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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

Gates and Buffett have, for many years now, publicly pledged to give away basically 99% of their wealth.

Buffett's premise on not giving much of his wealth to his children, goes back perhaps 40 or 50 years now based on what he has said. According to Gates, an article that Buffett wrote for a business magazine, published ~25 some years ago now, informed and altered Bill's thinking on the detriment of giving such immense wealth to the next generation.

The Giving Pledge is primarily for other billionaires to pledge to give away at least 50%. The 50% level made it an easier bar to jump over, as of course not all of the billionaires want to match the 99% marker Gates & Buffett have set.

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Andrew Carnegie was the OG give-all-my-wealth-away-before-I-die incredibly wealthy person. I read an essay by him in high school where he though, philosophically, he shouldn't give his money to his kids rather than donate it.

I guess it really depends on what your view of the world, and your place in it, is. I was very surprised when my parents basically said that whatever wealth they accumulated, their goal was to leave that to me. I think they view it as their duty as parents, for that to be the right thing to do.

Others have a view of propagating their genes to the next generation and view inherited wealth as the way to do so (Yes, I realize my parent's view of good parenting indirectly coincides with this view).

Yet others believe in the strengthening of their community, and not just their own genetic offspring. e.g. I believe Carnegie established libraries, Universities etc. for the "people of Pittsburgh".

Those views are rather strictly tied to the number of 0's in ones bank balance I feel. Even 1% of Bill gates worth is many hundreds of millions. Where as the average person who seeks to leave everything to their children might be in the millions. But possibly even less.

This is from 2013[0], but the avg. inheritance in the US at that time was $177K according to an HSBC survey.

[0] http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/13/retirement/american-inherita...

I think for Carnegie it was more of a philosophical point. His belief (if I remember correctly) was that the idea of a birthright was fallacious and possibly counter-productive. Rather than pass his holdings down to his descendants, he believed that we all have an ethical prerogative to use what we've earned in our life to benefit society at large.

It's very hard for people to fathom this, but there is a level of wealth where it is rational to blow most of your money and set aside only a small percentage for your loved ones. If Bill Gates blows 99.999% of his wealth, his kids still get 9 million dollars inheritance!

Famous for a library in every town- over 2500 of them. Many still operating.

Yes, the scope is rather immense, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries

Yes, the small Ohio town my parents live in near the PA border still has an active Carnegie library, as do some nearby towns. I believe the town had started a library housed in existing town buildings, but after a few years of growth it needed its own location. The town wrote to Carnegie, who gave them a grant for a new library building, which is still used. I'm sure the story is the same in many other small towns.

> Buffett's premise on not giving much of his wealth to his children

I mean, it's still an insanely huge amount of money he'd be giving to his children (Gates as well). 1% of his networth is $762 million - you're talking about an insane amount some people are going to get just by being born (even after taking into account inheritance taxes and splitting the money among siblings).

And we should also remember that charity is a form of conspicuous consumption for the ultrawealthy. Huge charitable donations are the modern day equivalent to monuments or statues. You're well passed the point where your money can increase your personal well being, so you might as well spend it on something that makes people pay attention to you, wins you accolades and gives you a legacy.

We'd all be much better off if they just donated it to the United States Treasury, wouldn't we?

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