
Reflecting on the first two decades of our foundation - sturza
https://www.gatesnotes.com/2020-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=20200210000000_AL2020_BG-TW_&WT.tsrc=BGTW
======
helsinkiandrew
Off topic, but that headline instantly reminded me of the "In a world without
fences who needs Gates" t-shirts popular at JavaOne in about 1997

~~~
dotancohen
Thanks for mentioning the origin! As a Debian user I've only ever heard it
told along with "In a world without walls who needs Windows".

------
reallydontask
I remember in 2001 (could be 2002) having a discussion with a flat mate, in
which he argued that ultimately, Bill Gates would be a force for good through
his foundation.

I was unconvinced, given the Microsoft of the 1990s, but I think that
ultimately he was right.

The more interesting question is: Would the world be a better place had MS not
been so successful?

A back of the envelope analysis would suggest that, given how Bill Gates has
behaved with his fortune, who is likely to benefit from his foundation work
and who suffered from MS practices, overall the world is a better place.

~~~
bobosha
I couldn't agree more. Bill G. is arguably the greatest philanthropist of our
time, perhaps of all time. Not only does he bring his considerable wealth, but
the business acumen to make sure the money is effectively spent, and a keen
eye for detail into solving some of the world's toughest problems.

I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bill &
Melinda.

~~~
palae
> I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Bill &
> Melinda.

What about this, though: [https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-surprise-
winner-dollar...](https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-surprise-winner-
dollar10b-pentagon-contract/)

"Late Friday, the Department of Defense announced that Microsoft has won the
Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, known as JEDI. The decision
was the culmination of a two-year process that also included Google, IBM, and
Oracle, and where Amazon was long seen as the favorite.

JEDI, potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years, has been positioned by the
Pentagon as crucial to modernizing its use of technology—and making the US
military more deadly.

“We must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy
modernized technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform,” DoD Chief
Information Officer Dana Deasy said in a statement. At an event launching the
bidding process in early 2018, the department’s chief management officer, John
H. Gibson II, told tech industry leaders that one priority was “increasing the
lethality of our department.” "

~~~
reallydontask
I don't think that they are (Bill and Melinda) involved in the running of
Microsoft these days. I think Bill has a seat at the board but that's about it
(He's also a technical advisor, it would seem)

~~~
palae
For sure, but I feel like he still has enough share of the company ("only"
1.3%, but that's a lot of money) that what they are doing is relevant to the
discussion.

------
RickJWagner
I really like what Gates is doing with his money.

He's making the world a better place, through a 'voluntary' tax. (People don't
have to buy Microsoft products, if they don't want to. But when they do, they
enrich Gates a bit more and thus contribute to his actions.)

I hope to see more of this from other rich people. I think it may be one of
the best and most efficient ways to equalize the world.

------
supernova87a
I have a different question -- why is philanthropy on this scale such a
predominantly American phenomenon? And even on smaller, less mega-wealthy
scales? Why is European wealth not associated with charitable foundations and
such kinds of global funding?

Is it because the role of the state is supposed to be so much greater in
Europe? Whereas in the US, personal / family charity takes the place of a less
encompassing social role of government?

Just doing some random searching, I find reports that US charitable giving is
2 to 5x greater than in European countries (as share of GDP).

Maybe it's also tied up in the US tendency to give donations to political
causes, etc? Or the idea that the newness of American cities, towns led to a
culture of people contributing to civic works (whereas in Europe, most things
already "existed")? Like how in the US, universities had to be founded and
funded by benefactors in an ongoing way, whereas in Europe, they're so old and
"set for life" that they don't need alumni to support them (or are more fully
funded by the state)?

~~~
onion2k
_Why is European wealth not associated with charitable foundations and such
kinds of global funding?_

European tax law doesn't let wealthy people write off donations to the same
extent as American tax law.

~~~
Thorrez
That just means they can only donate 1/2 as much (assuming at 50% tax rate).
They can still donate though.

------
saadalem
Anyone does know why he just purchased a superyacht for 645m $ ? It works on
hydrogen and will travels 4000miles before needing to refuel.

~~~
pg_bot
Seems to be fake news

[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51446663](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51446663)

------
d-d
Can someone explain to me why it's more philanthropic to amass billions
instead of sharing profits with employees?

Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a
billion?

~~~
chii
> Like why doesn't Gates or Bezos give everyone a $100k bonus and keep a
> billion?

If you're looking to do philanthropic actions, giving all employees $100k
doesn't do anything. It merely increases the wealth of those employees by a
bit. What about fighting malaria? What about fighting climate change? Do you
seriously expect all those recipients of $100k would all contribute as much
proportionally?

And those employees have already been paid their agreed wages/salaries. So why
does giving them extra money makes it more philanthropic?

~~~
js8
> It merely increases the wealth of those employees by a bit. What about
> fighting malaria? What about fighting climate change? Do you seriously
> expect all those recipients of $100k would all contribute as much
> proportionally?

Yes. In a sane democratic system, I would expect government to finance these
projects. And it does.

Now you can somehow make an argument that people in democracy are less likely
to support these projects than they are alone as wealthy people. I don't see
how it would work. Self-selected billionaires are on average less selfish than
ordinary people?

~~~
TeMPOraL
There are more important observations to make:

\- The budget of a democratic nation isn't under direct control of its
constituents, so average selfishness of the citizens has nothing to do with
it.

\- A democratic nation has lots of interests jockeying for the budget, and can
easily swallow arbitrary amounts of money.

\- Almost all of that money is spent on improving the things for that nation,
so a nation state is not the best organization to task with solving a
global/international problem.

Most importantly though, the more diffused the money, the less effective it
is. Coordinating people costs _a lot_ (think of how much charities spend on
advertising!). With his fortune, Gates can just drop $60M on some promising
anti-malaria activity; in the alternative reality d-d/you are proposing, it's
unlikely that 600 of his employees would suddenly coordinate to drop their
$100k on that operation; most likely, no money would be donated at all.

So the argument essentially boils down to _focus_. Much like with distractions
and personal productivity, both the market and a government budget can absorb
arbitrary amounts of diffuse money with little of value to show for it; it
takes focused, bulk money under control of a person to move the needle on some
issue.

~~~
js8
I don't buy the focus argument. It looks to me as an argument against free
market, towards some kind of central planning. Focus can be surprisingly
inefficient.

Isn't the whole point of free market that the money end up distributed to
citizens (consumers), who then choose what to do with it, and what problems to
tackle?

I also think we have Bill Gates (very focusedly) fighting malaria on one side,
and Koch brothers (also focusedly) fighting for coal on the other. I am not
convinced that in the sum, the side of Bill Gates has won.

If we perhaps diffuse the money, maybe we will actually find enough people to
fight malaria, but there will be less people willing to spread lies about
climate change. Because there are actually more ordinary people having trouble
with malaria than ordinary people having trouble what to do with a coal mine
once coal mining gets out of fashion.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It is an argument against free market - to the extent that some people think
it's a panacea for all problems. It isn't.

Free markets work best when needs are diverse and not easy to identify. The
money flows along feedback loops and finds its way to where it serves best. At
least for a while, until those with money use it to redirect more money
towards them. But that's a topic for another day.

Ultimately, both Gates and Koch brothers got their money in the free market.
It's hard to have one without the other. I think it's best to encourage more
rich people to be like Gates, because we'll always have plenty of Kochs.

------
Sebguer
Where does the 600 million dollar superyacht fit into this all?

~~~
martokus
Pleasure. I feel sorry about Bill and Melinda because the expectations of them
are super high as you just proved yourself. Instead of laying on the beach of
a private island they travel around the world meeting people having what-not
ilnesses. For any sane person this must be a taxing experience. They need to
wind down from time to time. I would have taken a gap year a decade ago. What
they do is admirable. And if he wants to buy a billion $ coffee mug he should
- it's well earned after all.

~~~
thundergolfer
It’s boggling to me that you’d imply that in order to “wind down” Gates needs
to spend $650 million dollars. He is a human being and there is no evidence to
suggest people worth 100,000 a middle class westerner needs to spend multiple
order of magnitude more money to treat stress.

This is making me wish for more Jack Dorsey’s who spend mere thousands on
meditation retreats.

Your coffee mug example makes your reflexive defence of billionaire excess
even more obvious. I’m with Peter Singer and the Effective Altruists, we
absolutely should criticize the rich for buying Rolex when Timex will do, and
the savings can be used to buy medicine for sick children. The yacht is like
50,000 Rolex watches.

------
alecco
I think Gates means well and it's commendable how he puts his money where his
mouth is. But, blank aid only works as a a temporary fix.

What drives society out of poverty is a mix of reasonably levels of free
markets, respect of private property, security, affordable health, low
corruption, low marginal economy, and a stable law system.

Aid seems to be counter-productive in the long run because it kills the local
markets and makes people dependent on it.

~~~
AmericanChopper
Good points, but the commonly stated objective of philanthropy is to solve
entire categories of problems. You could go on giving billions of dollars to
the poor just so they can get by, and eventually that money would run out, and
if the people you were helping weren’t worse off, they likely wouldn’t be much
better off by then. But money spent on attempting to eradicate malaria for
example doesn’t have the same dynamics.

There are also other forms of just regular old charity that have a similar
ROI. Money spent on educating children had a tremendous ROI, so does
investment in infrastructure.

~~~
alecco
We should work on helping people have the money to buy malaria medicine or
whatever they need. This is a long term fix.

------
thundergolfer
I genuinely believe Bill and Melinda Gates care about child poverty and
disease, but they do things which are just ethically broken.

“At the core of our foundation’s work is the idea that every person deserves
the chance to live a healthy and productive life.”

The issue of child poverty and disease is huge, as they know, and every dollar
that goes to it can be put to useful work. How then, can they justify spending
$625,000,000 on a mega yacht of obscene luxury?

My donating $7000 dollars to the Against Malaria foundation statistically
saves 1 child from dying of Malaria. That foundation is not saying “please
stop sending money, we have enough”. They could use more.

Given their stated “core” idea, and such a stark choice between a child’s life
and just one $7000 fraction of their new yacht, how on earth did they justify
the full 90,000 * $7000 cost?

