

An elusive billionaire gives away his good fortune - gongfudoi
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-feeney8mar08,0,4946397,full.story

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Prrometheus
I'm repeatedly miffed that these articles admire rich people for giving money
away, but they never recognize the good that they do for society in making the
money in the first place. There's almost an implicit assumption that business
is a necessary evil that we have to endure to enjoy the goodness of
philanthropy.

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bayareaguy
Making money is not the same as creating wealth. I generally admire people
more for the wealth they create than the money they accumulate.

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curi
the way to accumulate money is:

you create wealth. you give it to other people in exchange for money -- for
promises to pay you back in wealth later. then _accumulating_ money means you
don't call in those promises, you just hold on to them. as long as you do
that, other people got wealth you created, and you haven't gotten anything
back yet. (well of course you spent some money, but the more you accumulate,
the less you've asked in return for what you did)

~~~
bayareaguy
That's what I would call first-order wealth (i.e. basic goods or services).
It's the equivalent of the fish you give (or perhaps sell) that allows someone
to eat for a day. Getting rich that way is a matter of knowing how much to
charge and how much to spend so that you accumulate a surplus.

The problem with this kind of "wealth" is that it doesn't have much of a
network effect.

I admire second-order wealth creators more. This kind of wealth is the
knowledge you give (or sell) when you teach someone to fish. This creates the
possibility of more first-order wealth without significantly diminishing the
seller's wealth (unless the value of the knowledge itself is directly related
to its scarcity).

The guy in the original article is clearly a first-order rich guy. While I
applaud him for helping worthy causes, I'd admire him more if he were a
creator of second-order wealth, perhaps by starting a YC-like company which
would help start new companies in that industry.

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curi
Look at amazon, ebay, and walmart -- very useful things to have. Selling lots
of 'first-order' goods, cheaply, helps a lot of people tremendously.

It's not clear to me how to judge which is better, but it is clear to me that
both are awesome.

~~~
bayareaguy
While Walmart is basically a ruthlessly efficient first-order company, I'd say
eBay is more of a second-order company since it sells a sales-enhancing
service and Amazon is somewhere in between since it does both.

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yters
Dang, that makes me want to be a billionaire too! Inspired, rms?

~~~
curi
I want a billionaire friend >_>

Let's team up. How about you become a billionaire and I'll keep working on
befriending you.

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yters
Hmm...sure, as soon as you give me the money!

It would be interesting to be a venture capitalist though. I could fairly
easily save up enough to pay for someone's ramen, and I know at least one
directionless hacker. Now all I need is a killer idea!

~~~
curi
How about a web 2.0 site for parents (large potential audience) with social
features that tells them that their ideas about parenting are deeply mistaken.
That's bound to be a big hit.

~~~
yters
And one for gamers telling them they shouldn't play so much, and should
interact with real people; one for business people telling them they should
work less and spend more time with family and friends; and one for all the web
addicted geeks out there telling them the same thing.

Then, once they sign up, they can feel good about themselves because they
_did_ something! I'll call it webGym, since it serves the same purpose -
relieving guilt by paying money:)

~~~
curi
Do you count chess as a game?

~~~
yters
No, I like chess too, so it doesn't count. You can play chess obsessively
without any guilt.

