
Bill and Melinda Gates Aren’t Leaving Their Kids Billions - ibsathish
http://www.wired.com/business/2014/03/bill-melinda-gates-arent-leaving-billions-kids/?mbid=social_twitter
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jw2013
They left the most valuable gift to their children - great education from
their parents, and they gave the most valuable present to some less
priviledged children in the world - the chance to be educated with the help of
Bill&Melinda foundation. Well done, Bills.

~~~
Cowicide
That was some nice ass kissing. Megalomaniacs love it when people do that.

~~~
Fede_V
I know hating is easy, but this is a genuinely commendable thing that the
Gates are doing, and they deserve praise for it.

If you want to call out Gates, you can criticize his attitude towards closed
source software, IP, etc, but his charity contributions are awesome. Compare
him and his family with the current generation Waltons, for example.

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onion2k
They aren't alone. There's a movement called "The Giving Pledge" started by
the Gates' and Warren Buffet that very wealthy people (read: billionaires) are
signing up to that promises they will give away at least half of their
fortune. Over 100 have signed up so far.

You can read about them all here:
[http://givingpledge.org/](http://givingpledge.org/)

~~~
ttctciyf
Can someone create thetakingpledge.com/ so that I can sign up?

~~~
bertil
Yes, but the exact URLs are oxfam.co.uk, redcross.org and telethon.org

Organisations focused on the people in need, but operated by people with money
have been too much under the spotlight, allowing many to give hardly anything
yet enough to set up a photo op. The point of the Giving Pledge is to focus on
how much someone can give without harming a reasonable lifestyle.

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chrisBob
Our plan is to not let the kids know how much money we have. It obviously
doesn't work if you are a billionare, but you can hide the first few million
dollars living in a decent house in the Carolinas as long as you don't feel
the need to drive a Porsche.

I don't understand why anyone would want to raise an entitled brat.

~~~
newaccountfool
Unless your kids are stupid then I don't see how that is going to work. They
will realise.

~~~
398cn3erf
I had no idea that my parents were (moderately) wealthy until I had to fill
out the financial aide application for colleges. They never talked about how
much they made and gave us little money. I was the last to have a Gameboy
among my friends and had the smallest allowance.

It may also have helped that I had no interest in cars, so I didn't realize
that driving BMW/Mercedes had any significance, and we had never stayed at a
hotel that wasn't 5-stars so I just assumed all of them were like that.

~~~
chrisBob
You sound very sheltered, which I would also like to avoid.

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tluyben2
Bill Gates has always said he wouldn't do that. This is not news; good he is
not coming back on it though.

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downandout
Let's not get carried away with this - it's pretty disingenuous. Most people
are motivated to work, at least in part, because they will starve and be
homeless if they don't. I doubt that these kids will ever face the threat of
such a fate, regardless of how much they mess up or how lazy they are.

Further, regardless of how much money they are actually left, those children
will live billionaire lifestyles for the rest of their lives. Out of security
concerns, Bill has likely arranged for bodyguards and ensured that they will
be able to travel via private jet for the rest of their lives. The Gates
family owns multiple homes, one in Washington being over 50,000 square feet,
that will likely stay in the family and where the children would presumably be
allowed to stay should they choose.

Hopefully his kids choose to be productive. But the idea behind this - that he
is leaving them enough to "do anything they want, but not enough to do
nothing" \- simply isn't true. They could do nothing and be just fine.

~~~
thefreeman
How is it disingenuous. You have presented a bunch of opinions of what you
think is going to happen and say that therefore, the statement is false.

The Gates' have billions of dollars. I have seen it stated that each kid will
be inheriting something like a million dollars, which yes, is a lot of money,
but nowhere near enough money to do nothing for the rest of your life, and a
drop in the bucket compared to the family fortune.

Just because you "presume" the family estates, etc., will not be sold for
charity despite all of their statements otherwise doesn't make it true.

~~~
droopybuns
It has been 5 years since gates formed the giving pledge. In that time, he
lost and regained the position as the world's richest man.

This is not supportive of a claim that this is genuine. I'm a little tired of
the wealthy bragging about how they are like, totally generous and stuff.

~~~
tanzam75
> IIt has been 5 years since gates formed the giving pledge. In that time, he
> lost and regained the position as the world's richest man. This is not
> supportive of a claim that this is genuine.*

Huh?

Bill Gates has most of his wealth in US equities. Thus US stock market
returned over 30% last year.

Warren Buffett has almost all of his wealth in Berkshire Hathaway. BRK
underperformed the stock market last year.

Carlos Slim has almost all of his wealth in Mexican companies. The Mexican
stock market returned -10% last year.

It's not hard to see how Bill Gates increased his wealth relative to his
competitors, despite giving away billions of dollars every year.

What's more, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given away $30 billion
since it was established. Where do you think the money came from? Warren
Buffett's contributions have thus far been in the single-digit billions.

If you stop believing in conspiracy theories and try looking at the data,
you'll understand the world a lot better.

~~~
droopybuns
Please don't lecture me about conspiracy theories or data. Ask yourself why
you are being an apologist for this douche.

Here is some raw data for you:

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/03/06/bill_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/03/06/bill_gates_net_worth_he_s_9_billion_richer_than_a_year_ago_but_most_of_his.html)

He has continuously increased his wealth, while trying to convince young
entrepreneurs to start planning to give away half of their wealth before they
are even 30. He started late and he has a pile of money that compounds away at
a rate that it has become absurd. He has the audacity to claim that now that
he is retired, he is just giving it away.

It is disingenuous and smug for him to start claiming 5 years ago that he's
going to start giving away half his money and have him end up with more than
cash than when he started. It is an embarassment.

~~~
tanzam75
> _Please don 't lecture me about conspiracy theories or data. Ask yourself
> why you are being an apologist for this douche._

It's pretty clear that you're not interested in reaching conclusions by
interpreting the data. Rather, you just want to call Bill Gates names, and
prefer to cherry-pick the data to do it with.

For example:

> _It is disingenuous and smug for him to start claiming 5 years ago that he
> 's going to start giving away half his money and have him end up with more
> than cash than when he started. It is an embarassment._

First, he started giving away his money a lot more than five years ago.
Second, he did not plan to give away half his wealth -- he planned to give
away all of it. Third, very few people who've taken the Giving Pledge have
seen their wealth decrease. The market has simply performed well recently.

Imagine if Bill Gates followed a strict policy of ending each year with less
money as you suggest. Thus, he would give $20 billion in a year in which the
markets one go up 30%, and $0 in a year in which the markets fall. This is a
_terrible_ way to give out money. Charities would be unable to undertake any
long-term projects with that kind of fluctuation.

That is why your criticism of Bull Gates is not only highly misleading, but
highly illogical. Philanthropists _should_ hold onto the money in good times,
so that they can continue giving in bad times -- precisely when it is most
needed.

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bdavisx
Hopefully they will leave something in case one or more of the kids "fall
down" later in life. I think Bill and Melinda might be discounting the luck
factor that they have had in their own fortune. While I'm not saying that they
didn't work their butts off to get where they are, there was a lot of luck
involved as well.

Imagine how they would feel if, after they were gone (and I realize they can't
feel anything at that point...), one of their kids was in their 50's and lost
everything because of bad luck - cancer or other disease for example. Then the
"kid" had to live his/her life out in poverty. How sad would that be that
he/she had the richest parents in the world (due to good luck) but lived in
poverty because of bad luck.

~~~
hnal943
I think giving them a million dollars to start and teaching them to work gives
them a better-than-average chance to avoid "bad luck." Doing nothing at all
with the money except living on the interest would give them a middle class
salary.

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yabbadabbadoo
The best actionable advice I've read to date regarding giving money to kids
without spoiling them - _For every dollar they earn, give them $N. That way
they have to work, but they don 't have to work a repulsive yuppie job to
enjoy a comfortable lifestyle._

[http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-
retirement/](http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/)

~~~
cousin_it
If two different families are doing this, then it's exploitable: Alice earns 1
dollar, receives 5 dollars from her parents, gives them to Bob, Bob tells his
parents he earned them, receives 25 dollars, gives them back to Alice, Alice
tells her parents she earned them, receives 125 dollars... Or even in one
family, the child could "reinvest" part of the $N received this month to get
more money next month. The obvious workaround is for the parents to check the
child's salary slips, but if the child's employer is in on the scheme, that
won't help.

~~~
_mulder_
"Hi Mum, I earned $125k a month working at the local Food Bank...again! Can I
have my $625k now please?"

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MarkTee
Andrew Carnegie recommended this in "The Gospel of Wealth" (written in 1889):

[http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-
idx...](http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-
idx?c=nora;cc=nora;rgn=full%20text;idno=nora0148-6;didno=nora0148-6;view=image;seq=0661;node=nora0148-6%3A1)

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bayesianhorse
I could care less if their children are leading productive lives. Leaving them
some amount of money is probably not going to change a lot either way.

For that matter I don't care much if anybody "has to work for a living".
Anything else would be jealousy.

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mcv
Sounds remarkably sensible. I'd do the same in their place: leave your kids
well-educated and pretty well-off, but not filthy rich. Let them make their
own life, rather than living off daddy's riches.

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stkni
I think I could've guessed this about Bill and Melinda based on what we
already know about their non-billionaire like lifestyle.

It's an approach to be lauded, but one thing their children will always have
is that they started out privileged which is itself a huge inheritance.

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badman_ting
Their name/lineage and connections to community (ie, forms of wealth that
can't be quantified nor taken away) will be enough to live a life most of us
only dream of. Of course I still think it's nice that the Gateses are doing
this.

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chiurox
Even if their kids aren't left with much money, they will definitely leverage
their parents' influence across so many areas and be able to do anything they
want.

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artumi-richard
neither am i

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xname
I am glad Darwin's parent did not think this way.

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RyanZAG
Probably just some kind of tax loophole.

~~~
uvTwitch
Bill Gates has already won at Money, why do you think he'd still be interested
in playing?

~~~
Jach
What impresses me most about his epic win is that he's still #1 in the world
for net worth (or occasionally #2 or #3) -- can you imagine if he was still
actively trying to get even more personally wealthy?

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arsemouflon
This comes as a huge surprise!

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alexeisadeski3
Presumably their kids will manage the multi billion dollar trust.

~~~
zimpenfish
Isn't his goal to have given it "all" (leaving a few tens of millions for the
kids) to charity before he dies?

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alexeisadeski3
Yes, and presumably the kids would manage the charity.

Or maybe not. Up to him/them. But that's what I'd do.

~~~
davegardner
The Foundation won't be around forever. Its been setup to spend all of its
funds within 20 years of Bill and Melinda's deaths.

