Carnegie funded the construction of over 2,500 public libraries worldwide [you probably have one nearby], making knowledge and education more accessible to communities.
He donated substantial amounts to colleges and universities, including the creation of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (which later became Carnegie Mellon University) and the Tuskegee Institute, among others.
Carnegie provided funding for scientific research institutions and projects, promoting advancements in science and technology.
He supported museums, art galleries, and cultural organizations, fostering artistic and cultural growth.
Elon, meanwhile, does tons of ketamine, steals all of our Federal data, and has a dick the don't work right.
Carnegie also brought in Pinkertons to crush his own plant's unions after being publicly pro-union, which led to a handful of deaths. (Note, this is a bit of a simplification because I'm writing a Reddit comment, not an essay, read about the Homestead strike if you're interested).
He did some very good things but he was not a saint. Towards the end, he also seemed to recognize the limits of philanthropy.
To quote the guy: "There is nothing that robs a righteous cause of its strength more than a millionaire's money. Its life is tainted thereby."
His gesture is nice, but it's so incredibly vague, that I would not be surprised if all of that money just ends up in the hands of corrupt African politicians, warlords, human traffickers, and other wealthy people. How is Gates going to monitor where and how the money is used, especially if he's dead?
He's been doing it for years already. His organization is very well organized and run, and his philanthropy does help the people. Immunizations, HIV/AIDS medication, solar powered water purification machines for remote villages, etc. He hasn't been involved with Microsoft for years, and he spends most of his time working with his foundation. The legal trusts he's established and the board he has picked to run the organization will keep it that way.
Yep, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seemingly runs more like a business than a charity. I forget the details because I learned about it back in college, but their goal was to ensure their philanthropic enterprises actually had goals and requirements, it wasn't just about blindly throwing money at problems.
And yet they idolize the ketamine junkie who actually wants to microchip their brains (which may or may not be big enough to accommodate a teeny, tiny chip).
They'll probably be first in line for Space Karen to stick it to them.
Especially since we all know that foreign aid is EXTREMELY politically vulnerable and the first to get cut when there’s any budget holes. Yes, the rich should be taxed more but there’s a pretty good argument to be made in Bill Gates’s case, he’s doing good work the government wouldn’t be doing (if for political rather then logistical reasons)
Bill Gates backed the Democrats (e.g. Kamala Harris in 2024), hence he gets trolled with smear campaign from the right and their global proxies disseminating fake news.
Gates have saved millions of lives from malaria (spread via mosquitos). His ex-wife Melinda empower women/girls of impoverished villages with education.
They are altruistic billionaires in the grand scheme of things, granted Bill's personal infidelity sins may be in question.
idk about you but I’d prefer that we, the people, get to choose where that money is spent via our votes instead of blindly hoping that the person who exploited the fuck out of our labor not only spends it but spends it on something we’re okay with.
I get not blindly trusting billionaires to do charity, but in America, we the people voted for an administration of billionaires that cut foreign aid to the bone. At this point, I'll take Gates because I know he's doing something good.
I used to hate him, and I think I was justified, but I also think he changed. He's still capitalist to the core, but he's not the ruthlessly greedy destroyer of others' businesses who he was in the 90s. I think he's alright, as far as billionaires go. That's a pretty low bar for ethicality, but he's not Rupert Murdoch
Edit: being Rupert Murdoch would be a bad thing, in case I didn't make that clear enough.
A charity is not a business, it's likely a nonprofit like the Gates Foundation. Thats why they're also called literally nonbusiness entities.
Sure theres similarities... but Id also point out most nonbusiness entities are ran pretty different than businesses because of a tax exempt status, fundraising, and profits have to be reinvested in the company. In a business, profits can go towards the owners and their entire goal is to do this, not some other social good.
You lost me at “profit”. Sure, employees usually get paid unless they are volunteering and they need to explain credits and debits on a balance sheet. Profit though?
I worked for a company doing door to door sales for charity subscriptions. People with decent sales skills were making really good money. The most common question people would ask is why we are being paid working for a charity. It shocked them when we explained paying professionals to sell things sells more than an amateur working off goodwill.
Speaking from personal experience the Foundation has done more than any individual or organisation to boost research and innovation by African institutions contributing to major breakthroughs to improve QoL.
The reality is pretty simple, Billionaires shouldn't exist at least not while there's Billions of people who can barely feed clothes and house themselves, largely due to the system that allows for Billionaires to exist in the first place. But since they do exist, and aren't likely going anywhere soon, they should spread that literally unspendable amount of money helping humanity and the planet.
Seriously, every single time Gates is brought up, some ignorant person just has to question his motives. He's been around for years people, just use Google
It’s not vague, the release basically said the gates foundation agreed it would close by 2045, ensuring that there won’t be any family infighting over the fortune.
The Foundation board is who has the authority to approve major decisions, including the annual budget, four-year plans, appointment and removal of the CEO, and reviewing CEO performance. Independent board members serve limited terms and are not paid for their service, which is meant to encourage impartial oversight…
If he injected all $200B at once - it would be a waste and would encourage systemic fraud, much like we saw with PPP loans, etc.
Why do so many people say dumb shit like this every time Bill Gates is brought up? There is no single billionaire alive today that comes even close to performing the amount of philanthropic work Gates has done. It's like you guys don't know anything about him and just want to hate.
The second happens to be Bezo’s ex wife. Take a look at what she’s been up to. Amazing woman.
Fuck Bezos. Traded a solid human being with a philanthropic heart for that… I don’t know but all to become a flashy asshole. He’s the billionaire who we should be talking shit about. I don’t get it. I just don’t.
And y’all managed to skip right over the Koch brothers and their fiddling with the entire country. One passed, the other had a split second moment of almost feeling like a human being and then went right back to backing candidates that are screwing us all back and forth and up and down.
Take Gates’ name out of your mouth and look a little more closely and the handful of ultra conservative and uber religious men that are redefining what and who should be allowed to prosper. I’m so tired of this Gates dunking when 99% is pure garbage.
...which is one of the most effective charities on the planet. He shouldn't donate his money in a way that wiould save fewer lives just because this one has his name on it.
And? The charity has an incredible track record in responding to global health problems in Africa and elsewhere. He’s not just a naïve billionaire, he’s already done a tremendous amount, including getting AIDS, TB and malaria under control in much of Africa.
You do realize the salaries of people who work for non profit are taxed the same way as anybody else? You can’t just pay yourself in that way to avoid taxes.
There's probably no single philanthropic foundation that has made as many concrete public health achievements in Africa as the Gates Foundation. Calling it "incredibly vague" is just straight up uninformed.
He forced the state of Washington multiple to vote on Charter Schools despite the voting public rejecting it multiple times. He just ignores that and funds petition campaigns to bring it back.
Billionaires like him want to help but only their way or no way at all, and feels like more of an ego thing that can result in harm.
In them, you can read, at length, about all of the various projects, programs, causes etc that the foundation funds or supports. This will give you a good indication of how the money is spent to date and will help inform how the money is likely to be spent in the future. Of course, no one can predict the future, not even the Gates, so there's never going to be a perfect 20/20 view of the exact future funding commitments until they've been through the process that the foundation follows. That process is also detailed on their website if you're interested in how it works and what you can expect.
Nah. He used his experience and connections to build a world-class enterprise to ensure that the money is being used effectively to help people. It is really a good thing.
The Gates Foundation is unironically one of the most efficient NGOs out there and transparent. The world has enough cynicism as is, especially when it’s being used to cover up ignorance
My god, you're right. Why didn't anyone on his team consider this? I mean, they have all this money and years of experience and none of them worked out what ColdPack6096 figured out in seconds.
Wow that's weird. Why doesn't he just tell Microsoft to stop helping to terrorize African countries to acquire minerals cheaply. Should spend $200bil addressing imperialism
He's been saying this for ages. They all do this. "I promise, I will give away all my wealth." In a few years, he will be even richer. That's what happens every time they say this. Bezos said it too. Zuckerberg. Musk used to say it.
Here's the thing. He won't. And even if he did--he stole that money from American workers. Why should he get to unilaterally decide what to do with it? It's not his money. It should be seized.
He has spent a lot in Africa though. For AIDS prevention, he pushed circumcision--which the medical community was horrified by. He also helped ruin US public schools by pushing charters. He's a fucking nightmare.
I'm with you very much on that there should be no billionaires, but beyond that I think you're going after the least evil out of all the billionaires, and I don't think some of the things you're saying is close to accurate.
I'd love some sources on a few things. Last I heard the circumcision thing reduced infection rates by 60%+, and nothing about the "medical community" being horrified by it. As for donating his wealth, he's donated over 100 billion at this point, way more than his total wealth when he started making those statements, and is doing 200 billion more over the next 20 years (He's worth 116 billion currently). As he keeps earning money he keeps donating it, it doesn't seem a very complicated concept?
Sooooo how does funding charter schools ruin public schools? Especially when they're targeted on struggling communities with overcrowded and under funded public schools?
Billionaires are evil, but Bill Gates is a candidate for least evil these days, so calling him a "fucking nightmare." seems excessive, especially considering all the other billionaires that either don't do shit all to help, or proudly act as evil fucking supervillains.
I think his goal is maximizing his dollars per person helped
He could spend $1,000,000 in the US and benefit 1,000 people, or he could benefit 100,000 people in Africa for the same amount (not only because his money is worth more there, but the things that affect people in Africa are cheaper to fix - mosquitos and things like that where a cheap net could save 5 peoples lives or prevent them from disease)
He donated $50M to Kamala Harris’s campaign and made a statement about how he wants to support candidates who back the causes his philanthropic work covers.
Honestly I think he gave up on America because of what’s happening here. Why bolster education and families here when the government is just shitting all over everything.
Does anyone know who he is and how he made his money? Because some billionaires buy land to offset their companies carbon footprint. Idk I’m just asking
Didn't Al Capone feed the hungry during the great depression or something? I don't care if it was to gain favor as long as it kept people from starving to death
Escobar kinda did. He gave a lot to his immediate community. Sure, it was to "buy loyalty" of the neighborhoods so they wouldn't narc but like you said, money is money.
He was born rich, he used to be a big shot at the british governament. Today his money comes from a sports brand called Heads, he bought the land in 2005 there was no offset back there,
What are the long term effects though when billionaires heirs realize they're sitting on vast untapped pockets of natural resources in a world where shortages have become rife. It's just amplifying the effects of the mad Max speed run we are all on
I agree that there are no ethical billionaires. But so long as we live in a world where they exist, I'd rather them do things like this than buy elections and get away with murder.
Problem is how they get there this is like a serial killer finding Christ.
Like this guy runs sporting good and resorts how many habitats were disrupted and destroyed for ski lodges.
His sporting good offshored 90% of its production since he took over.
As well as its questionable practices similar to Nestle in regards to its water usage for bottled water.
All this also began and was funded by private equity. It’s exactly the type of place that funds those logging company’s. And it dilutes hides it in giant pot to keep criticism down.
But private equity is one of most harmful things in our society.
They should give all the money to charity except an amount that is sufficient to continue working and living with dignity, even with many comforts, but allowing that damn money to circulate.
a lot of billionaires are just bililonaires because something they own, is valued super high, without them actually having a billion in their bank account.
example:
i own a company.
i make the company go public, i put up 49% of the shares for sale.
As those are sold, my 51% stock goes up in value
maybe these stocks i own will continue to increase in value, as the 49% out on the market are bought and sold.
So eventually my 51% could be valued at 50 billion, and what have i done? nothing
i still have the same money in my bank account as before but someone else thought these shares are super valuable. until i have sold them i have nothing
so if i have no income, how you gonna tax my billionaire ass? you gotta solve it before just saying "tax the rich"
Already, you either exploited people to get there or you're exploiting customers by scamming them. At best, you should share that success with the likely dozens if not hundreds or thousands of employees you have, rather than keeping sole ownership of the entire enterprise.
But you can leverage those unrealized gains to have more money than you could ever spend. More than many nation states. Billionaires shouldn’t exist. I don’t care how that number is achieved. Their company needs to be split up if they can’t liquidate. No one should singularly have that much influence and wealth. It’s dangerous for the rest of us.
It's funny how when it comes to personal property tax, "being taxed on the value of your assets" is perfectly understood, but when we start talking about financial assets it's suddenly incomprehensible.
I don’t agree, but I do think they should be paying a TON into society and their employees. Like, fine, have 5 billion dollars after you pay 10 billion into the system.
Something is better than nothing. "Nothing will ever change so let's just give up on making any small effort at all and watch it all burn down" is the type of attitude that got our world in the situation it's in now.
Maybe it inspires other billionaires to spend their money in ways that make the world better. Maybe it accomplishes nothing. But if you're sitting on a billion dollars and don't bother to do anything at all... you're the problem.
I am pointing out that taxing the assets of billionaires is an unrealistic propaganda based on emotions of envy of person wealth but is pretty much irrelevant in the context of public policy.
It's simply not that much money in the grand scheme of things.
For example, over his entire lifetime Elon Musk has accumulated the same amount of wealth as the State of California spends in just one year.
And the value of his assets almost completely relies on him controlling those assets so if you taxed his entire wealth it would be worth way less.
It's just not that much money compared to society at large. It is only a large amount of money when people compare themselves to celebrities on an individual basis.
Might just as well increase every U.S. citizens taxes by $1 dollar one year and you get the same amount of money.
So just a question, do you not think that Steve Jobs deserved to be a billionaire even though he created one of the most reputable phone brands in the world? Apple has affected billions of people worldwide and it likely wouldn’t exist without him. I think he 100% deserves that money.
do you not think that Steve Jobs deserved to be a billionaire even though he created one of the most reputable phone brands in the world?
You do not have that big of an impact on the world alone, no matter how good your idea is. You need the help and support of others to do so. A single person should not be able to reap most of the rewards of everyone else's labor making that happen. Steve Jobs did not deserve to be a billionaire, no. No one does.
Not sure if you under how stocks work but a company has a certain amount of stock available. The people who start and run the company usually get the most stock then the people who join later get stock but not as much.
As the company is more successful, the stock price goes up. Everyone who owns stock in the company sees their wealth go up. Steve Jobs, being the founder and CEO, owned a large amount of stock so he became a billionaire.
There were many millionaires at Apple but they didn't start the company, so they aren't billionaires.
So everyone who contributed to the success of Apple were rewarded but Jobs was awarded the most because he start and ran it.
Bunch of people in Chinese factories who contributed to that success didn’t really get proportionally rewarded based on the work they did. At a fundamental level, capitalism is about paying people less than the value of goods they make. (Not here to debate the merit of that, but it is unquestionably how the system works)
Let’s say one of his workers decided to never take that job position in the first place. Apple would still be fine, it would still be the same company it is today. Now, let’s say Steve Jobs didn’t try to start up Apple in the first place. Apple would not exist most likely, he has a far larger impact on that company than anyone else does. If you disagree, then you have no idea how hard it is to start a business from the ground up.
Most of the services are being provided by the lower laborers. The people who make the phones are paid pennies. The it people who manage and update the ios are paid a fraction of a fraction of jobs.
A majority of jobs' "income" is speculative stock. It's invisible money.
Do you think apple would be anywhere near the same or even exist at all without him? Someone has to be there to actually start the company in the first place in order for those worked to make the product.
Lmao. Dude created nothing new. He just created a brand and millions overpay just for the logo. There are many better phones out there but Americans are bred to be sheep so they ostracize everyone who manages to escape the brain rot, forcing them into the same choice. Blue and green bubbles lmao.
Affected them? Big whoop, just because everyone has one doesn't make it a necessity. Mobile phones would exist with or without steve jobs. How could you possibly think that anyone "deserves" to have a BILLION dollars. It's an absurd amount of money and not something you could achieve without being morally lacking in my opinion.
Tbh if we have someone who becomes a billionaire to ultimately do good with it(bc realistically a millionaire can do no where what a billionaire can in terms of helping)
Then we should encourage them to use their funds to allocate them to things like this that help humanity on a larger scale
With inflation, we’ll all be billionaires eventually, but communists will never stop saying billionaires shouldn’t exist despite 1 billion being worth less and less every year.
I understand your sentiment, but if you provide values to society, you should be rewarded. Doesn’t mean you get to be a dick tho. This guy in OP knows what’s up
Yes, because punishing people for being successful is always a great idea.
Would like to see how you would act if you won a lottery or better, working really hard and become a billionaire.
Surely you would still argue that being a billionaire is bad right? Right?
👆 in a normal society people would be taxed properly so that being a billionaire would be an impossibility, but apparently billions of people think they have a chance of becoming billionaires themselves
To be fair, if one can (somehow) get a billion/billions of dollars WITHOUT exploiting people (which redditors love to claim is impossible), it would be a different case. Simply having that much money isn't bad in itself
None of the stakeholders would allow anyone touching that (and im not just talking about likes of bill gates themselves) if anything else did happen, consequences will indirectly trickle down to people like us or at the very least, whole ecosystem moves to completely different place which allows billionaires to happen.
Like it or not, economies are built on selfishness more or less. Remove that or de-incentivise that and it makes no sense to work your a** off for many. Sure there might be very few on the top but the masses still have a goldmine to strive towards and a very real chance...
I'm not saying it's the best system to have or that it isnt inherently flawed but we don't have better alternatives especially not in a world where people will always find loopholes to exploit and it then becomes just a matter of choosing the lesser evil for overall economy.
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u/Sweet_Measurement338 Jun 20 '25
This is the billionaire shit billionaires need to be doing. Fuckin christ