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Also, Buffett's gift is still inspiring to me 10 years later. The world's richest man never spent his enormous fortune other than living a normal upper middle class lifestyle. He not only decided to give away all the money, but is doing so without the typical pursuit of marking his name in stone on every building in the world. He didn't even create a charity in his name. Very possible that the Gates foundation will live on for many decades and Buffett won't mind that his name isn't strongly linked to it.

The Gates Foundation will be closed 20 years after the death of Bill and Melinda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...

> He didn't even create a charity in his name.

A charity was created in the name of his late wife though, and it is known as the Buffett Foundation for short. They are also doing amazing work:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/warren-bu...

While in most cases the man is frugal relative to his wealth, he still does own a private jet. Not exactly upper middle class.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cnbc.com/amp/id/49787452

> With that said and not to diminish the good work. It is sad and eye-opening more progress has not been made on these issues.

The reasons for this are not hard to find. Indeed, you hit the nail on the head in the next paragraph by pointing out the role of governments.

> I'm not sure what can be done on that or what that means, just a bit breathtaking how governments can help people or really screw things up on a scale nothing else even comes close to.

A case study of this in Ethiopia serves as a point in William Easterly's critique of "technocratic aid" in general and Gates's approach specifically: http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/guest-the-flaw-in-bill-g... He elaborates upon this at length in his book "The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor".

The way I like to think of it is that money, especially in large sums like the $50 billion in the foundation, is a potent tactical weapon. However, wars are not won on tactics/technology alone, but also on strategy. Here that amounts to solid leadership/deployment of the capital. I think this letter shows that they have done a pretty good job with it. Nevertheless, it is easy to fall into complacency and arrogance here. I only hope that they continue to listen, observe, and learn.

What really stood out to me was Melinda going in field and talking to women. The sex worker story really touched me.

She is worth billions and could be living a life of ultimate luxury. She instead prefers to strongly fight for empowering women.

I hope Bill, Melinda, and Warren live a long life to be able to fulfill their goals.

> She could be living a life of luxury, instead prefers to fight

Let's be honest... She is doing both. Have you seen their house? No judgement, but she's not in Mali every day.

Is that not a false dichotomy?

Providing help , like bed nets to prevent mosquito bites in order to reduce malaria, does not promote nor prevent other fight for more freedom in Ethiopia. Sure, the Gates foundation could have chosen to concentrate on that other front, but criticizing one type of aid for not help with something else is pretty uninteresting.

>> "the scale of these problems really requires the cooperation of governments"

Right, it's my understanding that orginally the Gates foundation tried to do it without working with the governments governing the people they wanted to help, but were unable to make it work.

Instead of corporate or national concerns, his view is global. This is the perspective of the king of the world - or god. Like Rockefeller, everyone loves him (now). Lots of people work for his vision, perhaps more than as MS ceo. No taxes.

For the richest man in the world, it's possibly the only step up.

I wonder how much of this particular philanthropy is just giving back money that those countries spent? I.e. Microsoft licences, or balance of trade with the donor countries?

A kind of benevolent taxation?

No idea if that's true or not, but who cares? It's saving lives.

Most billionaires just hoard a few more islands for themselves.

I'd be more fearful of corruption in those countries. This is where so much foreign aid falls apart, it's siezed by the government, distributed to their favored constituents, and never makes it to the people who really need it.

See: United States.

Bill gates talks about corruption in his 2014 annual letter (1). Search for the word "corruption" if you don't want to the read the whole letter. TLDR: Its manageable.

(1)[http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Medi...]

> I wonder how much of this particular philanthropy is just giving back money that those countries spent? I.e. Microsoft licences, or balance of trade with the donor countries?

I mean, that's literally how capitalism works. You earn money selling a product or services to people, and use that money to purchase products or services from people.

I've seen too many pirated unactivated copies of Windows Server running large businesses (that could afford the licensing easily) in many of those countries to subscribe to that theory.