5 ms·

Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

55 points by cyang08 14y ago

stackcollision 14y ago
Even if you don't like Windows, you've got to admit that Gates is a good guy.
- arbuge 14y ago
  Indeed - or at least he's become one. Something good did come out of Windows after all...
  - rednukleus 14y ago
    Windows has been a good product for the average user since 1995, and has been great since Windows 7; it's just their business practices that were a problem. And to be honest, they were hardly the worst offender there either.
    - kamjam 14y ago
      it's just their business practices that were a problem Yes, agree. But everything is relative, right. All of a sudden the stuff they were doing doesn't seem that evil, and the hip kids from the block are suing the pants off everyone else that comes to play in their playground.
  - fdw2 14y ago
    An interesting, speculative discussion would be to examine if the harm (if any) that came from Microsoft's monopolistic activities is out-valued by the good done by Gates in his foundation. Where would the value captured by Microsoft and Gates have been redirected if MS didn't have a monopoly on the PC industry until recently? My guess is not fighting tropical diseases- but where?
bcl 14y ago
This is a dupe. And the numbers are wrong. EDIT: Found it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094
jnp 14y ago
Unlike most super billionaires, Gates is actually actively spending the bulk of his wealth while he's still alive. Genuine philanthropy.
- mjn 14y ago
  He and Buffett seem to share a skepticism of setting in motion a large charitable foundation that will outlive them. Hence, Gates wants to directly oversee the spending, and spend it at a high enough rate that it uses up most of the money in his lifetime, rather than setting something up in a will. Buffett even conditioned his recurring donation to the Gates Foundation on Bill or Melinda Gates still being alive and in control of the Foundation.
krosaen 14y ago
"had"?
eli 14y ago
I think the Gates Foundation is doing some amazing work. But, uh, this blog post doesn't seem very well researched. It lists $18.5 billion for male circumcision in Africa, when the correct number is $18.5 million. Kinda makes me question the other numbers.
- maxerickson 14y ago
  I imagine the $18.5 billion on male circumcision is wrong, but you are also wrong: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2008/Pages/Population-Services-International-OPP50748.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2008/Pages/Population-... That's a single $50 million grant. Back out, create a search for Africa+HIV and you immediately see hundreds of millions of grants, so I imagine the bulk of the misstatement is from conflating HIV programs with those only targeting male circumcision. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx
- kamjam 14y ago
  His TED talks were pretty good too, gives a good insight into the work. http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html
- felixr 14y ago
  Yes, the donation for the Male Circumcision Consortium (MCC) was 'only' $18.5 million not billion. The press release for this is here: http://fhi.org/en/AboutFHI/Media/Releases/081124_male_circumcision_consortium.htm http://fhi.org/en/AboutFHI/Media/Releases/081124_male_circum... BTW, the press release says that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated the money. So this does not necessarily mean that the money came from Bill Gates. Plus, you would count it twice if you count his donations to the foundation and the donations from the foundation ...
tseabrooks 14y ago
How much of the Money donated by B&M Gates Foundation is Bill's personal money vs Money raised from donors? Not trying to diminish his donations, just genuinely curious how much money foundations like that raise form outside donors.
- mjn 14y ago
  Depends on how you count. The endowment is mainly (all?) Gates's money, but a substantial proportion of the annual spending is funded by Buffett. That's because, rather than donate money to the Foundation outright, Buffett set up a recurring-donation program structured in a way so it feeds directly into the Foundation's annual program spending. For 2011, it looks like the Foundation spent $3.4 billion total, of which the annual installment of Buffett's donation accounted for $1.5 billion, so a little under half.
seunosewa 14y ago
He donated most of the money to his charity, which he controls.
- andyakb 14y ago
  ...which then donates money to philanthropic causes
brudgers 14y ago
The Gates Foundation has a trust endowment of $36 billion. Through June 30, 2012 it has made grants of $25 billion. Warren Buffet and others have contributed. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/foundation-fact-sheet.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/foundation-fact-s...
rednukleus 14y ago
Can someone please change the title to say "has donated", since "had donated" implies he is dead. Or that the took the money back.
- dfxm12 14y ago
  That's not what the pluperfect tense implies in English. It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past [1]. There is still some ambiguity that could lead a reader to infer that Gates is finished donating money. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English
  - rednukleus 14y ago
    To me it implies that the event took place prior to the end of his lifetime, which implies that his lifetime has ended. "Has donated" carries the correct meaning and is unambiguous.
  - jere 14y ago
    >It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past True, but that implies that there exists such a moment with particular significance. Otherwise, you wouldn't use that tense. In other words, it leaves you thinking Bill Gates donated 36 billion dollars before X, where X is his death, an alien invasion, the collapse of the dollar, etc. I don't know if there is a rule of thumb as to what tense to use, but "had donated" in this context feels plain wrong. That kind of dissonance is captured perfectly by this Mitch Hedberg quote: >I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
    - dfxm12 14y ago
      Like I said, "had donated" is ambiguous, however, inferring that this must mean Bill Gates either died or gave the donated money back is more than a bit of a stretch.
      - raverbashing 14y ago
meaty 14y ago
At least he has and hasn't just pledged to like most politician scum.
mdpye 14y ago
I don't want to suggest that this has not been a good thing overall, but donations of this sort are a highly political act, and can't escape being in spite of any intention. An interesting (I found) examination of the the effects of such a volume of donation coming from a single organisation can be found here: http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/ http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-... Again, not saying it's not a net good, just that it's perhaps not a perfect model to pursue either.
danielweber 14y ago
This is a bad way to measure philanthropy, and I think Bill Gates would agree. Anyone can dump money on a problem. But Bill Gates's money is still finite, and he has tried to make his money be the most efficient at solving given problems. He measures the stuff he does and sometimes finds out he goofed. I'm not exaggerating when I say he's likely one of the top 5 people in the world at knowing how to spend billions of dollars to help people, because he has the most motivation of anyone in the world to know how to best spend billions of dollars.
- alexrson 14y ago
  Not anyone can dump money on a problem. You have to have the money first. To be clear, though, I really respect the Gates foundation's philanthropy philosophy. They are about achieving quantified results rather than just doing something trendy.
hbharadwaj 14y ago
Haha - see the comments on the page. I have no idea where their weird twisted logic is derived from. I would much rather see the redistributive efforts occur through the Foundation than let it run through a public choice theory test.
nsns 14y ago
Gates' donations are invested in problems that should have been dealt with by governments, whose tax money is spent instead on the semi-corrupt self interests of their leaders and their business cronies,[0] an economic-social structure which contributed much to the way in which Gates and other Global business billionaires have made their fortune. It's a twisted system, and conscience-cleansing philantropy by its current and past players only brings back a small portion of what should have been invested in the first place. [0] http://www.wikileaks-forum.com/index.php/topic,5320.msg22368.html?PHPSESSID=cmt3mngc4m6lkgh9vreoum17b4#msg22368 http://www.wikileaks-forum.com/index.php/topic,5320.msg22368...
- jeswin 14y ago
  Conscience cleaning philanthropy, because he is responsible for so many deaths! Come on, this makes us sound silly.
  - willis77 14y ago
    Microsoft clippy? Windows XP update auto-restarts? The Microsoft Genuine Premium Plus Advantage Home Starter Business Pro Certified Product Activator? The Zune? Are these not some of the greatest atrocities afflicted on mankind?
- jeswin 14y ago
  Conscience cleaning philanthropy, because he is responsible for so many deaths! Come on, this makes us sound silly.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  If governments use, in your words, tax money on semi-corrupt self interests then how would have taxing Bill Gates at a higher solved any of the problems you think should be handled by government? If governments are going to be inefficient and corrupt with a little money they are going to be inefficient and corrupt with a lot of money.
beering 14y ago
Damn it, we just went over this article on HN a few days ago. The numbers are wrong, and if you correct the male circumcision number to 18.5 million rather than billion, the total drops by half. See previous submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094
- jobu 14y ago
  First I've seen this, but that donation jumped out at me immediately. How could a male circumcision program possibly use all of $18 billion?! 18 million makes much more sense.

55 points by cyang08 14y ago

stackcollision 14y ago

Even if you don't like Windows, you've got to admit that Gates is a good guy.

arbuge 14y ago
Indeed - or at least he's become one. Something good did come out of Windows after all...
- rednukleus 14y ago
  Windows has been a good product for the average user since 1995, and has been great since Windows 7; it's just their business practices that were a problem. And to be honest, they were hardly the worst offender there either.
  - kamjam 14y ago
    it's just their business practices that were a problem Yes, agree. But everything is relative, right. All of a sudden the stuff they were doing doesn't seem that evil, and the hip kids from the block are suing the pants off everyone else that comes to play in their playground.
- fdw2 14y ago
  An interesting, speculative discussion would be to examine if the harm (if any) that came from Microsoft's monopolistic activities is out-valued by the good done by Gates in his foundation. Where would the value captured by Microsoft and Gates have been redirected if MS didn't have a monopoly on the PC industry until recently? My guess is not fighting tropical diseases- but where?

bcl 14y ago

This is a dupe. And the numbers are wrong. EDIT: Found it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094

jnp 14y ago

Unlike most super billionaires, Gates is actually actively spending the bulk of his wealth while he's still alive. Genuine philanthropy.

mjn 14y ago
He and Buffett seem to share a skepticism of setting in motion a large charitable foundation that will outlive them. Hence, Gates wants to directly oversee the spending, and spend it at a high enough rate that it uses up most of the money in his lifetime, rather than setting something up in a will. Buffett even conditioned his recurring donation to the Gates Foundation on Bill or Melinda Gates still being alive and in control of the Foundation.

krosaen 14y ago

"had"?

eli 14y ago

I think the Gates Foundation is doing some amazing work. But, uh, this blog post doesn't seem very well researched. It lists $18.5 billion for male circumcision in Africa, when the correct number is $18.5 million. Kinda makes me question the other numbers.

maxerickson 14y ago
I imagine the $18.5 billion on male circumcision is wrong, but you are also wrong: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2008/Pages/Population-Services-International-OPP50748.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2008/Pages/Population-... That's a single $50 million grant. Back out, create a search for Africa+HIV and you immediately see hundreds of millions of grants, so I imagine the bulk of the misstatement is from conflating HIV programs with those only targeting male circumcision. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx
kamjam 14y ago
His TED talks were pretty good too, gives a good insight into the work. http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_unplugged.html
felixr 14y ago
Yes, the donation for the Male Circumcision Consortium (MCC) was 'only' $18.5 million not billion. The press release for this is here: http://fhi.org/en/AboutFHI/Media/Releases/081124_male_circumcision_consortium.htm http://fhi.org/en/AboutFHI/Media/Releases/081124_male_circum... BTW, the press release says that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated the money. So this does not necessarily mean that the money came from Bill Gates. Plus, you would count it twice if you count his donations to the foundation and the donations from the foundation ...

tseabrooks 14y ago

How much of the Money donated by B&M Gates Foundation is Bill's personal money vs Money raised from donors? Not trying to diminish his donations, just genuinely curious how much money foundations like that raise form outside donors.

mjn 14y ago
Depends on how you count. The endowment is mainly (all?) Gates's money, but a substantial proportion of the annual spending is funded by Buffett. That's because, rather than donate money to the Foundation outright, Buffett set up a recurring-donation program structured in a way so it feeds directly into the Foundation's annual program spending. For 2011, it looks like the Foundation spent $3.4 billion total, of which the annual installment of Buffett's donation accounted for $1.5 billion, so a little under half.

seunosewa 14y ago

He donated most of the money to his charity, which he controls.

andyakb 14y ago
...which then donates money to philanthropic causes

brudgers 14y ago

The Gates Foundation has a trust endowment of $36 billion. Through June 30, 2012 it has made grants of $25 billion. Warren Buffet and others have contributed. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/foundation-fact-sheet.aspx http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/foundation-fact-s...

rednukleus 14y ago

Can someone please change the title to say "has donated", since "had donated" implies he is dead. Or that the took the money back.

dfxm12 14y ago
That's not what the pluperfect tense implies in English. It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past [1]. There is still some ambiguity that could lead a reader to infer that Gates is finished donating money. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_aspect#English
- rednukleus 14y ago
  To me it implies that the event took place prior to the end of his lifetime, which implies that his lifetime has ended. "Has donated" carries the correct meaning and is unambiguous.
- jere 14y ago
  >It simply means something that took place prior to a moment in the past True, but that implies that there exists such a moment with particular significance. Otherwise, you wouldn't use that tense. In other words, it leaves you thinking Bill Gates donated 36 billion dollars before X, where X is his death, an alien invasion, the collapse of the dollar, etc. I don't know if there is a rule of thumb as to what tense to use, but "had donated" in this context feels plain wrong. That kind of dissonance is captured perfectly by this Mitch Hedberg quote: >I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
  - dfxm12 14y ago
    Like I said, "had donated" is ambiguous, however, inferring that this must mean Bill Gates either died or gave the donated money back is more than a bit of a stretch.
    - raverbashing 14y ago

meaty 14y ago

At least he has and hasn't just pledged to like most politician scum.

mdpye 14y ago

I don't want to suggest that this has not been a good thing overall, but donations of this sort are a highly political act, and can't escape being in spite of any intention. An interesting (I found) examination of the the effects of such a volume of donation coming from a single organisation can be found here: http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/ http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-... Again, not saying it's not a net good, just that it's perhaps not a perfect model to pursue either.

danielweber 14y ago

This is a bad way to measure philanthropy, and I think Bill Gates would agree. Anyone can dump money on a problem. But Bill Gates's money is still finite, and he has tried to make his money be the most efficient at solving given problems. He measures the stuff he does and sometimes finds out he goofed. I'm not exaggerating when I say he's likely one of the top 5 people in the world at knowing how to spend billions of dollars to help people, because he has the most motivation of anyone in the world to know how to best spend billions of dollars.

alexrson 14y ago
Not anyone can dump money on a problem. You have to have the money first. To be clear, though, I really respect the Gates foundation's philanthropy philosophy. They are about achieving quantified results rather than just doing something trendy.

hbharadwaj 14y ago

Haha - see the comments on the page. I have no idea where their weird twisted logic is derived from. I would much rather see the redistributive efforts occur through the Foundation than let it run through a public choice theory test.

nsns 14y ago

Gates' donations are invested in problems that should have been dealt with by governments, whose tax money is spent instead on the semi-corrupt self interests of their leaders and their business cronies,[0] an economic-social structure which contributed much to the way in which Gates and other Global business billionaires have made their fortune. It's a twisted system, and conscience-cleansing philantropy by its current and past players only brings back a small portion of what should have been invested in the first place. [0] http://www.wikileaks-forum.com/index.php/topic,5320.msg22368.html?PHPSESSID=cmt3mngc4m6lkgh9vreoum17b4#msg22368 http://www.wikileaks-forum.com/index.php/topic,5320.msg22368...

jeswin 14y ago
Conscience cleaning philanthropy, because he is responsible for so many deaths! Come on, this makes us sound silly.
- willis77 14y ago
  Microsoft clippy? Windows XP update auto-restarts? The Microsoft Genuine Premium Plus Advantage Home Starter Business Pro Certified Product Activator? The Zune? Are these not some of the greatest atrocities afflicted on mankind?
jeswin 14y ago
Conscience cleaning philanthropy, because he is responsible for so many deaths! Come on, this makes us sound silly.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
jbigelow76 14y ago
If governments use, in your words, tax money on semi-corrupt self interests then how would have taxing Bill Gates at a higher solved any of the problems you think should be handled by government? If governments are going to be inefficient and corrupt with a little money they are going to be inefficient and corrupt with a lot of money.

beering 14y ago

Damn it, we just went over this article on HN a few days ago. The numbers are wrong, and if you correct the male circumcision number to 18.5 million rather than billion, the total drops by half. See previous submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191094

jobu 14y ago
First I've seen this, but that donation jumped out at me immediately. How could a male circumcision program possibly use all of $18 billion?! 18 million makes much more sense.