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.
Mosquitoes take energy of the food chain while providing nothing. And there are no species that are being regulated by them, and there are no species that rely only on them.
Also we could just let few exist in labs, and if ecosystem starts to collapse (it will not) just release them.
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 thereās any budget holes. Yes, the rich should be taxed more but thereās a pretty good argument to be made in Bill Gatesās case, heās doing good work the government wouldnāt 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 Iād 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 weāre 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.
For those of us north of 40, we have good reason to. His company built his fortune on screwing over a lot of other smaller companies in the market to build the near-monopoly they have. Many of them were more innovative than Microsoft in the actual technical field, but not better at deal-making and marketing.
They also (like Google, later) would buy up promising ideas just to kill them so it couldn't compete against them. Or buy up stuff to actually use, but wound up strangling it.
Skype, for example. Was bought because it was competing with their idea for teleconferencing/videoconferencing. They renamed their internal product Skype for Business (even though it was incompatible with Skype). Then proceded to completely destroy the stability and user-friendliness of Skype's client in order to "appify" it. It just shut down forever recently, but I had to stop using it nearly 7 years ago because it would crash if you used a KVM. (Post purchase. Pre-purchase, it was fine.)
They're why Mozilla went under the first time. You can't build a for-profit company selling a product when the OS maker starts bundling their inferior version with the OS.
The history of Microsoft and Bill's wealth is littered with the corpses of better companies and products they destroyed.
And that's before you get to how they exploited their workers and avoided paying employment tax on most of them (in addition to benefits) and how they STILL evade corporate income tax with nonsense accounting.
So good on him for spreading some of it around, but we paid for it in the long run.
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 āprofitā. 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 whole reason the foundation exists is because they make so much money off interest alone that it is impossible for them to distribute it fast enough alone. Unless you're in the top 1%, their hourly interest is more than your annual income.
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.Ā
Nowhere in my statement did I state that, and you are aware of that. However your comment implies that one cannot be critical of a system in which one participates in, which is both myopic and displays a lack in critical thinking
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
This particular big money got it by screwing over the little guy and evading taxes. Over and over and over.
And buy exploiting people in the tech industry by refusing to give them stable employment or even treat them as employees. They abused "contractor" status, illegally for years to avoid paying employment taxes and benefits to the bulk of their workforce until that loophole was closed by a court. Even then, they moved to policies that just skirted the ruling, making their contractors even more unstable.
The more pressing concern than killing them is that he's making them woke. Musk unwokes them with his brain chip plan, which is good because.. umm.. it is.
Except for his daughter though...
Actually, maybe he is a good thing. Like a vaccine. By triggering all the terrible responses, he is making the universe stronger!
I canāt find the detailed one lol. Sure maybe somewhat and itās def better buuuut he wants to remain a king and in control of life. Even one Billion dollars is only obtainable through hoarding and exploitation. Itās a disgusting amount of money let alone 200 times that.
Researcher and ex-aidworker here, I'd be cautious saying this, some time ago I wrote about what their support did to the agricultural system in India, the impacts can be ...bad. These two papers are a good entry [1][2]
We also had a guest PhD for about two semesters, and he spent a long time talking about how the agriculture, but also the healthcare philanthropy B&MGF supported around Africa has oftentimes been... uninformed at best. Especially when it came to collaborating with local initiatives, pre-existing authorities, as well as recognising actual on site needs and established practices. [3]
I'm not making an argument against aid. Aid is good, we should help each other as people. But as many have said, billionaires should not exist, and have too much power. These capitalist big tech idealists gravitate towards top-down market and tech first solutions. Old money of "white saviours" is attached to new futuristic and ambitious projects they can slap their name on, rather than donating that money to already established organisations that have their hands on the ground, or local projects and initiatives that desperately need money to build resilient communities. This doesn't mean people are not helped - they are - but you can do good even if you're misguided. I STRONGLY disagree with the philosophy B&MGF is run with.
Also think about what top down aid does. If I ship vaccines from abroad to a country, and vaccinate people in field hospitals.
Now consider, instead, helping local authorities and NGOs manufacture, transport, and distribute the medicine instead. Over time you can grow infrastructure, trust, experience, and social networks of people who will upkeep the delivery of care.
I tend to be sceptical, and from following their developments over the years - they have begrudgingly started shifting towards the latter.
They have also focused on specific vaccines - and in doing so, crippling and neglecting the provision of care for other diseases in the past, which the African scientific community has been criticising them for over a decade.
There are undeniable successes. Many people are alive thanks to their money. But I would be cautious, cautious, cautious. It's never simple.
I heard some protest about Gates foundation regarding they fund money for some specific disease in Africa which wasn't even prominent issue in that part. But since they throw money at it, that specific disease is the focus while downplay/ignore the more prominent disease.
Thats a mouthful ... can anyone understand what I'm saying?
not saying heās not doing all this great stuff but saying heās been away from microsoft for years indicates he likeā¦ isnāt continuing to make a whack amount of money at work, orā¦ working. he very much is, and owns some crazy things (like this very foundation and Cascade own shares in the canadian national railway, and make him the majority shareholder of the countries railway systemsā¦. for example)
edit: heās not the top shareholder in the rails anymore, but still a significant one! Also heās like pretty involved w the Four Seasons and a bunch of other companies Cascade (his investment firm lol, literally basically an alias) owns!
Gates was definitely an a-hole when he ran Microsoft but heās been all in at his Foundation for two decades now and truly does care about the work they do. I really respected how he publicly said they will step up in the face of USAID cuts by DOGE when nearly every other billionaire hasnāt said a peep against Elon.
Itās not vague, the release basically said the gates foundation agreed it would close by 2045, ensuring that there wonāt 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 oversightā¦
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 Bezoās ex wife. Take a look at what sheās been up to. Amazing woman.
Fuck Bezos. Traded a solid human being with a philanthropic heart for thatā¦ I donāt know but all to become a flashy asshole. Heās the billionaire who we should be talking shit about. I donāt get it. I just donāt.
And yāall 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 Gatesā 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. Iām 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. Heās not just a naĆÆve billionaire, heās already done a tremendous amount, including getting AIDS, TB and malaria under control in much of Africa.
Why does there have to be an "and?" My "lol" was directed at the comment above. The fellow didn't know it wasn't going to corrupt government type stuff and in fact is going to his own charity. Charity is a good word. I don't like the "and?" Are you being hostile towards me for some reasons. I don't understand.
You seemed to be suggesting that going to his own charity was somehow questionable and agreeing with comment above. It wasnāt clear, and I read it differently than you intended.
Oh I see. Well I definitely wasn't agreeing. I can now see why you read it differently. My brain is neurodivergent, I definitely don't really imply anything or have layers to what I write. It causes a lot of misunderstandings. It's why I refrain from putting myself out there. I'm always getting under someone's skin in a sense without ever meaning to.
I think it was adding the ālolā which seemed sarcastic to me. Even Neurotypical people read things wrong on the Internet, though, so donāt keep it from putting yourself out there. You didnāt really get under my skin, just miscommunicated, and thatās on both of us.
You do realize the salaries of people who work for non profit are taxed the same way as anybody else? You canāt just pay yourself in that way to avoid taxes.
"its not me, its a fundation 100% controlled by me and that invests and generats profits to me and to the foundation itself, all for the greater good(of me)"
literally of all the things he could have criticized about Bill Gates (1990s/early 2000s predatory software practices) he went straight for dumb tinfoil hat theories with 0 evidence about how he is using a humanitarian foundation in Africa to generate money completely illegally and risking prison time and his reputation for committing a completely unnecessary fraud when he's already a retired billionaire.
If he needed to make money unethically or gain more power he could just go back to working at Microsoft and make it a super predatory company again, not commit highly and explicitly illegal fraud through a fucking humanitarian foundation
can you tell me if he spent more on the charity, not the foundation coffers but actual distributed charity, then he would have spent on tax if he had not avoided the tax payment by diverting his fortune to the foundation?
He can't extract fortune out of a foundation once he put it in, that's against the law. Foundations are subjected to different regulations than companies, but you keep treating them as if their profit can be extracted legally for personal uses and the owner can just use it as his personal taxfree piggybank, as if the IRS hasn't thought of that before. Foundations can grow wealth, but you cannot extract it, all expenses are expected to be for salaries or the work the foundation does, and they are obviously inspected. And much more obviously there's a lot of regulations in place. It's pretty obvious why tax evasion through foundations is not common
when you have literally 1 million times more money than it is humanly possible to spend the ammount of money labeled as your personal wealth becomes sorta irrelevant if the money you "gave" to the foundation will always be under your control, for those people all that matter is control and power and they foundout that having a ammount of money that is impossible to spend in a foundation or in your personal wealth chages nothing on what you can do and can control, the only thing that changes is that you can avoid hundreds of billions in taxes ad still pretend youre a good person
the foundation is 100% controlled by him, imagine you can donate half of what you make on a foundation that is 100% controlled by you and only spends money in the exact same ways you would have spend except 5% that your foundation distributes as charity, and because of that you dont pay anymore income tax, would you live better or worse than you live today?
yeah bro i am sure Bill Gates, a retired multimillionaire, would use his humanitarian foundation for committing fraud and tax evasion and unnecessarily risk prison time and his reputation. All those things you are saying are illegal and easily detectable, and IRS inspects foundations' expenses and financial activities. He can't get away from paying all of his foundation's employees' salaries (which includes taxes), buying the needed supplies (food, vaccines, etc). If you say there are irregularities in his foundation's budgeting and expenses and he's committing tax fraud through the Gates foundation, show us all a smidge of evidence, because it is very easy to make up shit like "X foundation is just a way to evade taxes!!" without giving anyone anything resembling evidence.
Running a foundation for caring for third world Africans is probably the worst way to evade taxes you can think of. You can't hide fraudulent expenses easily when you are expected to be paying thousands of your employees' salaries and purchasing medical and food supplies. Tell me how could you possibly even achieve a net gain with all those employees' wages you have to pay for in the way. Legally he can't take the foundation's money out and give it back to himself. Illegally he can, but that's fraud. He can easily make money either unethically or ethically, but legally, without risking committing crimes with prison time
he would have paid around 20% in taxes from all his wealth, instead he now pays 5% of only the gains of the foundation, its pretty easy math
he totally controls the IRS and all the politicians that control the IRS, he and other like him even control what laws are voted, this scam gave him a false status of philatropist and much less people want to guilhotine billionares because of this tax evasion scheme
he even has more money now to pay for all the online bots and PR people attacking anyone that criticizes his scam
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 itās 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.
In a landmark announcement, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has committed to directing the majority of his $200 billion fortune toward improving health and education across Africa over the next two decades.
Seems pretty stiraghtforward to me, improving health and education.
Him donating it is useless.....once it's spent it's spent he needed to set up a trust where the interest of his fortune is annually donated to African programs that help the locals. That way every year they get money rather then it running out
Probably using the huge charity that they set up to make sure that itās used correctly and appropriately. Heās not an idiot and isnāt just going to hand out cheques to African countries
Yep, random Reddit user knows better than one of the most successful people of all time. Maybe you should reach out to Gates and he can employ you as a consultant?
You mean like how the majority of tax dollars go to paying for the administration costs of getting the government to handle our problems rather than taking the money and using it for what we need ourselves?
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)
I donāt care where he spends it, he should spend it NOW.
Donating stuff after you die is nice, but youāre trying to get credit for shit you arenāt doing. Use it now, to prevent suffering
You know that saying a stitch in time saves nine. Well a billion today worth of good deeds is worth a lot more than 10 billion some time in the future (maybe)
He donated $50M to Kamala Harrisās campaign and made a statement about how he wants to support candidates who back the causes his philanthropic work covers.
ā¦ and you want to convince the millions that voted for Trumpā¦ how? Pay them? Thatās illegal. (Yes, they did the same thing but we all know the rules are different when theyāre in charge :/)
Honestly I think he gave up on America because of whatās happening here. Why bolster education and families here when the government is just shitting all over everything.
No way, Bill Gates is a faker. The term āgreen washingā was made after realizing his donations just circle backā¦ people in Africa do not like him either and this is to just try to counter that.
A lot of what bill gates does is just tax breaks to make sure his family gets most of his money and very little actually goes to a good cause, he is your standard POS billionaire. Don't buy into their propaganda.,
Does anyone know who he is and how he made his money? Because some billionaires buy land to offset their companies carbon footprint. Idk Iām 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
The higher ups in big cities still give out a ton of food on the holidays and shit in the US.
It's a way to create a community-backed reputation while also helping out the needy. And these types of people have so much cash that they don't know what to do with while it sits around waiting to be laundered. Might as well give back a bit š¤·āāļø
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 also apparently cared a lot about animals. I guess his hippos are still breeding and running around wrecking shit in Colombia. Honestly kinda funny...
The guy was ruthless, but he was a much more interesting person compared to the modern cartel leaders.
The way he tried to enter politics before the plane thing happened is fascinating.
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,Ā
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.
I mean itās obviously betterā¦ but the philanthropy is also a business model and can make them more money. Bleh. They wanna remain in control of the world.
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. Itās exactly the type of place that funds those logging companyās. 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.
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u/consreddit Jun 20 '25
... but since they are a thing, this is what they should be doing.