I wonder if all these very public proclamations are going to shift people's attitude towards taxes? Most people think of the government as wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt to more or less degrees, and I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes.
I committed a while back to giving 10% of my income to charity henceforth, probably for my whole life. I know I've felt much better when I raised money for St. Jude's or Grand Ormond Street children's hospitals than when I wrote a check to the IRS to fund the latest special interest-fueled debacle.
There's a "the evil rich are against us" narrative in movies and stories a lot, but I wonder if the perception will start to change when all the good from these endeavors is realized. I think it's quite likely that smart people allocating resources intelligently will do 10x, 20x, 50x more good with the money than a politician possibly could.
Sometimes it takes the government (or someone funded by them) to come up with novel solutions for the maladies that have plagued humanity. Norman Borlaug for famine, Jonas Salk for Polio, the research into Avian influenza and H1N1 pandemics, space exploration, etc. have all been either spearheaded, guided or financially encouraged by government agencies.
These are areas which charities (and corporations, for that matter) have sometimes fallen short due to either lack of funding or the mission-critical nature of the moment. Either way, we must agree that it's tough to conclude that governments are completely incompetent and charities aren't, however apt the perception may be.
I don't like estate taxes. Governments are typically terrible financial stewards and bad examples of financial responsibility. Give the government one billion and it will find a way to spend two.
But I also don't like the idea of a permanent aristocratic class where generation after generation are born into opulence because your great grandfather created a great company.
The movement towards philanthropy is a great alternative as long there are clearly defined and applied metrics of success. Gates Foundation does a good job at this. If you claim you're going to change the world, but you can't prove it, you won't get funding again.
This is a strange question to me. I know there is probably some similarity in how governments and individuals allocate large amounts of money--for instance, federal spending to curtail HIV/AIDS in Africa compared to Gates' spending to curtail malaria--but the bulk of it doesn't overlap. Gates, Buffett, and Zuckerberg shouldn't hire my town's police force, and can't afford to hire my country's military or even maintain my country's highways.
As long as things like that need to be done, someone needs to pay taxes. And Warren Buffett would be the first to tell you he and his fellow billionaires should be the one paying the taxes.
Good for you giving away a significant portion of income.
Firstly,
"I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes."
I feel like you are treating these conditions as being mutually exclusive, and they do not need to be. I want money allocated by intelligent people who need to keep constituents happy. And I want them to have smart constituents, so that they are actually held accountable making bad allocations. This is because I want a large number of problems to be taken care of expediently.
Secondly,
Rich != Smart.
I don't see how it is that being rich makes Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg better at allocating resources. Sure, they have some business savvy, but there is a certain amount of luck involved as well (as with any statistical out-lier). This doesn't account for others who made their money through inheritance, and are dumb (really dumb).
The point is not that 'the evil rich are against us,' the point is that they benefit exponentially from government protections compared to a normal person and should provide funds accordingly. I don't see how any of these people would be able to hold onto (or even establish) their wealth without the protections (and utilities, and services) afforded by the government (and if they were, it would simply be some sort of Monarchy).
(ex. The rich don't just benefit from their own use of public roads, they benefit from their employees and customers use as well. How do the rich obtain intelligent, educated labor without required public education? How do they plan to hold onto wealth as they accumulate it without the enforcement of various property laws?)
Charity is good, don't give me wrong. But the rich are hardly victims of the government.
You should start (or locate) a charity that dedicates itself to decreasing government waste and donate the money to them. You'd probably get more bang for your buck, even if it didn't focus purely on the humanitarian side of government.
Although some isolated initiative are great (Zuckerberg's pledge to education is presumably very much needed) most private charities are more expensive to manage and often counter-productive. Government redistribution can have in well-run countries handling cost around 3-5%; too many charities are closer to 15%. Government handles essential concerns, permanent efforts, infrastructure investment, etc. while many private charities browse around, try something but have little follow-through after the first media coverage. Governments can have a more global view of things, that can help isolate massively more efficient efforts, even when they aren't popular, like prevention, half-way homes. A majority of public money is spend on things with little isolated, visible impact, but the marginal impact can be much higher. A lot of local leaders in Africa have criticized the B&M Gates Foundation for being too disruptive for the good of beneficiaries.
I won't diminish the impact of being associated to massively successful people, or simply having spectacularly talented people manage those funds, but please don't confuse the good feeling of being in control with actual marginal impact.
all the benefits delivered to mankind by the efforts of the innovators hasn't stopped the demonization of the rich. giving away what they've been paid to deliver those benefits probably won't either.
Not sure how this should shift people's attitudes towards taxes. Do we increase them to encourage charitable giving or decrease them so the rich have more to give?
At some level this type of thinking lets government off the hook. Philanthropy by the ultra rich is not a solution to government waste and won't solve the fundamental problems in the US government.
Agreed - who hear has found how generous other founders are of their time, connections, etc.? Ever try to get a favor from ever a local politician? If you do, you get far less for far more - in my experience...
I happen to have just watched a brilliant TED talk on the value of angel investment (not aid) in Africa. The talk underlined how it is capitalism rather than charity that creates wealth.
It would be wonderful to see some of SV's glitterati create more for-profit investment networks (bigger than Kiva, smaller than VC (...YC?)) in other hungry markets.
Kudos to Mark for committing to this. If he applies his product-brilliance to how he goes about it I'm sure he will do wonderful things.
(Alexis this has your name written all over it BTW ;)
I will bet anyone that 20 years from now we will see that China's "greedy" investment in Africa has done more good than all the decades and $billions of "selfless" western aid, both public and private.
And I also will bet that privatized school systems will perform better than public school bureaucracies that receive hundred million dollar gifts.
I think if Mark wanted to give back to the world he should do what Elon Musk is doing and start high risk businesses that can create widespread beneficial change in the world.
I'd rather see more people following the lead of Elon Musk than Bill Gates. Instead of throwing money at problems that will always exist and producing no real value, Musk is creating high-tech jobs and advancing the state of humanity.
I share neither your certainty that malaria will always exist, nor your belief that ending the epidemic would produce no real value. Along with HIV, it has crippled a continent and caused immeasurable suffering.
Elon Musk is doing great things. How many other potential Musks are there whose opportunities to do such things were cut short due to the very problems the Gates foundation addresses? Even just in his home country, South Africa, there have likely been a few.
It's certainly a testament to the power of perspective that you've dismissed a quarter of the planet living sick, hungry, and in poverty as "problems that will always exist", and decided that doing something about it produces no "real value."
i disagree with you elon musk is just creating toys for the rich.bill gates and likes are working on real problems . In some developing countries that l know you may not believe how hard it is to get a clean drinking water
Except Bill Gates isn't just throwing money at problems and producing no real value. You may not be seeing the benefits of his work directly, but he is making a real difference, and I'd be willing to bet, through his work, employing far more people who work to pull people up rather than merely advancing the advanced.
Edit: I'm not against people advancing the human race mind you (advancing the advanced). However, neither is Bill Gates merely handing out money. He's teaching men to fish, rather than simply giving them fillets.
I think of this as sort of a cop out (on the part of all the people who do it). If you're good at business, then you can have a far bigger impact by creating businesses than by simply giving your money to some charity.
It's ultimately a socially lauded thing to do that divorces the donor from any ultimate responsibility for the amount of "greater good" done with the funds. I think they do it out of fear that they were a lucky, one-hit wonder... and out of low self-esteem or fear of the angry mob.
YC is a great example of a way to use wealth to make a real difference. PG uses his acumen to help a lot more people level up. This multiplies wealth. Spending it on charities simply redistributes it.
It makes me very pessimistic to see that the world's wealthiest people feel the need simply to pledge the money away, and no need to risk total failure by going out on a limb to do something bigger than whatever got them there.
What if Bill Gates tried some long shot idea and it flopped? What if Zuckerberg or Case did? That would take real courage. This pledge nonsense reminds me of the self-satisfied smirks people emit when publicly putting money into the collection basket in a church. Why isn't one of these rich guys going to bat for Wikileaks? (Probably because it feels a lot better to be praised all the time for being such a great person by all the sycophants trying to get you to write a check!)
There is no reason for Facebook to go public anytime in the near future. It will be more and more revenue positive as it refines its advertising model. Zuckerberg's contribution is therefore worth very little at the moment, outside of the tremendous commitment it implies for Mark. At some point, he will probably control huge amounts of wealth and it's bold of him to sign away most of the cash before he ever has control over it.
But wouldn't it be amusing if Facebook were to go the way of preceding social networks, and leave the "world's youngest billionaire" looking a little silly for pledging a fortune that never materialized?
It's certainly commendable to give away a vast fortune, and I don't want to take away from this honorable act in any way.
But I wonder why more ridiculously wealthy entrepreneurs don't, ya know, preneur? Especially in the nonprofit "make a difference space".
A billion dollars to charity is cool. You know what's really cool? A billion dollars towards a celebrity billionaire-spearheaded do-good project. (Or 1 million dollars each towards 1000 projects, etc.)
Maybe I'm missing something, and I'm certainly no billionaire, so I probably am. But if I were a billionaire, I'd be more interested in angel investing (in promising, impactful projects) and my bringing my own ideas to life.
But I digress. Bravo to the billionaires. Really, this is awesome.
This is from the PDF on the giving pledge website:
"The pledge does not involve pooling money or supporting a particular set of causes or organizations. The pledge asks only that the individual give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charitable organizations either before or after their death."
Interesting way to do this. I still don't really understand the need for a pledge of this magnitude, but at least they aren't pooling the money or soliciting for specific causes.
That being said, I still think Zuck is far too young to make such a strong commitment.
There's no reason you couldn't start small. Find some cause you support or someone you know in greater need than yourself and contribute what you can. If you feel you can't do anything now you probably will always be able to find a reason you can't in the future.
> I'd pledge if I had any hugely significant sum like the others in the pledge
Lives in the developing world can be saved for less than $1000/life (that is, something like $20 per disability-adjusted-life-year). You personally could save dozens--perhaps hundred--of human lives, which I consider to be hugely significant.
You can give it away while you're alive, or split it between your loved ones and the state when you die. I think it would be more fun giving it away to those most in need rather than enriching those who've already had a pretty good life... and your loved ones, too.
perhaps, but if you teach and educate your children how they can duplicate your success, and give them a headstart with the fortune you've built, then you can do just as much, if not more, than the charity down the street.
Look, I'm not advocating against giving, but I don't think jumping into pledges is the smartest way to begin.
If I had billions I would certainly pay great attention to where I would put that money to work in order to create most goodness and wealth out of it. I would be wary of many charities as groups can get as confused from big money as individuals do.
I find it odd how people such as Gates and Zuckerberg obsessively stomp down their competition through any means possible, and then turn around and grandiosely pledge to give away their gains.
Many consider it to be the job of the businessperson to do everything they can to help their business' success within the legal framework it exists in. As long as that legal framework is democratically constructed, I don't see any reason to think of that as immoral, so I don't really see any contradiction there.
This is great; Rather than having government's and or NGO employees who pulls normal salary and aren't experienced in efficiently managing the spending of billions of dollars of development aid and end up harming the recipients, we are now getting the billionaires - people who excel at efficiently investing billions of dollars to reap billions more - to allocate these resources.
These guys all have around the same net worth as Zuck, but much more liquidity. Sergey "don't be evil" Brin's absence from the list is a particularly curious... Anyone know what his philanthropic track record is like? Is it mostly through Google.org?
I like that it's about thinking how to give responsibly and effectively, pledging early in life so they can put their creativity to good use, as the article says. People who sign are trading ideas and logistical advice, it's like a book club for philanthropy.
[+] [-] lionhearted|15 years ago|reply
I wonder if all these very public proclamations are going to shift people's attitude towards taxes? Most people think of the government as wasteful, inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt to more or less degrees, and I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes.
I committed a while back to giving 10% of my income to charity henceforth, probably for my whole life. I know I've felt much better when I raised money for St. Jude's or Grand Ormond Street children's hospitals than when I wrote a check to the IRS to fund the latest special interest-fueled debacle.
There's a "the evil rich are against us" narrative in movies and stories a lot, but I wonder if the perception will start to change when all the good from these endeavors is realized. I think it's quite likely that smart people allocating resources intelligently will do 10x, 20x, 50x more good with the money than a politician possibly could.
[+] [-] muhfuhkuh|15 years ago|reply
These are areas which charities (and corporations, for that matter) have sometimes fallen short due to either lack of funding or the mission-critical nature of the moment. Either way, we must agree that it's tough to conclude that governments are completely incompetent and charities aren't, however apt the perception may be.
[+] [-] DevX101|15 years ago|reply
But I also don't like the idea of a permanent aristocratic class where generation after generation are born into opulence because your great grandfather created a great company.
The movement towards philanthropy is a great alternative as long there are clearly defined and applied metrics of success. Gates Foundation does a good job at this. If you claim you're going to change the world, but you can't prove it, you won't get funding again.
[+] [-] philwelch|15 years ago|reply
As long as things like that need to be done, someone needs to pay taxes. And Warren Buffett would be the first to tell you he and his fellow billionaires should be the one paying the taxes.
[+] [-] ohyes|15 years ago|reply
Firstly,
"I know I'd prefer to see money allocated by smart people like Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg than by politicians who need to keep constituents happy and win votes."
I feel like you are treating these conditions as being mutually exclusive, and they do not need to be. I want money allocated by intelligent people who need to keep constituents happy. And I want them to have smart constituents, so that they are actually held accountable making bad allocations. This is because I want a large number of problems to be taken care of expediently.
Secondly,
Rich != Smart.
I don't see how it is that being rich makes Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg better at allocating resources. Sure, they have some business savvy, but there is a certain amount of luck involved as well (as with any statistical out-lier). This doesn't account for others who made their money through inheritance, and are dumb (really dumb).
The point is not that 'the evil rich are against us,' the point is that they benefit exponentially from government protections compared to a normal person and should provide funds accordingly. I don't see how any of these people would be able to hold onto (or even establish) their wealth without the protections (and utilities, and services) afforded by the government (and if they were, it would simply be some sort of Monarchy).
(ex. The rich don't just benefit from their own use of public roads, they benefit from their employees and customers use as well. How do the rich obtain intelligent, educated labor without required public education? How do they plan to hold onto wealth as they accumulate it without the enforcement of various property laws?)
Charity is good, don't give me wrong. But the rich are hardly victims of the government.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bertil|15 years ago|reply
I won't diminish the impact of being associated to massively successful people, or simply having spectacularly talented people manage those funds, but please don't confuse the good feeling of being in control with actual marginal impact.
[+] [-] stretchwithme|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Benjo|15 years ago|reply
At some level this type of thinking lets government off the hook. Philanthropy by the ultra rich is not a solution to government waste and won't solve the fundamental problems in the US government.
[+] [-] nickpinkston|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Patient0|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DevX101|15 years ago|reply
"I want to leave enough money to my children that they can do anything, but no so much that they will do nothing".
[+] [-] petenixey|15 years ago|reply
It would be wonderful to see some of SV's glitterati create more for-profit investment networks (bigger than Kiva, smaller than VC (...YC?)) in other hungry markets.
Kudos to Mark for committing to this. If he applies his product-brilliance to how he goes about it I'm sure he will do wonderful things.
(Alexis this has your name written all over it BTW ;)
[+] [-] jacoblyles|15 years ago|reply
And I also will bet that privatized school systems will perform better than public school bureaucracies that receive hundred million dollar gifts.
The invisible hand is puckish like that.
[+] [-] helium|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pero|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narrator|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stretchwithme|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petenixey|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burgerbrain|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiaoma|15 years ago|reply
Elon Musk is doing great things. How many other potential Musks are there whose opportunities to do such things were cut short due to the very problems the Gates foundation addresses? Even just in his home country, South Africa, there have likely been a few.
[+] [-] mquander|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smallhands|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonlotito|15 years ago|reply
Edit: I'm not against people advancing the human race mind you (advancing the advanced). However, neither is Bill Gates merely handing out money. He's teaching men to fish, rather than simply giving them fillets.
[+] [-] tzs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manhotten|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] grandalf|15 years ago|reply
It's ultimately a socially lauded thing to do that divorces the donor from any ultimate responsibility for the amount of "greater good" done with the funds. I think they do it out of fear that they were a lucky, one-hit wonder... and out of low self-esteem or fear of the angry mob.
YC is a great example of a way to use wealth to make a real difference. PG uses his acumen to help a lot more people level up. This multiplies wealth. Spending it on charities simply redistributes it.
It makes me very pessimistic to see that the world's wealthiest people feel the need simply to pledge the money away, and no need to risk total failure by going out on a limb to do something bigger than whatever got them there.
What if Bill Gates tried some long shot idea and it flopped? What if Zuckerberg or Case did? That would take real courage. This pledge nonsense reminds me of the self-satisfied smirks people emit when publicly putting money into the collection basket in a church. Why isn't one of these rich guys going to bat for Wikileaks? (Probably because it feels a lot better to be praised all the time for being such a great person by all the sycophants trying to get you to write a check!)
[+] [-] quizbiz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j4pe|15 years ago|reply
But wouldn't it be amusing if Facebook were to go the way of preceding social networks, and leave the "world's youngest billionaire" looking a little silly for pledging a fortune that never materialized?
[+] [-] keiferski|15 years ago|reply
But I wonder why more ridiculously wealthy entrepreneurs don't, ya know, preneur? Especially in the nonprofit "make a difference space".
A billion dollars to charity is cool. You know what's really cool? A billion dollars towards a celebrity billionaire-spearheaded do-good project. (Or 1 million dollars each towards 1000 projects, etc.)
Maybe I'm missing something, and I'm certainly no billionaire, so I probably am. But if I were a billionaire, I'd be more interested in angel investing (in promising, impactful projects) and my bringing my own ideas to life.
But I digress. Bravo to the billionaires. Really, this is awesome.
[+] [-] nhangen|15 years ago|reply
"The pledge does not involve pooling money or supporting a particular set of causes or organizations. The pledge asks only that the individual give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charitable organizations either before or after their death."
Interesting way to do this. I still don't really understand the need for a pledge of this magnitude, but at least they aren't pooling the money or soliciting for specific causes.
That being said, I still think Zuck is far too young to make such a strong commitment.
[+] [-] markbao|15 years ago|reply
I'd pledge if I had any hugely significant sum like the others in the pledge, but alas.
[+] [-] te_platt|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessriedel|15 years ago|reply
Lives in the developing world can be saved for less than $1000/life (that is, something like $20 per disability-adjusted-life-year). You personally could save dozens--perhaps hundred--of human lives, which I consider to be hugely significant.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] webXL|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhangen|15 years ago|reply
Look, I'm not advocating against giving, but I don't think jumping into pledges is the smartest way to begin.
[+] [-] yason|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jun8|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] code_duck|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glhaynes|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loewenskind|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meric|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulitex|15 years ago|reply
These guys all have around the same net worth as Zuck, but much more liquidity. Sergey "don't be evil" Brin's absence from the list is a particularly curious... Anyone know what his philanthropic track record is like? Is it mostly through Google.org?
[+] [-] pclark|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reneighbor|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scorpion032|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply