November 16, 2022 - 7:15am
Whatever one thinks of the company, Jeff Bezos achieved something extraordinary in building up Amazon (and in amassing the vast fortune that has flowed from it).
Now that he has pledged to give away more than half his wealth, Bezos faces another difficult challenge: finding a way to give effectively, without having his money simply swallowed up by the charity and NGO class.
Billionaires, especially the largely self-made variety, are almost by definition outstanding people, at least in terms of efficacy and achievement. There is no obvious reason these qualities shouldn’t persist when they apply themselves to philanthropic and humanitarian goals.
With the spectacular collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried, the superstar mogul of ‘effective altruism’, or Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, this may not be the best news cycle to make this case. But even if the eventual aim (to colonise Mars) is far-fetched, Musk has delivered real advances in the space sector via SpaceX, a company defined by his personal vision. Here on Earth, meanwhile, Bill Gates has played a key role in the global fight against malaria, spearheading a campaign which saw deaths fall by 60% between 2000 and 2015.
Contrast these approaches with those taken by Mackenzie Scott, Bezos’s ex-wife, who walked away from their marriage with a hefty chunk of the Amazon fortune. According to the Times:
Unsurprisingly, Scott has been praised for this, and Bezos criticised for the unflattering comparison. But the lack of transparency and accountability is extremely troubling. Who is going to follow up and independently assess the good that money actually did? Gates’s bureaucrats might have.
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SubscribeSome of these billionaires like Bill Gates like to call themselves philanthropists but I don’t think they are. They are using their money to push their own agendas.
tax efficient too…. donate rather than cough up
The statement in general strikes me as correct, but I question citing Gates as an exemplar. How is attacking malaria an agenda?
I don’t know enough about Gates’ post-Microsoft life to give it an overall rating, but if his malaria-related effort has resulted in a 60% drop in malaria deaths, that’s a huge accomplishment.
Their “philanthropy” is just conceit and a desire to control. Dumping vast amounts of cash into sector or – particularly – into a relatively poor country distorts economic incentives and creates dependency. They would do better to call a halt to their monopolistic practices, and not accrue such wealth to themselves in the first place.
Does your or Mr Elliott’s comment apply to the eradication of Malaria?
Is this money not of more use in circulation than in the vaults of Messrs Gates and Bezos (or spent on the construction of giant clocks inside mountains (Unherd, passim))?
Bezos did say he had to establish the means by which the money could be distributed – hopefully an open and auditable framework with necessary governance, as alluded to by J Bryant.
Benefit of the doubt?
I take your point Ed but both Gates and Soros are helping to fund Extinction Rebellion along with a number of other billionaires. Gates is buying up farmland in the US, backing Artificial Meat companies as well as promoting them in the name of Saving the Planet. That’s his own agenda. I can see that people may think that’s a good thing but I don’t. Same with his investment in GM. His philanthropy is not neutral. There’s no discussion or debate about it. I agree with Stephen Walsh that it’s about control.
It’s said that if you control the food and control the energy you control the people. I don’t know who said that but I think it’s right and I find it sinister.
“But Bill Gates has taken a more pessimistic tone in his recent public statements about the future of the fight against malaria. In June, he warned us that progress was slowing thanks to drug and insecticide resistance, and in July he wrote about how infection rates have plateaued or increased.”
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/10/3/20893907/malaria-gates-study-eradication-mosquitos
There’s good and bad here – smoke and mirrors – it’s all about Power and Influence. Gates imho is a very dangerous man.
Last year a sustained net gain fusion reaction was achieved for the first time, proving that it can be done. Now it needs a lot of money.
If Bezos were to provide that money he’d stand a reasonable chance of going down in history as humanity’s greatest benefactor.
Fat chance though, eh?
When I had completed my first novel, Glass half-Full, many years ago, I stood at my printer, watching, as it cranked out page after page of newly-composed historical fiction. After hole-punching all those pages, then shuffling them into a dime-store binder, I then addressed them to Simon & Schuster, and/or Random House, Harper Collins or Penguin, and mailed those manuscripts. After a while, what happened?
You guessed it, my “over the transom” strategy for bustin’ into the big time had no end in sight, which is to say, nothing happened, not even a rejection letter!
But hey, not to worry! Thanks to Jeff Bezos and his Kindle Direct Publishing, KDP, I can now distribute, by my own means, partnering with booksellers and the luck of the game . . . all four of my historical fiction novels. They are being distributed in countries all over the world. You can purchase Glass half-Full, Glass Chimera, Smoke and King of Soul on Amazon! Anyone in the world can read my stories.
That’s life for a 21st-century author.
Thanks, Jeff & Co . . . couldn’t have done it without you.
Having seen the robotic ruthlessness with which Bezos built Amazon, I doubt he’ll be mindlessly sprinkling pixie dust on random charities.
Regards