
Paul Allen commits majority of his wealth to philanthropy - muon
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thebusinessofgiving/2012363890_paul_allen_signs_billionaire_p.html
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yumraj
Even at the expense of sounding like a troll, it always amazes me, really it
does, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen the two founders of the so called "evil"
MS have given so much money to charity while we haven't seen any such moves
from Jobs and Woz the founders of "think-different" Apple.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it.

~~~
andreyf
Woz has spent decades teaching 5th graders. He donated most of his money to
the school district he worked with. My bias might be showing, but this seems a
lot better approach to education than throwing money at it like the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation:

 _Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars
on its first big project, trying to revitalize U.S. high schools by making
them smaller, only to discover that student body size has little effect on
achievement._ [1]

At the expense of sounding like a troll, it amazes me that throwing tons of
money at problems is commonly accepted as a noble thing. What we're lacking
isn't money, it's imagination - we need new ideas for measuring achievement
and improving education, and while economic power can act as a catalyst to
implementing such changes, it's in no way sufficient for making a lasting
positive impact on its own.

1\.
[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b41880582...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b4188058281758.htm)

~~~
parallax7d
Not only does gates throw lots of money at problems, they follow up the
results with effectiveness studies.

~~~
andreyf
And what makes his definition of "effectiveness" any good? When goals are as
clear as "maximize profit", I have no doubt Bill Gates is one of the most
competent in the field. However, when it's as vague as "improve education", I
have serious doubts.

I'd trust a passionate fifth grade teacher to make good judgements of what's
best for their students' education over a billionaire entrepreneur any day.

~~~
anigbrowl
Where do you think the mantra of 'smaller class sizes = better education' came
from in the first place? Though I don't doubt the advice was was honestly
intended, teachers do have an economic interest in reducing class sizes (as it
increases demand for their educational skills and accordingly, wages). It's
got to be easier to teach 10 kids than 20, and we generally feel we're more
productive when we're not overly stressed, the economic implications of the
'small is beautiful' policy were incidental or even unconscious [1].

So, the Gates foundation spent a lot of money discovering that this has little
real effect on educational outcomes. I don't regard that as a waste - it may
have been an expensive lesson, but I presume the money was spent on
_subsidizing smaller class sizes in schools_. The understanding we've gained
will save many _billions_ of taxpayer dollars from being spent on a widespread
but mistaken belief about teacher:student ratios, which is a significant
public good.

[1] I say 'were', because now that we have evidence of the policy's
ineffectiveness, many teachers' union members have designated the Gates
Foundation and Obama's education secretary as evil corporatists out to wreck
public education.

~~~
andreyf
_I don't regard that as a waste - it may have been an expensive lesson, but I
presume the money was spent on subsidizing smaller class sizes in schools._

I can assure you that when a smart teacher who spends every day with kids says
one thing about what's better for their education, and the Gates' Foundation's
research says another, I have trouble seeing the validity of the latter.

What I'm saying is that yes, smaller class sizes are a requisite for a better
education. Have you ever been in a classroom?

~~~
jacquesm
> Have you ever been in a classroom?

Are you suggesting Anigbrowl does not have any education ?

~~~
andreyf
No, I'm suggesting he's a little too quick in believing the "scientific
method" over people with direct experience in a classroom.

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kylelibra
"The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no
longer belongs to him." -Voltaire

~~~
hugh3
Apparently he's unmarried and has no children, so there's not really many good
options for his estate _apart_ from charity. I suppose he could disperse it
among nieces and nephews, or build himself a pyramid for a tomb, but charity
seems like the obvious route.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
No, I say build the pyramid!

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c1sc0
Now _that_ is a worthy goal to set for a budding entrepreneur: becoming a
future philanthropist.

~~~
nhebb
That was Andrew Carnegie's goal. Way before becoming rich he had a goal to
give away mass sums of money. He wrote about his philanthropic philosophy in
_The Gospel of Wealth_ , summarized here:
<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1889carnegie.html>

~~~
rbanffy
Erm... Did Carnegie state his goal was to give away money before he acquired
massive amounts of it or was it after being labeled a robber-baron?

It's easy to say that being a nice guy was your goal all along after you get
caught.

Not that Paul Allen is not a nice guy. There seems to be no evidence on the
contrary.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Carnegie considered retiring at 35, when he was rich enough not to need to
work more. But he kept working for the next few decades, and ended up making
about 200X as much.

He wrote himself a memorandum, in which he totaled up his net worth and
income, and decided it was enough. Apparently it wasn't, but that's a couple
thousand libraries, organs, etc. that he otherwise wouldn't have purchased.

Oddly enough, Warren Buffett wrote something similar at about the same age,
when he also semi-retired. Like Carnegie, he went back to work, multiplied his
fortune a few more times, and had a lot more to give away at the end.

~~~
rbanffy
I agree that Carnegie, in the end, made a lot of good things possible. Still,
it bothers me that we are so eager to consider that ends justify the means if
the ends favor us.

Carnegie ruined lots of people. Along with his good deeds, you must consider
the good all these other people never were able to do thanks to him. What
makes his good deeds more worthy than the good deeds he prevented?

~~~
colinplamondon
How did he ruin people? His company was incredibly progressive for its time.

~~~
rbanffy
Ruthless competition, mostly. The example that illustrates his character is
not related to this kind of behaviour, but to how he treated his workforce.

The Homestead strike was caused by a broken promise to tie salaries to profits
which, made in a downturn, reduced payments. When profits returned, he broke
the promise, refused to keep salaries tied to profits, locked out the union
workers who protested and used violence to end them. In the end, he hired
immigrant workers in place of the previous employees, working for less in
harsher conditions.

Not exactly role model.

<http://bit.ly/8XRSwN>

This quote is, IIRC (lost track of the book and had to resort to Google) from
Theodore Roosevelt.

~~~
Retric
FYI: There is no reason to use url shorteners on hn and many people will not
click on them.

~~~
rbanffy
Sorry. The URL was so huge I felt bad. When more than 50% of the message is a
insanely long URL, something is clearly wrong.

~~~
sp332
HN truncates the display of long URLs. Yours is
[http://books.google.com/books?id=ni0EsmebjYwC&pg=RA1-PA7...](http://books.google.com/books?id=ni0EsmebjYwC&pg=RA1-PA750&dq=if+andrew+carnegie+had+employed+his+fortune&hl=en&ei=cIZATMJ1hIqXB67cyZsO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=if%20andrew%20carnegie%20had%20employed%20his%20fortune&f=false)

~~~
rbanffy
Cool!

------
earle
An amazing gift from an amazing individual and one of the original hackers.

~~~
rbanffy
Indeed. He was the best of the early Microsoft.

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protomyth
He earned it so he can spend it anyway he wants, but it would probably help a
lot more people if he used the money to become an angel investor in a lot of
small businesses that would employ a lot of people. Funding startups in bio
and space that would advance the technology, but probably wouldn't get funding
from other sources.

~~~
devinj
No, he probably wouldn't. Look, I understand that this site has a lot of
startups, but don't let the echo chamber go to your head. Funding startups is
expensive-- we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars minimum, I expect,
for a startup that most likely will fail. That same hundreds of thousands of
dollars can save the lives of thousands of people that are starving to death
or dying of disease.

~~~
protomyth
True, but a billion does a lot of startups and research money leads to
treatments.

Also, doing a small business equivalent to the charity that pays single bill
for a person (since many people are one bill away from broke) would help
amazingly well. Buying a expensive coffee machine for the local family bakery,
or paying a months rent for the some other local business might put them on
solid ground and allow them to hire people. I just think someone with his
business talent could really build neighborhoods better than most generic
charities.

Once again, it is his money and how he chooses to spend it is his business and
is amazingly generous.

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parallax7d
This is a good step, but the state should also be taxing them at close to 90%
as well. That way all the other billionaires who don't care about philanthropy
are forced to contribute back into the system that allowed them to gain the
wealth in the first place.

~~~
mrtron
I don't know why this is being voted down - it is a valid point of view and
historically significant!

There are pros and cons to different tax models. A lot of US history has
contained very high tax rates for the highly wealthy.

This was the first google result (I don't want to promote that org)

<http://s3.moveon.org/images/tax_rate-chart.gif>

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pavs
Which is better?

Just giving away money or targeted investment on critical research/development
and social needs to inflict a lasting change (without taking any profit)?

Would you drop few billion dollars on Africa or would you make investments to
create long-term industry that will give people jobs and help them help
themselves?

I think what Paul/Gates/Buffet and others are doing is great, but I think we
have to start looking at ways to make maximum impact instead of feel-good
philanthropy to non-profit organization.

IMO ofcourse.

~~~
chime
Calling the Gates Foundation some feel-good philanthropy is doing a disservice
to everyone who has contributed towards global health and development:

> Our work in infectious diseases focuses on developing ways to fight and
> prevent enteric and diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria, pneumonia,
> tuberculosis, and neglected and other infectious diseases.

> [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global-
> health/Pages/overview....](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global-
> health/Pages/overview.aspx)

------
jacquesm
Is there a list of achievements of the foundation ?

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Ardit20
Why was he able to make billions anyway?

That money would have been spent better on charging less for his products than
giving it to charity where much will probably be lost in immense bureaucracy.

~~~
c1sc0
Could you define a level of bureaucracy that would be acceptable to you? 10%?
20%? 30%? While many charities _are_ woefully inefficient, so are many
businesses. And charities don't live in some kind of vacuum: inefficient
charities fail just like inefficient businesses.

~~~
Ardit20
Its the greater point which you have missed. He is not being some great guy,
he is not being awesome, in this drunken state I am free to say that which I
wanted to all along, he is a thief pure and simple, it is not HE giving away
money, HE is not being ethical, some kind of god we should all adore for being
so nice to us paroles.

He stole this money. He charged much more for his products than he clearly,
plainly knew he should have. He is not some guy who might have guessed how
much he should charge, thus through trial and error trying to find out. He
knew full well that he was making obscene amounts of money because he was
charging highly for his products.

So my point was not about charities. They are a matter for a different
discussion. My point was, why on earth was he able to make BILLIONS, you know
an amount that millions of us together need to work our Ass off to gain in
perhaps our life time.

Its legitimised theft and nothing else.

~~~
mrtron
I wouldn't advise arguing against capitalism while drunk.

What does the amount they charged for their product have to do with anything?
Pricing is influenced by the market - the market was willing to pay what they
were being charged. I don't know that pure capitalism is the ideal system
(being Canadian I rely on public services like health care) but it is very
difficult to claim he is a thief.

They were wildly successful because they added a lot of value to the market.

------
known
To escape from death tax?

<http://to./4jj5>

------
Tyrannosaurs
Man, he may even give away enough that he's no longer one of the 250 richest
people on the planet.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great gesture but let's put it in perspective. He
is and will remain obscenely rich and this will make absolutely no difference
to him in terms of how he lives his life.

In terms of disposable income and day to day impact on what he can and can't
do, it's probably less significant than someone on this board giving away
$10,000.

~~~
lionhearted
> He is and will remain obscenely rich and this will make absolutely no
> difference to him in terms of how he lives his life.

It will make a difference in lives of millions of others - absolute good is
better than relative good.

> ... day to day impact on what he can and can't do, it's probably less
> significant than someone on this board giving away $10,000.

It's much better for the world for billions to go into productive endeavors
than $10,000. You shouldn't award extra points for suffering. In fact, I award
extra points for a person being able to do massive good _without_ hurting
themselves.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I'm not talking about suffering, I'm talking about not even slightly
restraining the most astronomical privilege.

The man is worth $13bn. He could give away 99% of his wealth and still live
out his days in a level of luxury which will never be experienced by 99% of
Western world's population, let alone the world's.

~~~
c1sc0
And what is wrong with that?

~~~
mrtron
Given our economical system - it is a certainty that certain individuals will
be so wealthy they can afford anything.

The inevitable is hardly wrong!

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
It's only inevitable if you assume that our economic system is right and
immutable. Personally when it creates gaps as big as it does between rich and
poor I dispute that's the case.

Don't get me wrong, we need to encourage risk takers and wealth creators but
how many sports teams or super yachts does one man really need as just reward
for his efforts? Particularly in the case of Paul Allen when many will dispute
that the actions of the company who made his wealth were in the best interests
of the industry.

