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My hot take is that men with extreme wealth and power are desperate to keep it as part of their identity, where the women I mentioned do not have the same chara

My hot take is that men with extreme wealth and power are desperate to keep it as part of their identity, where the women I mentioned do not have the same character and personality flaws, and therefore use it as a tool to do good because they are not optimizing for status, power, and wealth: they are optimizing to do good. Doesn't always hold, there are exceptions. "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority." -- Lord Action

DennisP 8d ago
One giant exception was Chuck Feeney, who made $8 billion on duty free shops and gave almost all of it away, much of it anonymously. By the end of his life he and his wife had a couple million and lived in a rented apartment.
- toomuchtodo 8d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Philanthropies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Philanthropies https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Chuck%20Feeney&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Great human, thanks for mentioning.
- idiotsecant 8d ago
  Giving away your fortune in secret is so much more virtuous than doing it with a giant foundation with your name on it. Much respect.
  - fuzzfactor 8d ago
    When they agreed in Nashville to rename the airport after Dolly Parton, all of the people commenting on the TV clip said it was well-deserved. Some were more emotional than others, but one of the proponents was very touched, she admired Parton so much because Dolly set an example of how to be as successful as a person can be, and not keep a billion for yourself. I can't find the clip now, but it was from the heart.
seki285 8d ago
There's a difference in men and women... until there's not. Very convenient.
- toomuchtodo 8d ago
  There's a large body of medical research around women having more empathy than men, specifically around brain volume in the inferior frontal gyrus. Does it always hold? There are always exceptions. Broadly speaking, in most cases, it is a function of brain structure, per person. Do you have many examples of exceptional wealthy and powerful women who are monsters? I do not. I welcome corrections and citations, and am happy to be proven wrong on this. TLDR Show me the brain fMRI and I will show you the soul. In some cases, facial structure is enough for weak but meaningful signal (as a proxy for brain structure). (politics are also brain structure, citations in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634883)
- fuzzfactor 8d ago
  I know what you mean, nobody in North America understands vive la différence outside of French Canadians and Louisiana Cajuns. And some of them only at their own convenience. I wouldn't let it bother me, son of a gun I'm gonna have big fun on the bayou :) edit: not my downvote btw
IncreasePosts 8d ago
I think more likely is that bill and Jeff built their wealth through their businesses, which they are still directly involved in. Giving away their wealth would be equivalent to giving away the business they built from the ground up I think there's also a question of efficacy. Bill and Jeff are really good at turning $1 into $10. Melinda and Mackenzie? Not so much. If bill or Jeff wanted to maximize the amount they can give, the best strategy would be for them to continually earn until they die, and then donate it.
- toomuchtodo 8d ago
  I agree that Bill and Jeff are better at exploitation at scale. That’s how you become that wealthy. We are lucky they’re divorced and the wealth is in the hands of better stewards to distribute it to do good.
  - fuzzfactor 8d ago
    I agreed right off the bat, they definitely reached scale like few others, but maybe it might have been the way they grew without stopping more so than today's well-known scaling process that got them there. Doubtless they got in position early to take advantage of many potential upswings.
- soperj 8d ago
  That's what it's about though. The amount THEY can give, not the benefit to humanity. It's not like Bill and Jeff actually built any of these products themselves. Microsoft bought DOS. Right place, right time for that Nepo baby. Bezos at least had a normal family.
  - IncreasePosts 7d ago
    Bezos didn't build Amazon? First I heard of that
- bmitc 7d ago
  > Giving away their wealth would be equivalent to giving away the business they built from the ground up On the backs of the government and its people's tax money with nothing given back.

DennisP 8d ago

One giant exception was Chuck Feeney, who made $8 billion on duty free shops and gave almost all of it away, much of it anonymously. By the end of his life he and his wife had a couple million and lived in a rented apartment.

toomuchtodo 8d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Feeney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Philanthropies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Philanthropies https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Chuck%20Feeney&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Great human, thanks for mentioning.
idiotsecant 8d ago
Giving away your fortune in secret is so much more virtuous than doing it with a giant foundation with your name on it. Much respect.
- fuzzfactor 8d ago
  When they agreed in Nashville to rename the airport after Dolly Parton, all of the people commenting on the TV clip said it was well-deserved. Some were more emotional than others, but one of the proponents was very touched, she admired Parton so much because Dolly set an example of how to be as successful as a person can be, and not keep a billion for yourself. I can't find the clip now, but it was from the heart.

seki285 8d ago

There's a difference in men and women... until there's not. Very convenient.

toomuchtodo 8d ago
There's a large body of medical research around women having more empathy than men, specifically around brain volume in the inferior frontal gyrus. Does it always hold? There are always exceptions. Broadly speaking, in most cases, it is a function of brain structure, per person. Do you have many examples of exceptional wealthy and powerful women who are monsters? I do not. I welcome corrections and citations, and am happy to be proven wrong on this. TLDR Show me the brain fMRI and I will show you the soul. In some cases, facial structure is enough for weak but meaningful signal (as a proxy for brain structure). (politics are also brain structure, citations in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48634883)
fuzzfactor 8d ago
I know what you mean, nobody in North America understands vive la différence outside of French Canadians and Louisiana Cajuns. And some of them only at their own convenience. I wouldn't let it bother me, son of a gun I'm gonna have big fun on the bayou :) edit: not my downvote btw

IncreasePosts 8d ago

I think more likely is that bill and Jeff built their wealth through their businesses, which they are still directly involved in. Giving away their wealth would be equivalent to giving away the business they built from the ground up I think there's also a question of efficacy. Bill and Jeff are really good at turning $1 into $10. Melinda and Mackenzie? Not so much. If bill or Jeff wanted to maximize the amount they can give, the best strategy would be for them to continually earn until they die, and then donate it.

toomuchtodo 8d ago
I agree that Bill and Jeff are better at exploitation at scale. That’s how you become that wealthy. We are lucky they’re divorced and the wealth is in the hands of better stewards to distribute it to do good.
- fuzzfactor 8d ago
  I agreed right off the bat, they definitely reached scale like few others, but maybe it might have been the way they grew without stopping more so than today's well-known scaling process that got them there. Doubtless they got in position early to take advantage of many potential upswings.
soperj 8d ago
That's what it's about though. The amount THEY can give, not the benefit to humanity. It's not like Bill and Jeff actually built any of these products themselves. Microsoft bought DOS. Right place, right time for that Nepo baby. Bezos at least had a normal family.
- IncreasePosts 7d ago
  Bezos didn't build Amazon? First I heard of that
bmitc 7d ago
> Giving away their wealth would be equivalent to giving away the business they built from the ground up On the backs of the government and its people's tax money with nothing given back.