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Larry Page: I’d Rather Leave My Billions to Elon Musk Than to Charity
- abbasmehdi 13y agoWhy wait until death? I'm sure Elon could use the money sooner, putting it towards a cause LP would be pleased about.
- batoure 13y agoHe better hope he doesn't have stock in Musk's companies already. If it turns out he owns a bunch of Tesla stock he could get accused of a pump and dump scheme. ;)
- abbasmehdi 13y agoHe does not have to hope, he can simply sell that stock ahead of time.
- giarc 13y agoPerhaps it is because Google is doing good, nobel things as well.
- abbasmehdi 13y agoThen why make the claim in the first place? Does he assume Google will stop doing meaningful things once he dies?
- drcode 13y agoA summary of this thread: - Larry Page bad - Rich people heartless - Capitalism bad - Investing in innovation and progress not important - Profit bad - Charity universally effective and good
- jamespo 13y agoYou forgot - trite summaries good
- yblu 13y agoDid you really read the whole thread? I see both sides are being defended here.
- falconfunction 13y agohow are we supposed to know what to do if we don't take a survey?
- icpmacdo 13y agoMars bad.
- VeejayRampay 13y agoYou forgot: - Bill Gates is awesome because he saves lives. Sure, cause paving the way for an electric future won't be saving millions of lives.
- drcode 13y agoI certainly have opinions about Bill Gates. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
- JMCQ87 13y agoIf you look into what the actual outcomes of "charity" and development aid are in the third world, this makes perfect sense.
- aortega 13y agoWell then he should do it right now, why wait until he's dead?
- crusso 13y ago... says some random guy posting authoritatively and indignantly to HN. The level of judgement and arm-chair quarterbacking in this thread is hilarious in a sad, "I can't believe I'm wasting my time reading and responding way".
- rpledge 13y agoHmmm, Larry better think twice about updating the firmware in his Tesla now. Suddenly his brakes don't work very well... :)
- wsidell 13y agoI think you misread the article.
- Cookingboy 13y agoNo he didn't, he's joking about how Elon Musk wants to cash in those billions NOW if he can somehow take Larry out of the picture...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- swampthing 13y agoSounds like people are starting to take Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" to heart (although I guess Page would only be going half way). It's kind of exciting actually - I think this is the first time in history where enough wealthy people are going that route that we can observe how well things work under that framework.
- mrxd 13y agoWell, Page is arguing that private companies should be beneficiaries of charity. In the transcript, he says Google employees should donate money to the company.
- elf25 13y agoFuck you Larry Page you evil Bond-villainesque bastard.
- batoure 13y agoI think you are confusing him with the other Larry who actually looks like and embodies Bond-villainesque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Oracle-s-cheating-won-t-attract-Cup-fans-4733421.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Oracle-s-cheati... http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324798904578529682230185530 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732479890...
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoElon Musk sure must be flattered, what with being considered a modern day messiah and all.
- moheeb 13y agoTo me it seems he has basically ranked Larry Page > Elon Musk (or he'd have given the money away already) and Elon Musk > Bill Gates. I don't agree, but it is his money.
- Daishiman 13y agoConsidering that the technologies Musk's companies are developing may be literally what's needed to save humanity from catastrophic collapse (batteries, solar, electric), it might on the long be the better choice.
- robobro 13y agoYeah. I think his decision is hard to really discuss or weigh out, at this point.
- vbuterin 13y agoPersonally, I would donate it all to Aubrey de Grey.
- patja 13y agoI just can't get over feeling conflicted about what Musk is trying to accomplish vs. what a misogynistic creep he seems to be in his personal life. Is this really the person who should be lauded as the savior of humanity? I always had similar feelings about Lance Armstrong too.
- fixermark 13y agoSadly, history is full of "saviors of humanity" with undesirable local-sphere characteristics. These are pretty orthogonal elements, it seems. You can certainly restrict your lauding to people who succeeded in both the world-changing and good-local-interaction spheres. Your laud-space will be commensurately smaller, but I don't think it's zero.
- Permit 13y agoWhy does Elon Musk strike you as a misogynistic creep? It seems like that kind of claim warrants some justification.
- patja 13y agomisogyny may be a bit speculative, but from reading the following: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/divorce-wars-justine-musk_n_841761.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/divorce-wars-justin... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/elon-musk-parenting-discussion-sxsw-interactive_b_2868831.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/elon-musk-parentin... http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-issues/millionaire-starter-wife http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-issues/mill... he definitely falls into the creep class in my book. I hope neither of my daughters ever gets into a relationship with someone who shares his worldview and says stuff like "if you were my employee I would fire you" to them. Or asking where he can find a new girlfriend that can fit into a 10 hour per week time budget. What a cad. Then there are the kids. The kids he admits he doesn't spend enough time with (and even then says he can be a great dad spending time with them while simultaneously working. Multitasking for the win!) and who have been through the divorce. Again, just my own biases and take on the world that I am sure aren't shared by all, but I can categorically say that every single person I know whose parents divorced when they were young has resulting damage they carry to this day, into their own marriages and parenting.
- nickbauman 13y agoThis is exactly why the inequality gap will grow, not shrink, and not for any good reason, like "meritocracy" (read: "mirrortocracy") Remember Peter Norvig's proof that increasing inequality is not the result of virtue or fitness of the winners, but merely a statistical phenomenon: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics.ipynb http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics...
- zevyoura 13y agoWhile Norvig's argument is interesting and convincing, it has to be pointed out that it is far from a proof.
- nickbauman 13y agoOK, you're right on that. It still reveals a lot about inequality. I meant it not as a mathematical proof, but as evidence.
- outside1234 13y agoFrankly, I'd rather he leave it to Bill Gates. Going to Mars may be sexy, but stomping out Polio makes millions of lives better. Its hard to realize that, I suppose, when your life is in the bubble of a limo. That's honestly what makes Bill Gates second act so amazing.
- tunesmith 13y agoIt's an interesting collision of values. One is "every life has equal value", which implies optimizing for existing, present-day lives. Which is honorable in its own way. The other is optimizing for best chance of future life. Those two values will have a lot of implications in common, but they can also conflict. I don't think there's a wrong answer here, it's just a matter of what value each person chooses to optimize for.
- voicereasonish 13y agoWhich do you think will have a bigger impact on humanity, and deserve more chapters in history books? a). Prolonged a few more lives by eradicating some viruses. b). Set up a colony on MARS The people loving Bill Gates "second act" seem to forget how he made all those billions in the first place - by being evil, crushing better competitors, monopolistic practices, etc etc etc. And by basically creating terrible software, holding back the computer industry for years.
- pizza234 13y agoHistory is written by the winners (or survivors), so if a colony on "MARS" would survive humanity, certainly option b) will deserve most of the chapters. It's pretty sad to see though that many users are only seeing two options: 1) give away money to charities to solve symptomatic problems 2) invest money in technologies who try to solve, again, symptomatic problems A more effective approach would be to work out the causes; first of all, education would be the key. But this is the hard way of approaching problems.
- wil421 13y ago>Going to Mars may be sexy, but stomping out Polio makes millions of lives better. Right, both are trying to better man kind in their own special ways. Its a do we solve 1st world problems or do we remember about the rest of the developing world. As I grow older I struggle with which camp I am in. Mars and an electric car do sound good...but conquering deadly pathogens and diseases sound awesome in a different way.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- k-mcgrady 13y agoAlthough I get the thinking behind it if all wealthy people did this it would just lead to the privileged having better lives and no progress for the poor. A larger inequality gap. I think Bill Gates has the best plan for the wealthy. Targeting specific problems (Polio, Malaria etc.), solving them, and vastly (and quickly) improving people's lives with the aim of bringing people out of poverty. I don't deny Musk could do fantastic things with that money that would benefit some of humanity but it seems more important to me that we get those in poverty out of it. That's more important for humanity than building the hyperloop or going to Mars. For even the middle classes life is pretty good. Get everyone up to that level.
- taigeair 13y agoWell you got Buffett backing up Bill Gates so that's good.
- pokstad 13y agoSolving poverty can also help improve world peace. When your economy is doing well, you are less likely to let your leaders drag your country into war.
- rthomas6 13y agoHell, giving the poorest even an extra dollar a day can double their income and make a vast difference in their standard of living.
- novalis78 13y agothat does not make them suddenly rich. Changing their (and everyone's) living conditions does. China is a great example. If we had just given them donation for the last 30 years, I am pretty sure they'd still be riding their bikes to work and dream of "finally getting out of poverty)
- rthomas6 13y agoI see what you're getting at, but I don't see why you think direct cash donations to people has no impact on someone's enterprise. The studies by Give Directly show that a lot of poor people will use direct monetary donations to invest in themselves in sustainable ways, such as starting a new business or buying infrastructure for their home or village. Besides, if you have a bike and ride it to a job, you are not the kind of poor I'm talking about. The poor I'm talking about are people who have insufficient food and fresh water. You can't expect people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps when they're dying of malnutrition and disease in the middle of a country with a dysfunctional government.
- lettergram 13y agoImmediately reminded me of an Ayn Rand quote: "Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started."
- acjohnson55 13y agoIf her point is that we should clamp down on intergenerational transfers of larges amounts of wealth, I agree! There's a first for everything, I suppose. Although, I could extend that argument. If these ubermen are so good so repeatably, they shouldn't worry so much about progressive taxation. After all, they can remake their fortunes even if you whittle them away, right?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lttlrck 13y agoAnd in an alternate reality the one destined to invent the warp drive gets killed by malaria on safari. The impact on human progress due to preventable death is incalculable. I believe we have an obligation to explore space, but there has to be balance, and fortunately there is. Page is welcome to leave his money to Musk if that's what he wants, charity will continue regardless.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago> And in an alternate reality the one destined to invent the warp drive gets killed by malaria on safari. The thing about scientifc breakthroughs is that they are almost never dependent on a particular "brilliant mind"; they are the product of accumulated knowledge and technology reaching a critical mass. Notice how many things in maths and physics were (and are) co-invented by many people within short timespans. Even if our fictional warp field theorist got shot, someone else somewhere else in the world would build the drive five minutes later.
- bayesianhorse 13y agoDepends on the charity. That's why Bill Gates has devoted most of his productivity towards building and running charities that work.
- ekpyrotic 13y agoWhat's the difference between giving your money to Gates vs Musk? Here's one way to look at it: When you give your money to Gates you generally know what you're going to get - stamping up diseases, immunisation and lots of other great stuff. When you give your money to Musk, you don't. It's much less clear. You don't know what problems he's going to tackle. You don't know how he's going to tackle them. And you don't know if he'll succeed. 1. Giving your money to Bill is like investing in a tried-and-tested branch of science or technology with measurable possible outcomes. 2. Giving your money to Elon is like investing in an absolutely cutting-edge branch of science. At the absolute bleeding-edge. Maybe even beyond the bleeding-edge. Both are important. Here's a story to show you why. One day back in the 1930s, before the war, all the academics in the USA found an unusual survey in their pigeonholes. It asked them to rank all the various academic departments in the USA by importance. Most important at the top. Least important at the bottom. They were asked to use their intuitions - what did they feel were the most and least relevant to the future of humanity. After the academics filled in these surveys, their responses were gathered up and collated into a league table with the 'most important' disciplines at the top, and the least at the bottom. What was at the top? All the usual suspects like branches of physics, chemistry and biology. What was at the bottom? Right at the bottom was Medieval History. The very least important academic subject. So far, so unexpected. But second to bottom was Nuclear Physics. Before the war it was considered a useless, hypo-theoretical branch of science only studied by nuts and eccentrics. Of course, not much longer later the US dropped 2 bombs on Japan ending the nuclear war. If we'd only funnelled our money in those things with obvious tangible, well-defined outputs, we'd have shut down our nuclear physics departments and the world would have been a very different place. What I'm saying is that investing in long-sighted, ill-defined, radical, impractical projects is not only valuable but essential. Dropping money to people like Bill is important. But so is dropping money to Elon. One of them ensures that we continue to make sustainable progress - that we continue down the road that we're already walking. The other ensures that we have the opportunity to find new roads, new paths and new routes.
- unethical_ban 13y ago>If we'd only funnelled our money in those things with tangible, well-defined outputs, we'd have shut down our nuclear physics Departments and the world would have been a very different place. What? Are you suggesting that the US wouldn't have researched Nuclear weapons if we had started sooner?
- afsina 13y agoThis one is easy. I agree with him.
- m0llusk 13y agoNow all you need are some billions.
- pooshoot 13y agoThe technological advances that would come out of learning how to get to Mars would be incredible for life here on Mars. Imagine if we discover ways to grow healthy food from pure waste? What if we learn to eradicate common diseases? All these aren't out of the range of possibilities for a mission to Mars. The people who say this a waste of money are the same people saying NASA is a waste of money: http://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html http://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html
- typhonic 13y agoAnd how many people would choose to give their money to Larry Page?
- somedayiwill 13y agoYa'll just need to chill. It's just an opinion that the man has...why don't we try to change the world IN THE PRESENT FOR GOOD the way we see it fit? whether it is charity or huge ass project with capitalistic gain...RESPECT.
- joshuaellinger 13y agoI'd take his argument more seriously if he were talking about doing something about climate change. Risk to the species from climate change in the next 100 years dwarfs the risk of an astroid in the next million. A small colony on Mars won't survive without Earth any more than the Vikings survived in Greenland without trade from Europe. Read Jarad Diamond's COLLAPSE if you want to understand what destroys civilizations.
- cheald 13y agoYou don't think that aiming to reduce fossil fuel usage in favor of solar power counts as "doing something about climate change"?
- PeterisP 13y agoI have seen no reports implying any threat whatsoever to our survival from climate change. The worst case expectations involve what exactly? Water levels rising that flood many of our coastal cities? Large parts of our arable land becoming unfarmable? That's bad, but that's not a risk to our survival. None of the climate change estimates predict earth becoming uninhabitable, they simply warn that we'd need to do things such as migrate millions of people and possibly reduce our population due to reduced food supplies. Even if the vast majority of us die in the process and we're left with a global population of just 1B or 500M, then that is still enough for a decent civilization capable of supporting space flight; on the other hand, a risk that threatens to destroy us permanently is far more important than a risk that'd simply harm us, and from which we'd be able to recover in time. The goal is not a small colony of Mars - such a colony is simply an investment & testground to become a multi-planet species, which also is the only way how we can mitigate all risks that may cause Earth to become uninhabitable - including climate change, nuclear/biological/whatever war, asteroid strikes etc.
- cheald 13y ago> Even if the vast majority of us die in the process and we're left with a global population of just 1B or 500M, then that is still enough for a decent civilization capable of supporting space flight This is a side note, but I was actually just looking at population growth over time, and it kinda blew my mind that the estimated global population was only 310m 1000 years ago, and 879m 200 years ago. The idea of losing ~93% of the world's population sounds catastrophic, but given our current medical technology (and a post-apocalyptic "mandate" to reproduce and repopulate the earth) I don't think it would take us very long (relatively speaking) to recover. Kinda crazy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
- azinman2 13y agoWhile big projects that change humanity are worth it, it's also sad that things that don't directly make money (humanities) are thus seemingly not worthy of money. I wish more of these guys were benefactors recognizing that innovation can happen to culture and arts, not just science. That philosophy seems to have been a relic of the steel/railroad era.
- amurmann 13y agoHelping poor people is extremely hard. I am pretty confident that going to Mars is solvable by just throwing enough money at it. Solving poverty for more than a very breve period is much harder. There was an episode about the problems the Millenium Villages project was encountering (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/01/nina_munk_on_po.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/01/nina_munk_on_po.htm...) and it just made clear how many problems there are to overcome that you just don't consider. I am not saying it's unsolvable, but it's harder than traveling to Mars or making a self driving car. So Elon is the safer bet.
- frade33 13y agoQuestion is he really going to give Billions to Elon Musk? or is it just another attempt to grab attention. Reading through the comments, I guess there is nothing wrong in investing projects that are too much futuristics, another point Larry seemed to be making was, there are plenty of people donating already to our current serious problems, while there are a few who actually do for projects that belong to far future.
- novalis78 13y agoPage could also invest some of his money in www.marscoin.org and let cryptocurrencies take us to Mars. That seems to be a very efficient way. There might even be a MedicalCoin that does the same thing for Polio. Now that would be a very smart way to leave your money behind - maybe a DAC trust-fund living on the etherum blockchain...
- ElComradio 13y agoThat's great news. He can start now so that next time Elon needs half a billion the taxpayers won't need to provide a risky low interest loan.
- benched 13y agoThe human race is quite a large and diverse organism. In terms of development, it's parts are stratified. At the extremes are the front, and the rear. The front is fulfilling our current best potential - space travel, computing, great individual wealth, even opulence. The rear is living by default, mainly just because reproduction is a major defining characteristic of life itself, in terrible conditions, because there's no overarching principle to ensure resources are distributed evenly or at all. It isn't surprising that those representing the front and those pulling up the rear would conflict when they meet.
- acjohnson55 13y agoI question why any one person should have billions of dollars left to their whims in the first place. It's not simply the "natural way" of things. Our system is built to reward financiers, founders, and executives at vast disproportion to employees. Don't get me wrong, those first three groups are really important. I just think that when we talk about individuals having 11-figure sums of wealth, maybe something is kind of out of whack. And some of them simply inherited that wealth, which is a whole other level of absurd.
- ahomescu1 13y agoTo put it simply, the problem is that any possible cure is worse than the disease itself. Stopping people from having that much money creates at least as many problems as it solves.
- acjohnson55 13y agoInteresting. How so? I mean, I suppose you could be right, but my point is that we take it for granted that the way things work in our society is just the natural state. It isn't. There are all sorts of policies in place that lead to compensation for various actors being what it is.
- ahomescu1 13y agoBecause the devil is in the details. Let's say a guy gets rich. Do you put him in jail? If yes, for what crime? If not, you'll probably want to confiscate his wealth. What if it's not cash, but assets: cars, houses, gold bars. You (or the government) confiscate all of them, now you have to sell them; the simple act of selling them devalues them (depending on how many there are of them). So now the government either owns a bunch of useless (to them) assets, or a pile of cash that will be quickly spent. Also, a much simpler explanation is: moving wealth from rich people to government just makes government rich. This doesn't change the underlying problem, it just shifts power into different hands. Then there's the prevention approach. How do you even prevent people from owning stuff/having money? You'd have to completely discourage savings, and force people to spend everything they make.
- socrates1998 13y agoI don't have many businessmen I respect because I think most CEO's are sociopaths, but Elon Musk is probably the greatest businessman/engineer of the past 100 years. I absolutely don't see a problem with Larry Page giving his money to Musk. Edit: Watch the next thing I read is about how much of an asshole Musk is. And how he stomped on a bunch of good people to get to the top.
- cmsj 13y agoPerhaps I am insufficiently familiar with the ventures of Elon Musk, but doesn't he mostly make advanced technology for rich people?
- ethanbond 13y agoImproved energy and transportation tech will do all of is a service. Right now he's making tech for rich people because the margins can be high enough to fund extensive R&D which will then be used for more universal needs. Tesla is basically a battery tech research company that makes cars to fund itself. This will be clear in the coming years as every other company has to rely on Tesla's batteries because no one spent as much money researching them.
- spinchange 13y agoIf you really believe capitalism has the most power to affect positive change for humanity above philanthropic or charitable giving, shouldn't it stand to reason that markets will allocate the necessary capital to people like Musk for a return on investment anyway?
- novalis78 13y agoIndeed. But that's already happening, see for instance: www.marscoin.org
- truncs 13y agoGates doesn't do charity in the traditional sense. He focuses on very specific areas and measures the success well. Page was probably talking about traditional charities.
- brd 13y agoThere are two issues at hand 1) Value of life vs. value of species/society 2) Leverage While I think what Bill Gates does is absolutely a noble cause and will improve the lives of millions (if not billions), it is not necessarily the most effective way to fix humanity. I say this because of #2, leverage. Levers as in force multipliers, as in things that have a meaningful impact on the world. Currently, the largest levers on the planet seem to be corporations and most of the corporations have very selfish, short term goals. This is nothing short of a tragedy and if we can apply a few multi-billion dollar levers appropriately then our world will almost immediately become a much better place. You can argue that the hyper loop is a first world problem and doesn't help the majority of the impoverished world. Here's a counter point for you: One of the main reasons we don't ship off all the food wasted in the US is because transportation sucks, if we had a hyper efficient means of transportation then all sorts of options open up for moving food and other goods (water?) to areas in need. The fact is, cheaper and more efficient transportation/communication breaks down barriers and has a stabilizing effect on humanity. Cheaper and more abundant power results in higher quality of life. New medical tools and techniques eliminate suffering. Anything you can do altruistically, you can do far more efficiently (and more sustainably) with a proper technological solution. Luckily this is not an either/or and approaching the problem from both ends is obviously ideal.
- nrbafna 13y agoIsn't this entire discussion a false dichotomy? It seems from this thread the only two options for everyone is to donate to things that Gates does vs. things that Musk does. The same thing happened when India launched its Mars mission, with people saying they should take care of their poverty first. But, the discussion around that time on HN was in favor of India exploring space.
- api 13y agoWhy are there not more Elon Musks? Is someone with engineering skill, motivation, clarity of thinking, and execution ability that rare? Is it that rare in the circles of the very wealthy?
- TeMPOraL 13y agoBecause you missed one thing - caring about something else than your own (and your family's), short-term profit. Musk has all the things you mentioned, but he also has a strong imperative to do something for the betterment of mankind. Not - like 99% of businesses seem to work - how to earn money pretending to care about something valuable. And, sadly, that kind of thinking seems to be rare and discouraged in the society.
- hooande 13y agoI think this could be rephrased as "Charitable organizations aren't interesting enough to deserve my money." People, especially highly successful people, view charity as giving money away. Musk's inspirational projects seems much more appealing by comparison. There is a lot of truth in the idea that doing something like colonizing mars could do more good for humanity than giving people enough money to eat for a day or a week. Even what Bill Gates is doing has little impact on people's daily lives here. Eradicating polio is the most noble of goals, but it takes place far away and the benefits are difficult to see. I think the best solution is to make charity cool again. FDR turned giving money away into something that was literally awesome, using the Tennessee Valley Authority to reshape the landscape with bridges and dams. 21st century technology allows us to have a much larger impact on the lives of many more people, regardless of where they live. Elon Mush doesn't have a monopoly on big ideas. As a technology community it's up to us to come up with projects that help people in need while still capturing our imaginations. It doesn't matter if big problems are solved for profit or solved for charity. What matters is that they get solved. The danger is that fiduciary responsibilities will get in the way of doing good, working families will take a backseat to boards of directors and the rich will get richer [1] while everyone else struggles to keep even. This is why it would be better to make charity more interesting as opposed to giving money to dynamic and inspirational profiteers. It's always been difficult to combine making money with being of benefit to the world, but we need to raise the entrepreneurial and creative bar now more than ever. When one of the authors of "Don't Be Evil" decides that his money is better off in the hands of private corporations it should be a warning to all of us. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
- novalis78 13y ago"his money is better off in the hands of private corporations it should be a warning to all of us" - where else should it be? why is "private" with a vision worse than "public" squandering funds?
- lnanek2 13y agoThe biggest goal for public spending is to spend it in the representative's state. See various bridges to nowhere, non-sensical military and space projects funded or kept alive over better ones just because a parts supplier was in state, etc.. It's pretty easy to have something with a better goal and better result than that.
- cratermoon 13y agoDoes anyone still wonder why regular people in the bay area hate the idea of Google and hot tech companies in general?
- drawkbox 13y agoI guess Larry is like Carlos slim, doesn't think charity works: http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/10/15/worlds-richest-man-charity-doesnt-solve-anything/ http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/10/15/worlds-richest-man-ch... I don't agree but I wouldn't mind Elon Musk getting money for big projects that the gov't might have done in the past. Like Eisenhower's interstates/highway to something like Elon's electric highways. If there is more industry/market/inroads more people can make money and subsequently give to charity, not a select few. Rising tide lifts all boats, so that answer is both.
- caruana 13y agoI think he is saying "charitable organizations only help poor people and I would rather help build the future seen in elysium"
- znowi 13y agoYou can so tell who his mentor was :) Hint: Apple
- m0llusk 13y agoMy precious billions: Sounds like an interesting example of the Gollum Effect in action. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/01/06/the-gollum-effect/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/01/06/the-gollum-effect/
- the_watcher 13y agoThis could be more accurately phrased as "I believe Elon Musk will do more good for mankind with my money than any organization that would qualify as 'charity.'" NOTE: He may actually not mean that, but that is how I understood what he said, assuming by context that he is speaking about what will do the most good.
- mathattack 13y agoThis makes me think of Buffett giving his money the Gates foundation: The 2nd richest guy in the world giving it to the richest.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- RyanZAG 13y agoAs someone who actually lives in Africa, Larry Page is spot on. The only people who think charities are good for anything are the ones that have no contact with them - they are a black hole of good intentions that simply do not accomplish anything on the ground. If charities like the Gates Foundation just gave that money away to the poor they would actually do some good. As it stands, they do more harm in the form of destroying local industry and media blitzes than actual good.
- fulafel 13y agoCitation needed?
- aaron695 13y agoMost of the thread so far. A bunch of commentary by 1%ers (Which 90% of HN'ers are) commenting on the morals of people a little bit richer than they are. Except most people in this thread will give nothing on death to charity.
- aswanson 13y agoI probably would too, or at least a sizable proportion to people like him and targeted, proven philanthropies like Gates. But a question Ive been pondering is, why didn't he give Elon a few chips while he was alive back in 2008 and both SpaceX and Tesla were only the ropes and almost dustbin material? Why didn't anyone back him then? And Page was/is a personal friend of his. ISV had no problem during the same period throwing 40 million at Color and other shit like it, but were indifferent to Musk's struggles. Glad to see he prevailed to make people think bigger, in any event.
- trekky1700 13y agoI don't this is so much anti-charity as it is pro-Musk and his incredible knack for changing the World in big ways. Many charities have a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of money evaporates on it's way down the pipe. But with people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, you end up getting a lot of bang for your buck because they're so efficient at going straight to the problem and solving it.
- auvi 13y agoWill you give Billions to Hank Rearden to make "Rearden Steel" or to Center for Iron & Steelmaking Research at Carnegie Mellon University?
- tokenadult 13y agoWhen Larry Page announced on Google+ that he had donated money for flu shots for children in San Francisco,[1] he was decried by many people who commented below his post, for example, "The flu shot is bad for you. It is poison. +Larry Page kids don't need that." "That's right give them a flu shot to get rid of what the government poisons us" "Awesomely bad. I think I'd research what's in those year old vaccines before injecting them." "Injecting viruses - to attack the immune system - and hope that it activates antibodies which attack these and (hopefully) future viruses, ... makes no sense to me. Do not harm your kids please." and so on. (Some really stupid comments that I remember from that time seem to have been deleted later, judging by the gaps in the comment thread.) If Page is getting this kind of grief from donating to charitable causes, maybe he really would rather give money to for-profit businesses. [1] https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/32xY3Z1zckL https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/32xY3Z1zckL
- wudf 13y agoi think we have time to address the billion people on earth suffering from extreme poverty and human rights violations before worrying about mars.
- glbrew 13y agoWhy not both?
- pyrrhotech 13y agogood for him. 90% of charities are shams using over half the funds on "administration costs". Elon Musk is actually changing the world
- DrJ 13y agocan all the rich people buy all the telcos and make internet more neutral?
- Fuxy 13y agoI have to say I agree with him. Charities get billions in donations while revolutionary and ambitious pursuits get none of that encouragement. Charities are great but how about we focus on helping others do some awesome shit too. Specially people who have proven to have the determination to stick with it and try everything possible until it works.
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y agoYay! Google is not EVIL! Yay!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK...Can anyone see me?
- bakhy 13y agothe heads of google are solipsistic jerks.
- joerich 13y agoMaybe he is disappointed with charity and non-profit companies… they are supposed to be fill of good feelings but maybe their owners are not. A lot of people think that people who work for charity or non-profit companies work for free, just to feel good or develop as a person but that would not be true. People who set up this kind of companies can get the wage they think they deserve (normally a lot) so a lot of money for “the charity” finish in their pockets after doing nothing very special or smart to help the poors, and when people find out that, they feel really disappointed (as me). I have volunteered several times and I saw things I didn't like. I think some people may think that if you work 100% for a non-profit company you should get something. Well, I agree on that but not crazy wages of 6 numbers for doing not very much… I think non-profit companies should have transparent money accounts to every member so that every person can see what they do with their money, they are fill of good and nice feelings, aren't they?why don’t they show us all the good things they do with the money?