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Comment by limeyy | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why, all these billionaires first want to make billions, and then do philanthropy. How about making their services/business/products more affordable with which they are making all this money with in the first place?

For example: MS Office used to cost 4-500 euro for the average home user a few years ago. That was ridiculous.

If you have a small shop and 2000 Facebook page likes, Facebook rips you off each time you want to reach them.

Maybe market dictates these prices but then again, they would be in the position to dictate the prices in the first place.

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You'd really rather have a cheaper MS Office than eradicate polio from the world?

It's not that he made Office overpriced, just to eradicate polio.

Here's why:

To achieve what you suggest there would need to be a controlling majority of shareholders that also hold this philanthropic view, otherwise the execs are required to do the normal thing, optimize the returns of their shareholders. (To have this criteria while raising capitol will severely restrict who you can work with / have on your board)

This is often why I feel bad for execs who take flack when their company optimizes / minimizes their tax burdens as its their shareholders who require them to do so and the law that allows it.

For people like Zurkerberg the way they can achieve their philanthropic goals best is to build a massively profitable business with the support of other investors who will share that goal and then take their personal profits and use those to achieve their goals.

Mis-pricing your offerings, high or low, can ruin your chances in a market. There shouldn't be any particular connection between a company's pricing strategy and philanthropy, especially for a company selling something that isn't essential for people to live.

I rather wonder why those philanthropists think they are the best to decide what to do with the money? If I understand it correnctly, neither Zuckerberg nor Gates have given up much control over their money, they just cannot use it anymore for themself.

And who is more qualified?

Looking at the lasting impact of Carnagie's estate or any of the other billionaires who decided to spend their later life focusing on philanthropy, rather than just throwing cash at other peoples causes, I'd say they can and do provide a real to society by continuing to control their capital.

Just like the other commentors have pointed out, who is better qualified to launch and run a major project than those who already spent their lives building and scaling great businesses.

It's a "me first" attitude, once folks get what they want, then they'll consider others. Pretty normal unfortunately.

Right, I mean there is something dubious too all this. Both Microsoft and Facebook did and are actually practicing enough shady business tactics. Internet explorer, tax evasion, privacy issues, you name it, they are all guilty of this kind of stuff. But then now, we should glorify them once they give away the money they earned this way.

... they are still redeeming things to do, but yeah, ideally you'd skip the scamming part. The Rockefellers made their money flatout on scams, but their name is fairly redeemed at this point.

You wonder why, yet these billionaires aren't wondering, they're doing.

The Government gives incentives for charity donations via tax benefits.

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