world worth $1.77 trillion The U.S. government has spent $ 3.57 trillion in fiscal year 2025 So Gates spends 10 billion/year which is an astonishing 0.2% of US government budget
light_triad 1y ago
The decision can be read in the larger political context. There was some controversy a while back on certain directions the Foundation took like the project on sanitation (aka the toilet challenge) and the backing of charter schools. Regardless of one's opinion of those, he is taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand.
jollofricepeas 1y ago
I’m not sure it matters. Many will say Bill is attempting to reshape his legacy and narrative post-Epstein. The most important thing is that money is being returned to society on an accelerated timeline. Without this redistribution of wealth from billionaires back to especially the middle and lower classes we are headed for violent revolution on a massive scale. Hopefully other billionaires redistribute during their lifetimes to address housing, education and health issues as well.
belter 1y ago
Please...Gates has been giving interviews about giving all his money for 24 years! While every year, topping the list of the richest persons on earth. Gates moved $50 billion into a tax-exempt entity he controls, avoided all capital gains tax, secured over $11 billion in total tax benefits, and only needs to distribute 5% of the foundation’s assets annually, all while retaining effective control and reaping massive reputational returns. This is nothing more than tax optimization for billionaires and can guarantee you the private plane bills, security costs, hotel suites are invoiced to the foundation... People who believe this, also believe Warren Buffet makes money by value investing and picking stocks. Warren Buffet who by the way also used the Gates foundation for tax optimization to the tune of avoiding 20 billion in capital gains tax. If politicians wanted they could set a 95% tax on billionaires tomorrow, just like next Monday, and none of these 250 individuals would have the minor inconvenience of their lifestyle. It seems to be possible for tariffs...But those are a tax on the other 99% tax payers. It happens overnight... Such a smart guy, but not smart enough to stay away from Epstein...

biophysboy 1y ago

His strategy also may have changed due to recent events affecting foreign aid...

susiecambria 1y ago
True. 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 ago
  To 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 ago

Was 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 ago
I'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.
- owebmaster 1y ago
  > It assumes that the people of the future are more worthy of it than the people of now I don't think that is the assumption. The assumption is that people will treat them well for planning to give away their money without them needing to live their life without their precious wealth.
  - lechatonnoir 1y ago
    This is a weirdly conspiratorial idea to my eyes. Not because people don't have unsavory hidden motivations that they give good excuses for, but because this doesn't really seem to confer any benefit. The benefit of wealth is your capacity to spend it. If they don't spend it in order to give it away on a future date, they have lived their lives without it. You can say that they are selfishly maintain optionality while they are alive, but that's a less biting critique, I guess.
    - card_zero 1y ago
      I might spend millions easily enough, but I might struggle to spend millions more on top of that. Bill Gates has a hundred thousand millions. Personally I probably wouldn't spend it because figuring out how to spend it sounds like hard work. I think this idea was first explored in trashy 1902 comedy novel Brewster's Millions, but is somewhat true.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

Isn't the Gates Foundation effectively a trust in itself? I'm no economist, I don't know the exact definitions but the projects they do aren't overnight or one-off donations, they need long term (financial) support and guidance; vaccination development takes years, vaccination programs with the intent to eradicate diseases like polio take generations - e.g. the vaccine was developed in the 50's, it took ~70 years to mostly eradicate the virus in humans (only 30 known new cases in 3 countries in 2022).

adverbly 1y ago

Who manages that trust? There is not shortage of short term needs, and short term value added can compound over time. I think this is a fine approach. He's Bill Gates - his legacy is ensured regardless.

gwern 1y ago

He can have other motivations. Between 2020, 2024, Mackenzie Bezos & Laurene Powell Jobs, the deeply unimpressive philanthropy of the Buffett children, and his own divorce, a very rich philanthropist has excellent reasons to aim for the foundation being liquidated in his lifetime, and not handed off to administrators like, yes, the Ford Foundation or Harvard... (And then, of course, given his enthusiasm for AI, there is a major question of whether 'keeping your powder dry' is a huge mistake - one way or the other.)

calepayson 1y ago
I'm an AI skeptic when it comes to business cases. I think AI is great at getting to average and the whole point of a business is that you're paying them to do better than average. But I think current AI (not where it might be in a few months or years) is absolutely amazing for disadvantaged people. Access to someone who's average is so freaking cool if you don't already have it. Used correctly it's a free math tutor, a free editor for any papers you write, a free advice nurse. This sucks in a business setting but I could see it being incredible in a charitable setting. When businesses try to replace someone great with something average it sucks. But if you're replacing something non-existent with something average, that can be life changing. I'm an AI skeptic and I can empathize with his AI enthusiasm given the problems he's trying to address (or at least professes to be trying to address).
- Wowfunhappy 1y ago
  > The whole point of a business is that you're paying them to do better than average. ...this is a really interesting idea, but I'm not sure if it's entirely true? If we're talking about a business's core competency, I think the assertion makes sense. You need to be better than your competition. But businesses also need a whole lot of people to work in human resources, file taxes, and so on. (Not to mention clean bathrooms, but that's less relevant to the generative AI discussion.) I can certainly imagine how having a world-class human resource team could provide a tire manufacturer with a competitive advantage. However, if those incredible HR employees are also more expensive, it might make more sense to hire below-average people to do your HR and invest more in tire R&D.

timewizard 1y ago

You could eradicate a disease by killing all the hosts. I worry that the people who want to "eradicate disease" don't actually care about long term outcomes, they just want to have their likeness cast in bronze, with a nice plaque beneath it, lauding their "oversized" achievements in life. Anyways, the type of person who can earn a lot of money in this economy, and the type of person who can best decide how to spend it altruistically, are almost certainly not the same person. The person who earned the money certainly understand this. Yet. Here we are.

blitzar 1y ago
> The person who earned the money certainly understand this Your cynicism is failing you. The psycopaths that have accumilated all the money in the world are certain that they are the type of person who can best decide everything in the world on any topic, especially when it comes to people poorer than them - which is of course everyone.

aDyslecticCrow 1y ago

Economies of scale could vastly benefit a lot of charity work, but few charities can attain sufficient scale to achieve that. There is an unfortunate amount of overhead and administration in charities that do not directly benefit the cause. In that sense, I suspect targeted and planned large investments into charities with scalable plans is a lot more efficient than years of trickle donations.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

fallingknife 1y ago

If you have more money than anyone else on earth, the highest leverage use of that money is going to be to fund projects that require more capital than anyone else can afford to fund and that governments are unwilling to fund. That way you know you are actually adding to the opportunity set and not just displacing someone else. The difficult part is, of course, deciding which of those projects that only you can fund will actually be a good bet, but that doesn't change the fundamental calculation. Not sure if that's Gates' strategy, but it would make sense if it was.

conception 1y ago
Actually the highest leverage would be to bribe electable politicians to get governments to be willing to fund your projects. It’s remarkably cheap apparently to do.
- robocat 1y ago
  Numbers: > but I expect the [Gates] foundation will spend more than $200 billion between now and 2045 Top 10 individuals in the world worth $1.77 trillion The U.S. government has spent $ 3.57 trillion in fiscal year 2025 So Gates spends 10 billion/year which is an astonishing 0.2% of US government budget

light_triad 1y ago

The decision can be read in the larger political context. There was some controversy a while back on certain directions the Foundation took like the project on sanitation (aka the toilet challenge) and the backing of charter schools. Regardless of one's opinion of those, he is taking a stand and drawing a line in the sand.

jollofricepeas 1y ago

I’m not sure it matters. Many will say Bill is attempting to reshape his legacy and narrative post-Epstein. The most important thing is that money is being returned to society on an accelerated timeline. Without this redistribution of wealth from billionaires back to especially the middle and lower classes we are headed for violent revolution on a massive scale. Hopefully other billionaires redistribute during their lifetimes to address housing, education and health issues as well.

belter 1y ago

Please...Gates has been giving interviews about giving all his money for 24 years! While every year, topping the list of the richest persons on earth. Gates moved $50 billion into a tax-exempt entity he controls, avoided all capital gains tax, secured over $11 billion in total tax benefits, and only needs to distribute 5% of the foundation’s assets annually, all while retaining effective control and reaping massive reputational returns. This is nothing more than tax optimization for billionaires and can guarantee you the private plane bills, security costs, hotel suites are invoiced to the foundation... People who believe this, also believe Warren Buffet makes money by value investing and picking stocks. Warren Buffet who by the way also used the Gates foundation for tax optimization to the tune of avoiding 20 billion in capital gains tax. If politicians wanted they could set a 95% tax on billionaires tomorrow, just like next Monday, and none of these 250 individuals would have the minor inconvenience of their lifestyle. It seems to be possible for tariffs...But those are a tax on the other 99% tax payers. It happens overnight... Such a smart guy, but not smart enough to stay away from Epstein...