
Larry Page: I’d Rather Leave My Billions to Elon Musk Than to Charity - ghosh
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/03/20/google_ceo_larry_page_elon_musk_would_get_my_inheritance_over_charity.html
======
hooande
I think this could be rephrased as "Charitable organizations aren't
interesting enough to deserve my money."

People, especially highly successful people, view charity as giving money
away. Musk's inspirational projects seems much more appealing by comparison.
There is a lot of truth in the idea that doing something like colonizing mars
could do more good for humanity than giving people enough money to eat for a
day or a week. Even what Bill Gates is doing has little impact on people's
daily lives here. Eradicating polio is the most noble of goals, but it takes
place far away and the benefits are difficult to see.

I think the best solution is to make charity cool again. FDR turned giving
money away into something that was literally awesome, using the Tennessee
Valley Authority to reshape the landscape with bridges and dams. 21st century
technology allows us to have a much larger impact on the lives of many more
people, regardless of where they live. Elon Mush doesn't have a monopoly on
big ideas. As a technology community it's up to us to come up with projects
that help people in need while still capturing our imaginations.

It doesn't matter if big problems are solved for profit or solved for charity.
What matters is that they get solved. The danger is that fiduciary
responsibilities will get in the way of doing good, working families will take
a backseat to boards of directors and the rich will get richer [1] while
everyone else struggles to keep even. This is why it would be better to make
charity more interesting as opposed to giving money to dynamic and
inspirational profiteers. It's always been difficult to combine making money
with being of benefit to the world, but we need to raise the entrepreneurial
and creative bar now more than ever. When one of the authors of "Don't Be
Evil" decides that his money is better off in the hands of private
corporations it should be a warning to all of us.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect)

~~~
Mz
_I think the best solution is to make charity cool again... It doesn 't matter
if big problems are solved for profit or solved for charity. What matters is
that they get solved._

I think a lot of problems can be solved using a for profit model. I think,
overall, it tends to be for the best if you can find a for profit model that
is viable for the problem in question. I think the problem is not that it is
for profit, I think the problem is that some for profit models are just not
well suited to solving certain problems.

This is an idea I have thought a great deal about. I have a serious medical
condition. I have spent the last 13 years getting myself well when doctors
claim it cannot be done. I have come to believe that one of the problems is
that doctors make their money off of treating illness. They do not actually
make their money off of keeping you well. The more your treatment drags out,
the more money they make.

I have heard that in China, they put a doctor on retainer and only pay him
when they are well. So doctors in China only make money if you are well. I do
not know how accurate this is or how effective, but, as someone who is getting
well in part by avoiding the medical establishment, I feel very strongly that
our current "health care system" is very broken and one of the things wrong
with it is not that it is monetized but how it is monetized.

I have thought long and hard about how to try to share information about what
worked for me. Given the negative reception my story gets almost everywhere I
go, it may not be possible to help anyone else. But one thing I am clear
about: I do not want to be "a consultant" and monetize the information much
the way doctors get paid. Doctors in the U.S. mostly trade short term gains
for long term costs. I got well by trading long term gains for short term
costs as much as I could. When doctors put people like me on strong drugs, the
drugs have a long handout listing the horrible side effects. But then as
people like me get sicker and sicker, it is blamed on our disorder, not on the
drug side effects. I have no desire to join doctors in following this model
that allows them to charge big bucks and claim credit for the short term
improvements while blaming long term deterioration on my condition. I believe
that is a failed system and I believe the way it is monetized is part of why
it goes down like that.

I think charity also tends to fail. Think of the very negative connotation for
the phrase "charity case." I don't think we help people that much when we
first have to write them off as losers before we do anything for them. Given
that I have been homeless for over two years and left the soup kitchens and
most other homeless services as soon as I could, yeah, I think my opinion on
that is informed and not merely pontification of an unclued privileged person
trying to justify not giving money away.

I don't have an answer. I mostly cannot get people to even engage me in
discussion on the topic (of how I got well). But I agree much more with your
statement about solving big problems and not caring if it is for profit or for
charity than I do with your idea of making charity cool again. I do not really
want charity. Charity has helped keep me alive but it is not going to get me
off the street or restore me to a middle class lifestyle. I need to be taken
seriously as a competent professional to achieve that. Being viewed as "a
charity case" is the opposite of the professional respect and business
connections I would prefer to achieve.

~~~
tokenadult
_I have heard that in China, they put a doctor on retainer and only pay him
when they are well._

Since you indicated that you weren't sure if that is true, I can assure that
it is not. Most doctors in China are paid formally by salary, and under the
table by patients who can afford bribes on a fee-for-service basis.

~~~
Mz
Thanks. Let me clarify that my main point (in mentioning what I had heard
about China) was that there are potential alternate paradigms for paying
doctors which do not directly incentivize dragging out illness. In the U.S.,
one of the best hospitals we have also has doctors on salary. They make the
same amount regardless of how many tests they order. They credit this with
helping make sure the focus is on giving the patient the best possible care
without any conflict of interest subconsciously influencing the doctor's
treatment plan.

Have an upvote.

~~~
dTal
As I see it, there are only two fundamental ways to pay for health care: you
can can pay for treatment as and when you need it, or you can pay a flat rate
in exchange for treatment at no additional cost. Hopefully we can agree that
the former option is barbaric, as you are effectively denying modern medicine
to anyone not rich enough to cover it up-front, which is most people. The
latter option is essentially health insurance. Paying the doctor a retainer
only when you are well is tantamount to making your doctor a de-facto health
insurer (and all of the horrible consequences that entails).

Insurance works off averages, so it works more efficiently the more people buy
in. Logically then, the most efficient health insurance is where everyone buys
in. Hence, the most efficient system is nationalized health insurance, which
comes with many other benefits - for example, it lends massive bargaining
power to the people for reasonable drug prices.

You state in your original comment "I feel very strongly that our current
"health care system" is very broken and one of the things wrong with it is not
that it is monetized but how it is monetized." This implies that you don't
believe in socialized medicine. What in your opinion is wrong with it?

~~~
nickbauman
I'm from Germany. Once I was hit by a car on my bicycle. The driver wasn't
looking and hit me. My hospitalization was paid for by a nationalized system
of public and private insurers. A short trial was held for fault. I was
awarded money that would cover replacing my bike and a few hundred more
dollars for my troubles.

In the US, I probably would have gotten a large cash settlement out of the
deal. But a nationalized system like that in most other first-world countries
does not require tort-reform because effectively the commitment to your
health, cradle to grave, is a given.

Paying doctors piece-meal, like assembly-line workers or auto mechanics,
creates perverse incentives and only tangentially works towards good outcomes.

------
outside1234
Frankly, I'd rather he leave it to Bill Gates.

Going to Mars may be sexy, but stomping out Polio makes millions of lives
better.

Its hard to realize that, I suppose, when your life is in the bubble of a
limo. That's honestly what makes Bill Gates second act so amazing.

~~~
jobu
The stated reason for going to Mars is to create a backup population for
humanity. If a major asteroid impacts earth (or any other Extinction Level
Event) then potentially every human will be as dead as those killed by Polio.

~~~
outside1234
I think what rubs me the wrong way about this is giving it to a for-profit
enterprise.

If Elon is willing to step down and run a non-profit to get to Mars, I'm all
for it. But I suspect he isn't willing to do that. This is about profit -
which isn't bad - but its not charity and therefore is very unlikely in the
end to help the bottom 10%.

~~~
skizm
No one invests in a non-profit. Investors want ROI and going to mars is pretty
capital intensive.

EDIT: correct me if I am wrong, but YC doesn't expect to make a RIO with
Watsi. They just want to make the world a better place. It is a donation not
an investment. Most VCs are not that nice.

EDIT: EDIT: Found it: "Since some people were confused when we funded Watsi,
I'd better clarify that the money we're putting into the nonprofits will be a
charitable donation, rather than an investment in the narrow sense. We won't
have any financial interest in them." Link here:
[http://ycombinator.com/np.html](http://ycombinator.com/np.html)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Watsi is the first non-profit Y Combinator is backing.

[http://ycombinator.com/watsi.html](http://ycombinator.com/watsi.html)

Disclaimer: HUGE Watsi fan.

------
ekpyrotic
What's the difference between giving your money to Gates vs Musk?

Here's one way to look at it: When you give your money to Gates you generally
know what you're going to get - stamping up diseases, immunisation and lots of
other great stuff.

When you give your money to Musk, you don't. It's much less clear. You don't
know what problems he's going to tackle. You don't know how he's going to
tackle them. And you don't know if he'll succeed.

1\. Giving your money to Bill is like investing in a tried-and-tested branch
of science or technology with measurable possible outcomes.

2\. Giving your money to Elon is like investing in an absolutely cutting-edge
branch of science. At the absolute bleeding-edge. Maybe even beyond the
bleeding-edge.

Both are important. Here's a story to show you why.

One day back in the 1930s, before the war, all the academics in the USA found
an unusual survey in their pigeonholes. It asked them to rank all the various
academic departments in the USA by importance. Most important at the top.
Least important at the bottom. They were asked to use their intuitions - what
did they feel were the most and least relevant to the future of humanity.

After the academics filled in these surveys, their responses were gathered up
and collated into a league table with the 'most important' disciplines at the
top, and the least at the bottom. What was at the top? All the usual suspects
like branches of physics, chemistry and biology.

What was at the bottom? Right at the bottom was Medieval History. The very
least important academic subject. So far, so unexpected. But second to bottom
was Nuclear Physics. Before the war it was considered a useless, hypo-
theoretical branch of science only studied by nuts and eccentrics.

Of course, not much longer later the US dropped 2 bombs on Japan ending the
nuclear war.

If we'd only funnelled our money in those things with obvious tangible, well-
defined outputs, we'd have shut down our nuclear physics departments and the
world would have been a very different place.

What I'm saying is that investing in long-sighted, ill-defined, radical,
impractical projects is not only valuable but essential.

Dropping money to people like Bill is important. But so is dropping money to
Elon.

One of them ensures that we continue to make sustainable progress - that we
continue down the road that we're already walking. The other ensures that we
have the opportunity to find new roads, new paths and new routes.

~~~
tensor
>2\. Giving your money to Elon is like investing in an absolutely cutting-edge
branch of science. At the absolute bleeding-edge. Maybe even beyond the
bleeding-edge.

Elon Musk runs engineering companies. They are certainly not at "the absolute
bleeding edge" of science though.

If you want to fund science, then fund science. Scientists and their graduate
students actually do work at the bleeding edge of science and routinely push
beyond it with only a small, small, fraction of what these billionaires make.

~~~
FD3SA
Precisely this. Elon is a genius, and absolutely one of the greatest men
alive. But we must understand that he is an engineer, not a scientist. The
fact that he had to put his own money into an ambitious engineering project
just goes to show how ridiculously conservative most investors are. Is it any
surprise then, that basic science funding from profit driven investors is so
abysmal?

We need the NIH, we need the NSF, we need CERN, now more than ever. Basic
science is the only way to get significantly more return from a dollar
invested, but nobody wants to pay upfront. That is why we need taxpayer
funding in basic science. Scientific breakthroughs will yield such massive
dividends in the long run, that citizens would literally be spending on their
own well being in a way that would otherwise be impossible. Discoveries such
as vaccines, antibiotics, surgery, genetics and others have allowed humans to
enjoy a standard of living unfathomable even a hundred years ago.

If politicians had any vision whatsoever, they would have instigated a New
Deal with massive investment in scientific and engineering research projects.
Yet what did they do? Feed banks infinite loans at prime to keep them afloat,
so that banks can choose to continue lending on a profit driven schedule.

Guess who gets loans at prime from banks? Not the NIH, that's for sure.

~~~
chroem
>Elon ... is an engineer

Oh really? Where did he study engineering? When did he take the FE exam?

That's not a term that you can throw around all willy-nilly, especially in the
context of hardware. Next, are you about to tell me that the CEO of Ford is
also an engineer?

~~~
robotresearcher
Musk describes himself as an engineer. I'd say his demonstrated ability to
lead major engineering projects qualifies him to use that title.

[http://elonmusk.com/](http://elonmusk.com/)

The term "engineer" does not imply chartered/professional status in current
popular usage.

------
k-mcgrady
Although I get the thinking behind it if all wealthy people did this it would
just lead to the privileged having better lives and no progress for the poor.
A larger inequality gap.

I think Bill Gates has the best plan for the wealthy. Targeting specific
problems (Polio, Malaria etc.), solving them, and vastly (and quickly)
improving people's lives with the aim of bringing people out of poverty.

I don't deny Musk could do fantastic things with that money that would benefit
some of humanity but it seems more important to me that we get those in
poverty out of it. That's more important for humanity than building the
hyperloop or going to Mars. For even the middle classes life is pretty good.
Get everyone up to that level.

~~~
_greim_
Arguably, a world with less poverty would be a world more capable of focusing
on space exploration. Poverty drags everyone down in so many ways.

~~~
te_chris
Indeed. So many people seem to ignore the fact that the more people have, the
more they consume. It's why the eroding of the power of the middle class seems
so shortsighted - unless you're already a plutocrat.

------
drcode
A summary of this thread:

    
    
       - Larry Page bad
       - Rich people heartless
       - Capitalism bad
       - Investing in innovation and progress not important
       - Profit bad
       - Charity universally effective and good

~~~
VeejayRampay
You forgot:

\- Bill Gates is awesome because he saves lives.

Sure, cause paving the way for an electric future won't be saving millions of
lives.

~~~
drcode
I certainly have opinions about Bill Gates.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

------
RyanZAG
As someone who actually lives in Africa, Larry Page is spot on. The only
people who think charities are good for anything are the ones that have no
contact with them - they are a black hole of good intentions that simply do
not accomplish anything on the ground. If charities like the Gates Foundation
just gave that money away to the poor they would actually do some good. As it
stands, they do more harm in the form of destroying local industry and media
blitzes than actual good.

~~~
fulafel
Citation needed?

------
joshuaellinger
I'd take his argument more seriously if he were talking about doing something
about climate change. Risk to the species from climate change in the next 100
years dwarfs the risk of an astroid in the next million.

A small colony on Mars won't survive without Earth any more than the Vikings
survived in Greenland without trade from Europe. Read Jarad Diamond's COLLAPSE
if you want to understand what destroys civilizations.

~~~
PeterisP
I have seen no reports implying any threat whatsoever to our survival from
climate change. The worst case expectations involve what exactly? Water levels
rising that flood many of our coastal cities? Large parts of our arable land
becoming unfarmable? That's bad, but that's not a risk to our survival. None
of the climate change estimates predict earth becoming uninhabitable, they
simply warn that we'd need to do things such as migrate millions of people and
possibly reduce our population due to reduced food supplies.

Even if the vast majority of us die in the process and we're left with a
global population of just 1B or 500M, then that is still enough for a decent
civilization capable of supporting space flight; on the other hand, a risk
that threatens to _destroy_ us permanently is far more important than a risk
that'd simply harm us, and from which we'd be able to recover in time.

The goal is not a small colony of Mars - such a colony is simply an investment
& testground to become a multi-planet species, which also is the only way how
we can mitigate all risks that may cause Earth to become uninhabitable -
including climate change, nuclear/biological/whatever war, asteroid strikes
etc.

~~~
cheald
> Even if the vast majority of us die in the process and we're left with a
> global population of just 1B or 500M, then that is still enough for a decent
> civilization capable of supporting space flight

This is a side note, but I was actually just looking at population growth over
time, and it kinda blew my mind that the estimated global population was only
310m 1000 years ago, and 879m 200 years ago. The idea of losing ~93% of the
world's population sounds catastrophic, but given our current medical
technology (and a post-apocalyptic "mandate" to reproduce and repopulate the
earth) I don't think it would take us very long (relatively speaking) to
recover. Kinda crazy.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population)

------
Daishiman
Considering that the technologies Musk's companies are developing may be
literally what's needed to save humanity from catastrophic collapse
(batteries, solar, electric), it might on the long be the better choice.

~~~
robobro
Yeah. I think his decision is hard to really discuss or weigh out, at this
point.

------
tokenadult
When Larry Page announced on Google+ that he had donated money for flu shots
for children in San Francisco,[1] he was decried by many people who commented
below his post, for example,

"The flu shot is bad for you. It is poison. +Larry Page kids don't need
that.﻿"

"That's right give them a flu shot to get rid of what the government poisons
us"

"Awesomely bad. I think I'd research what's in those year old vaccines before
injecting them."

"Injecting viruses - to attack the immune system - and hope that it activates
antibodies which attack these and (hopefully) future viruses, ... makes no
sense to me. Do not harm your kids please."

and so on. (Some really stupid comments that I remember from that time seem to
have been deleted later, judging by the gaps in the comment thread.) If Page
is getting this kind of grief from donating to charitable causes, maybe he
really would rather give money to for-profit businesses.

[1]
[https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/32xY3Z1zckL](https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/32xY3Z1zckL)

------
socrates1998
I don't have many businessmen I respect because I think most CEO's are
sociopaths, but Elon Musk is probably the greatest businessman/engineer of the
past 100 years.

I absolutely don't see a problem with Larry Page giving his money to Musk.

Edit: Watch the next thing I read is about how much of an asshole Musk is. And
how he stomped on a bunch of good people to get to the top.

------
drawkbox
I guess Larry is like Carlos slim, doesn't think charity works:
[http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/10/15/worlds-richest-man-
ch...](http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/10/15/worlds-richest-man-charity-
doesnt-solve-anything/)

I don't agree but I wouldn't mind Elon Musk getting money for big projects
that the gov't might have done in the past. Like Eisenhower's
interstates/highway to something like Elon's electric highways. If there is
more industry/market/inroads more people can make money and subsequently give
to charity, not a select few. Rising tide lifts all boats, so that answer is
both.

------
moheeb
To me it seems he has basically ranked Larry Page > Elon Musk (or he'd have
given the money away already) and Elon Musk > Bill Gates.

I don't agree, but it is his money.

------
swampthing
Sounds like people are starting to take Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" to heart
(although I guess Page would only be going half way). It's kind of exciting
actually - I think this is the first time in history where enough wealthy
people are going that route that we can observe how well things work under
that framework.

~~~
mrxd
Well, Page is arguing that private companies should be beneficiaries of
charity. In the transcript, he says Google employees should donate money to
the company.

------
brd
There are two issues at hand

1) Value of life vs. value of species/society

2) Leverage

While I think what Bill Gates does is absolutely a noble cause and will
improve the lives of millions (if not billions), it is not necessarily the
most effective way to fix humanity.

I say this because of #2, leverage. Levers as in force multipliers, as in
things that have a meaningful impact on the world. Currently, the largest
levers on the planet seem to be corporations and most of the corporations have
very selfish, short term goals. This is nothing short of a tragedy and if we
can apply a few multi-billion dollar levers appropriately then our world will
almost immediately become a much better place.

You can argue that the hyper loop is a first world problem and doesn't help
the majority of the impoverished world. Here's a counter point for you: One of
the main reasons we don't ship off all the food wasted in the US is because
transportation sucks, if we had a hyper efficient means of transportation then
all sorts of options open up for moving food and other goods (water?) to areas
in need.

The fact is, cheaper and more efficient transportation/communication breaks
down barriers and has a stabilizing effect on humanity. Cheaper and more
abundant power results in higher quality of life. New medical tools and
techniques eliminate suffering. Anything you can do altruistically, you can do
far more efficiently (and more sustainably) with a proper technological
solution.

Luckily this is not an either/or and approaching the problem from both ends is
obviously ideal.

------
nickbauman
This is exactly why the inequality gap will grow, not shrink, and not for any
good reason, like "meritocracy" (read: "mirrortocracy")

Remember Peter Norvig's proof that increasing inequality is not the result of
virtue or fitness of the winners, but merely a statistical phenomenon:

[http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics...](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/Economics.ipynb)

~~~
zevyoura
While Norvig's argument is interesting and convincing, it has to be pointed
out that it is far from a proof.

~~~
nickbauman
OK, you're right on that. It still reveals a lot about inequality. I meant it
not as a mathematical proof, but as evidence.

------
JMCQ87
If you look into what the actual outcomes of "charity" and development aid are
in the third world, this makes perfect sense.

------
cratermoon
Does anyone still wonder why regular people in the bay area hate the idea of
Google and hot tech companies in general?

------
pooshoot
The technological advances that would come out of learning how to get to Mars
would be incredible for life here on Mars. Imagine if we discover ways to grow
healthy food from pure waste? What if we learn to eradicate common diseases?
All these aren't out of the range of possibilities for a mission to Mars. The
people who say this a waste of money are the same people saying NASA is a
waste of money:
[http://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html](http://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2011/ps_5.html)

------
rpledge
Hmmm, Larry better think twice about updating the firmware in his Tesla now.
Suddenly his brakes don't work very well...

:)

~~~
wsidell
I think you misread the article.

~~~
Cookingboy
No he didn't, he's joking about how Elon Musk wants to cash in those billions
NOW if he can somehow take Larry out of the picture...

------
vbuterin
Personally, I would donate it all to Aubrey de Grey.

~~~
RTesla
Aging is the leading cause of death.

~~~
swswsw
good point. something we ought to focus on.

------
vezzy-fnord
Elon Musk sure must be flattered, what with being considered a modern day
messiah and all.

------
joerich
Maybe he is disappointed with charity and non-profit companies… they are
supposed to be fill of good feelings but maybe their owners are not. A lot of
people think that people who work for charity or non-profit companies work for
free, just to feel good or develop as a person but that would not be true.
People who set up this kind of companies can get the wage they think they
deserve (normally a lot) so a lot of money for “the charity” finish in their
pockets after doing nothing very special or smart to help the poors, and when
people find out that, they feel really disappointed (as me). I have
volunteered several times and I saw things I didn't like.

I think some people may think that if you work 100% for a non-profit company
you should get something. Well, I agree on that but not crazy wages of 6
numbers for doing not very much… I think non-profit companies should have
transparent money accounts to every member so that every person can see what
they do with their money, they are fill of good and nice feelings, aren't
they?why don’t they show us all the good things they do with the money?

------
lttlrck
And in an alternate reality the one destined to invent the warp drive gets
killed by malaria on safari. The impact on human progress due to preventable
death is incalculable. I believe we have an obligation to explore space, but
there has to be balance, and fortunately there is. Page is welcome to leave
his money to Musk if that's what he wants, charity will continue regardless.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _And in an alternate reality the one destined to invent the warp drive gets
> killed by malaria on safari._

The thing about scientifc breakthroughs is that they are almost never
dependent on a particular "brilliant mind"; they are the product of
accumulated knowledge and technology reaching a critical mass. Notice how many
things in maths and physics were (and are) co-invented by many people within
short timespans. Even if our fictional warp field theorist got shot, someone
else somewhere else in the world would build the drive five minutes later.

------
trekky1700
I don't this is so much anti-charity as it is pro-Musk and his incredible
knack for changing the World in big ways.

Many charities have a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of money evaporates on it's
way down the pipe. But with people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, you end up
getting a lot of bang for your buck because they're so efficient at going
straight to the problem and solving it.

------
nrbafna
Isn't this entire discussion a false dichotomy? It seems from this thread the
only two options for everyone is to donate to things that Gates does vs.
things that Musk does.

The same thing happened when India launched its Mars mission, with people
saying they should take care of their poverty first. But, the discussion
around that time on HN was in favor of India exploring space.

------
cmsj
Perhaps I am insufficiently familiar with the ventures of Elon Musk, but
doesn't he mostly make advanced technology for rich people?

~~~
ethanbond
Improved energy and transportation tech will do all of is a service. Right now
he's making tech for rich people because the margins can be high enough to
fund extensive R&D which will then be used for more universal needs. Tesla is
basically a battery tech research company that makes cars to fund itself. This
will be clear in the coming years as every other company has to rely on
Tesla's batteries because no one spent as much money researching them.

------
the_watcher
This could be more accurately phrased as "I believe Elon Musk will do more
good for mankind with my money than any organization that would qualify as
'charity.'"

NOTE: He may actually not mean that, but that is how I understood what he
said, assuming by context that he is speaking about what will do the most
good.

------
spinchange
If you _really_ believe capitalism has the most power to affect positive
change for humanity above philanthropic or charitable giving, shouldn't it
stand to reason that markets will allocate the necessary capital to people
like Musk for a return on investment anyway?

~~~
novalis78
Indeed. But that's already happening, see for instance: www.marscoin.org

------
amurmann
Helping poor people is extremely hard. I am pretty confident that going to
Mars is solvable by just throwing enough money at it. Solving poverty for more
than a very breve period is much harder. There was an episode about the
problems the Millenium Villages project was encountering
([http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/01/nina_munk_on_po.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/01/nina_munk_on_po.html))
and it just made clear how many problems there are to overcome that you just
don't consider. I am not saying it's unsolvable, but it's harder than
traveling to Mars or making a self driving car. So Elon is the safer bet.

------
aswanson
I probably would too, or at least a sizable proportion to people like him and
targeted, proven philanthropies like Gates.

But a question Ive been pondering is, why didn't he give Elon a few chips
while he was _alive_ back in 2008 and both SpaceX and Tesla were only the
ropes and almost dustbin material? Why didn't anyone back him then? And Page
was/is a personal friend of his. ISV had no problem during the same period
throwing 40 million at Color and other shit like it, but were indifferent to
Musk's struggles.

Glad to see he prevailed to make people think bigger, in any event.

------
aaron695
Most of the thread so far.

A bunch of commentary by 1%ers (Which 90% of HN'ers are) commenting on the
morals of people a little bit richer than they are.

Except most people in this thread will give nothing on death to charity.

------
api
Why are there not more Elon Musks? Is someone with engineering skill,
motivation, clarity of thinking, and execution ability that rare? Is it that
rare in the circles of the very wealthy?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Because you missed one thing - caring about something else than your own (and
your family's), short-term profit. Musk has all the things you mentioned, but
he also has a strong imperative to do something for the betterment of mankind.
Not - like 99% of businesses seem to work - how to earn money _pretending to
care_ about something valuable. And, sadly, that kind of thinking seems to be
rare and discouraged in the society.

------
truncs
Gates doesn't do charity in the traditional sense. He focuses on very specific
areas and measures the success well. Page was probably talking about
traditional charities.

------
lettergram
Immediately reminded me of an Ayn Rand quote:

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who
would make his fortune no matter where he started."

~~~
acjohnson55
If her point is that we should clamp down on intergenerational transfers of
larges amounts of wealth, I agree! There's a first for everything, I suppose.

Although, I could extend that argument. If these ubermen are so good so
repeatably, they shouldn't worry so much about progressive taxation. After
all, they can remake their fortunes even if you whittle them away, right?

------
frade33
Question is he really going to give Billions to Elon Musk? or is it just
another attempt to grab attention. Reading through the comments, I guess there
is nothing wrong in investing projects that are too much futuristics, another
point Larry seemed to be making was, there are plenty of people donating
already to our current serious problems, while there are a few who actually do
for projects that belong to far future.

------
auvi
Will you give Billions to Hank Rearden to make "Rearden Steel" or to Center
for Iron & Steelmaking Research at Carnegie Mellon University?

------
bayesianhorse
Depends on the charity. That's why Bill Gates has devoted most of his
productivity towards building and running charities that work.

------
caruana
I think he is saying "charitable organizations only help poor people and I
would rather help build the future seen in elysium"

------
azinman2
While big projects that change humanity are worth it, it's also sad that
things that don't directly make money (humanities) are thus seemingly not
worthy of money.

I wish more of these guys were benefactors recognizing that innovation can
happen to culture and arts, not just science. That philosophy seems to have
been a relic of the steel/railroad era.

------
novalis78
Page could also invest some of his money in www.marscoin.org and let
cryptocurrencies take us to Mars. That seems to be a very efficient way. There
might even be a MedicalCoin that does the same thing for Polio. Now that would
be a very smart way to leave your money behind - maybe a DAC trust-fund living
on the etherum blockchain...

------
abbasmehdi
Why wait until death? I'm sure Elon could use the money sooner, putting it
towards a cause LP would be pleased about.

~~~
batoure
He better hope he doesn't have stock in Musk's companies already. If it turns
out he owns a bunch of Tesla stock he could get accused of a pump and dump
scheme. ;)

~~~
abbasmehdi
He does not have to hope, he can simply sell that stock ahead of time.

------
Fuxy
I have to say I agree with him.

Charities get billions in donations while revolutionary and ambitious pursuits
get none of that encouragement.

Charities are great but how about we focus on helping others do some awesome
shit too.

Specially people who have proven to have the determination to stick with it
and try everything possible until it works.

------
ElComradio
That's great news. He can start now so that next time Elon needs half a
billion the taxpayers won't need to provide a risky low interest loan.

------
acjohnson55
I question why any one person should have billions of dollars left to their
whims in the first place. It's not simply the "natural way" of things. Our
system is built to reward financiers, founders, and executives at vast
disproportion to employees. Don't get me wrong, those first three groups are
really important. I just think that when we talk about individuals having
11-figure sums of wealth, maybe something is kind of out of whack.

And some of them simply _inherited_ that wealth, which is a whole other level
of absurd.

~~~
ahomescu1
To put it simply, the problem is that any possible cure is worse than the
disease itself. Stopping people from having that much money creates at least
as many problems as it solves.

~~~
acjohnson55
Interesting. How so?

I mean, I suppose you _could_ be right, but my point is that we take it for
granted that the way things work in our society is just the natural state. It
isn't. There are all sorts of policies in place that lead to compensation for
various actors being what it is.

~~~
ahomescu1
Because the devil is in the details. Let's say a guy gets rich. Do you put him
in jail? If yes, for what crime? If not, you'll probably want to confiscate
his wealth. What if it's not cash, but assets: cars, houses, gold bars. You
(or the government) confiscate all of them, now you have to sell them; the
simple act of selling them devalues them (depending on how many there are of
them). So now the government either owns a bunch of useless (to them) assets,
or a pile of cash that will be quickly spent.

Also, a much simpler explanation is: moving wealth from rich people to
government just makes government rich. This doesn't change the underlying
problem, it just shifts power into different hands.

Then there's the prevention approach. How do you even prevent people from
owning stuff/having money? You'd have to completely discourage savings, and
force people to spend everything they make.

~~~
acjohnson55
I don't advocate criminalizing wealth. I'm not sure how you got that from my
posts.

What I question is whether the method by which our system allocates wealth is
optimal in any way. Yes, I think there are things we could do from a taxation
standpoint to reallocate or put to public use, but that doesn't address the
root issue, and it also gives people the impression that their gross earnings
are naturally theirs in the first place.

Imagine for a Fake America with the same number of dollars, each with the same
purchasing power as in the real America. Now imagine that the wealthiest
American had, say, $250M, due to the norms of compensation in Fake America.
What would society look like? Would anyone whose wealth in this Fake America
is 1% of their wealth in Real America even know the difference?

Is this scenario possible? Who knows. Perhaps the specific scale of inequality
in Real America is exactly optimal. Of course, we don't know whether this
flatter distribution would reproduce the same level of enterprise we see in
Real America. But I don't see why not. The 0.01% would have less resources to
wield, but we'd also have way more people with resources far beyond their
needs. If I never thought it would be conceivable to be a billionaire, the
allure of the possibility of being a hundred-millionaire would still tempt me.

The tacit counterargument is that the only things that can possibly promote
private enterprise on the scale that it exists in Real America are the ability
to be at least ten thousand times richer than a person who'd already be
considered quite rich, as well as the ability to establish dynasties that
privilege your progeny long after your contributions to private enterprise.
That could very well be true, but I'm not cynical enough to accept that
without very strong argument.

------
mathattack
This makes me think of Buffett giving his money the Gates foundation: The 2nd
richest guy in the world giving it to the richest.

------
afsina
This one is easy. I agree with him.

------
znowi
You can so tell who his mentor was :)

Hint: Apple

------
typhonic
And how many people would choose to give their money to Larry Page?

------
aortega
Well then he should do it right now, why wait until he's dead?

~~~
crusso
... says some random guy posting authoritatively and indignantly to HN.

The level of judgement and arm-chair quarterbacking in this thread is
hilarious in a sad, "I can't believe I'm wasting my time reading and
responding way".

~~~
aortega
I'm sorry my answer wasn't up to your standards. Please disregards my comments
and continue with your surely Nobel-award research, Dr. crusso.

~~~
crusso
Meh, just try harder next time. ;)

------
pyrrhotech
good for him. 90% of charities are shams using over half the funds on
"administration costs". Elon Musk is actually changing the world

------
wudf
i think we have time to address the billion people on earth suffering from
extreme poverty and human rights violations before worrying about mars.

------
DrJ
can all the rich people buy all the telcos and make internet more neutral?

------
glbrew
Why not both?

------
bakhy
the heads of google are solipsistic jerks.

------
somedayiwill
Ya'll just need to chill. It's just an opinion that the man has...why don't we
try to change the world IN THE PRESENT FOR GOOD the way we see it fit? whether
it is charity or huge ass project with capitalistic gain...RESPECT.

------
benched
The human race is quite a large and diverse organism. In terms of development,
it's parts are stratified. At the extremes are the front, and the rear. The
front is fulfilling our current best potential - space travel, computing,
great individual wealth, even opulence. The rear is living by default, mainly
just because reproduction is a major defining characteristic of life itself,
in terrible conditions, because there's no overarching principle to ensure
resources are distributed evenly or at all.

It isn't surprising that those representing the front and those pulling up the
rear would conflict when they meet.

------
elf25
Fuck you Larry Page you evil Bond-villainesque bastard.

~~~
batoure
I think you are confusing him with the other Larry who actually looks like and
embodies Bond-villainesque

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison)

[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Oracle-s-
cheati...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Oracle-s-cheating-won-
t-attract-Cup-fans-4733421.php)

[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732479890...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324798904578529682230185530)

------
patja
I just can't get over feeling conflicted about what Musk is trying to
accomplish vs. what a misogynistic creep he seems to be in his personal life.
Is this really the person who should be lauded as the savior of humanity?

I always had similar feelings about Lance Armstrong too.

~~~
Permit
Why does Elon Musk strike you as a misogynistic creep? It seems like that kind
of claim warrants some justification.

~~~
patja
misogyny may be a bit speculative, but from reading the following:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/divorce-wars-
justin...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/divorce-wars-justine-
musk_n_841761.html)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/elon-musk-
parentin...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/elon-musk-parenting-
discussion-sxsw-interactive_b_2868831.html)

[http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-
issues/mill...](http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-
issues/millionaire-starter-wife)

he definitely falls into the creep class in my book. I hope neither of my
daughters ever gets into a relationship with someone who shares his worldview
and says stuff like "if you were my employee I would fire you" to them. Or
asking where he can find a new girlfriend that can fit into a 10 hour per week
time budget. What a cad.

Then there are the kids. The kids he admits he doesn't spend enough time with
(and even then says he can be a great dad spending time with them while
simultaneously working. Multitasking for the win!) and who have been through
the divorce. Again, just my own biases and take on the world that I am sure
aren't shared by all, but I can categorically say that every single person I
know whose parents divorced when they were young has resulting damage they
carry to this day, into their own marriages and parenting.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
To be fair, two of those links are told from the point of view of his ex-wife.
The world is full of people that have rather harsh things to say about their
exes. Some of it is true.

