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Comment by nceqs3 | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting how differently Ms. Scott's philanthropy is treated than Bezos's. When Bezos donates the headlines and tweets are very negative whereas when Scott donates they are very positive. I don't see the difference. Isn't it the same pot of money these donations are coming from (Amazon)?

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It's my understanding she donates a lot more than Bezos does. Consider the fact she has agreed to the giving pledge, giving away half of her wealth to charity similar to Buffett, Gates, etc. Whereas Bezos has not agreed, and I'm not aware of any time when he has donated billions. That may be the difference but I'm not sure as I haven't really seen any Bezos donation headlines that were negative, or any that I could remember at all for that matter .

Bezos wants to build spaceships. His money will go to that.

Aside from human narcissism, the space race is motivated by it's militarily strategic importance.

Outside of a black swan event, humanity is not ever getting off this rock in any colonial capacity.

Space, it turns out, is a really shitty fucking place for life.

Elon's Mars fantasy is a red herring.

According to the press, Jeff's giving has historically been underwhelming:

https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-amazon-how-much-d...

Do you have any examples to the contrary?

$10 billion climate change fund commitment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/11/1...

That story only documents a $791M gift. The $10B is a fund he's dedicated but still owns. Obviously it's still almost a billion dollars, but well short of his ex's mark.

Yeah it's certainly less. I would imagine Jeff is still working over full time at Amazon. Come back to this thread in 20 years. I bet Bezos will be the next Gates. Similar public perception (cut throat titan) and funds.

I do wish we’d spend more time on spending from these funds and not the oft-hollow initial commitments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/business/donor-advised-fu...

These reports come out because of PRs she's releasing to polish her image. The more virtuous donors stay anonymous.

I recently read the book "The Live You Can Save" by the philosopher Peter Singer. He said that yes, it is considered tacky and self serving to let the world know you did something charitable. That leaves us all in the position of not knowing what is normal, or perhaps that giving $1000/year is good enough. But if you learn that many of your coworkers give $20000/year, it will likely cause you to reevaluate if your $1000/year is really generous enough.

So, to turn it around on you, if your choice is to let friends know that you've donated $X to some charity which may cause them to also be more charitable, or to keep it private because you are afraid of looking tacky, you have made the choice that your self-image is more important than the extra money it may cause friends to donate to the needy.

BTW, it is a great book -- the most important book I've read in at least 10 years. One important point is his philosophy: all suffering is important, not just the people you know or who are local to you. Raising $30,000 for a fancy truck for a disabled person is unquestionably a kind act, but that same amount of money could save 20 lives in a developing country, or prevent river blindness in more than 100 children.

Her generosity notwithstanding, she probably hired a great PR agency.

Seems rather condescending doesn't it?

You don't need a PR agency to sugar coat four billion dollars... It's actually pretty generous and requires some level of good faith assumption on our part.

The Women-are-wonderful effect probably plays a role.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect

because she donated like 10-15% of her money. what percentage does jeff donate?

which is still effectively nothing for her, since even 1% of her money is enough to do whatever she wants for the rest of her life.

Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago?

>> Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago?

Buy influence, then use that influence to drive policy changes. Unfortunately it is not always used the way we want, some examples are the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer

Theoretically you can use this influence to drive better climate policy, better civil rights, better social justice

Robert Mercer is not a billionaire btw. Ironically Jim Simons (his ex partner) has donated a lot of money to the democratic party/causes. Does that balance it out?

Spend it on your politics like Soros or Koch. Accelerate technical progress like Musk. Pure vanity like that guy who spent $600m getting the Chicago GSB named after him. I’m sure if you tried you could come up with some ways you’d like the world to be different that you could spend a lot of money on. Personally I’d love to see well recognized, respected tests that test the same knowledge as a variety of university degrees. Setting up an organization to do that and giving prizes for the top results to build brand awareness for the first decade could easily burn a million dollars a year for a decade for one subject. Advertising is expensive, organizations are expensive, people are expensive, especially qualified, competent ones.

It's more like she donated 5-7.5% of Jeff's money.

They wed together before he started Amazon. She's not some vulture that came along after and made off with half his money.

Don't know why being downvoted, it's factually true.

But it’s not actually factually true - it’s her money according to the laws and contracts in place. If it were his money, he’d have it. He doesn’t, so it isn’t “factually” his money.

It’s only “his money” in a non-factual basis where we are implying something akin to “he earned it and she didn’t”.

It’s hard to believe he has achieved what he has without the support of his partner. That’s kinda the point of splitting assets upon divorce, because the law recognizes that partnership as (ideally) having been a shared effort to the benefit of both individuals.

Jeff has given very little ever. For instance he donated $690k to wildfire relief in Australia earlier this year. Every little bit counts clearly, but it's the equivalent of me giving 69 cents. I'm not bagging the guy for it, I'm just saying that there's clearly a difference, and that's why it's treated differently.

Does it matter how much that money is worth to him? Charity doesn't have to hurt to be effective.

With that single donation he's done more good for Australia than I (also, I assume, you) will be able to with years of effort, surely that's worth celebrating.

I or you don't get to have $100 million mansions in every big city in the US either. His team probably spent more on the PR than the actual donation, just to make sure that the protestors placing mini guillotines in front of his house don't escalate further forcing him to increase his security budget.

No, I think I was quite clear on that. I'm not going to give you platitudes for donating 69 cents, and I wouldn't expect you to give them to me either is the point. The reason that Mackenzie Scott is receiving them here is that she didn't donate 69 cents, she donated a substantial amount.

If you want negative opinion, then I am your man. The net value cost of these donations by these philanthropist billionaires should be considered. That is harder to calculate but basically what detrimental impact did generating this wealth cause? Does the donation really offset the damage done? For example, the very pro-business Australian government has been blamed for "shrinking government" by severely cutting back on bush management and firefighters leading to the fires getting out of control. These are the people welcoming the Bezos of the world with open arms. It's money from an ethically questionable source helping solve a problem caused by another group of people making ethically questionable decisions.

Also billionaires combined donate a pittance compared to public institutions likes NIH or NSF, National Endowments and other grant giving orgs funded by the public. Really we should just tax them more and funnel the money to public grants, and also properly enforce antitrust, labor laws and environmental regulations to limit societal damage wealth extraction causes, instead of hoping and praying billionaires will sprinkle a little moolah where it matters every blue moon.

As you suggest, the exact calculus is difficult, but you also can't ignore the positive effect that many (not all) billionaires have in the process of generating their wealth. Amazon, for example, saves consumers' time, and makes it easier to compare goods and prices, saving consumers' money. Bezos became a billionaire because he provided billions of dollars in value to regular people.

That does not absolve Bezos or other billionaires of their sins. But likewise, you cannot exclude it from your calculus.

Positive and negative would be considered in the calculation. Saving time may not be as big an issue if some didn't need to work two jobs or long hours. Saving money may not be as big of an issue if wealth inequality wasn't at record highs and health insurance was universal. The pandemic has highlighted that humans are a commodity and expendable workers are not valued very much, but at least we get those cost savings on ethically-questionable products from overseas, that supports ethically-questionable regimes and increases the net worth of an ethically-questionable billionaire. It's ethically questionable all the way down.

> For instance he donated $690k to wildfire relief in Australia earlier this year. Every little bit counts clearly, but it's the equivalent of me giving 69 cents.

Nope: It's the equivalent of you giving $690K. The value of money doesn't go down based on the wealth of the one holding it.

It does. You think $100 isn't worth more to someone who's homeless than to Jeff Bezos? You're living in dream land.

It doesn't. When a charity receives $100, it has the same value to the charity than whether it came from someone who has $100 or $100 billion

that's not what you said at all, but okay.

It's funny seeing the perspective of charity being shown in various comments in this thread. Apparently it's a competition to see how much 'sacrifice' you're making. Apparently it doesn't count if the giver also gets some benefit (PR?) from it. Never mind the the supposed goal, which is to help others.

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