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Comment by regularemployee | Hacker News Reader

This year I actually gave away all of my money and now my bank account has only ~$3k (after 8 years of earning software engineering salary). I didn't donate my money to non profits and instead I just gave out money to people I know who are not as fortunate as me. For example, someone I know got into a car accident last week and now couldn't drive to go to job interviews so I gave him 5k to help him out.

I have a few people that I'm giving 2.5k / month to help them take care of their families and so they don't have to spend every waking hour door-dashing for people like me.

I don't understand how society became so unfair and cruel and I didn't see the point in having savings when so many people around me have so little savings and no job.

Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B. To put it in perspective, If I made 300k (my yearly salary) / month for my entire life, I still won't have 1B.

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> Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B.

I doubt the goal is to impress you. While your sacrifice is admirable, at the end of the day, she's helping more people than you are.

What is he sacrificing? He makes a huge difference for a number of people.

> [...] she's helping more people than you are.

It's not a contest though, is it? I'm sure we can all help one another in some way, and it's disheartening to see comments such as yours discrediting (passively as it may be) the help some people give, as if their help is less worthy than others.

It's because the GP is discrediting MacKenzie Bezos that he or she is being discredited in response. If GP is going to find fault with someone donating $4 billion and ask "why not more," the question rightly comes back to "well what have you accomplished compared to her?"

The issue is GP has made sacrifice but MacKenzie doesn't have to scarify as much as GP. GP am not saying MacKenzie have to make sacrifice but he is just pointing the fact we live in society where richest people hoards money instead of using it for betterment society. And most of the donations are just plain PR strategy or some tax escape strategy.

You may argue they earned hard for that money but some people are just lucky and don't have to struggle and are so greedy they don't care about anyone else.

The Commentary is quite interesting here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_the_widow%27s_mite

The OP literally chose to make it a contest, complaining MacKenzie wasn’t doing as much as him percentage wise.

The used metric was "impressiveness", not raw percentages.

The OP argued, that assuming she had donated 59B out of the total of 60B, while this would (probably) be a higher percentage than the OP, it still would not be "impressive". She would retain 1B, which, I hope we can all agree, is more than enough to live a wealthy life, and certainly more than the 3k left on the account of OP.

Yeah this is what I meant, thanks for helping explaining it so well.

> and it's disheartening to see comments such as yours discrediting (passively as it may be) the help some people give

How is stating that his sacrifice is admirable a way to discredit the help he/she is giving?

> she's helping more people than you are

While sacrificing absolutely nothing. She could give so much more and still sacrifice nothing.

> While sacrificing absolutely nothing.

While some people may give charity as an act of sacrifice, others are aimed at helping people. The two are not mutually exclusive, but the former is not a defining aspect of charity.

"A bone to the dog is not charity. ... Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog." -- Jack London

Jack London was not an authority on the matter.

Spoken like someone who hasn't read much Jack London and knows nothing of his life.

Assuming that someone who has read much Jack London and knows about his life would come to the same conclusions as you regarding his expertise on the matter is an easy trap to fall into.

Two philosophers were crossing a bridge over a koi pond. One pointed to two fish swimming in the pond and remarked: "Boy, those are some happy fish." The other replied: "You, not being a fish, don't know whether they are happy or not." The first said: "You, not being me, don't know whether I know they are happy or not."

In case it’s not obvious and extending a generous interpretation to your comment - i did not imply she is giving as sacrifice.

I implied that the limits of her giving are not informed by any kind of sacrifice.

In contrast to me, you, and 99.9% of people giving to charity and having a limit based on sacrifice.

>, she's helping more people than you are.

I think the fairer point is to generalise both her and OP's behaviour. If everyone at a professional salary level was giving as generously as OP we could go a lot farther than even every single multi-billionaire throwing in a few billion.

Truth is, the entire net worth of all American billionaires together pays for about one year of national healthcare give or take. We could fleece them all and it wouldn't get us that far in the long term.

I disagree she's helping more people. That money came from Amazon, from the value of other people's work. Those people deserve the full value of their work and not for Bezos to siphon off the vast majority of it. Bezos employees and therefore harms over a million people every day. Giving back some of this doesn't undo that harm.

Are you for real? 2 months ago you posted "I can't quit my job to take a break because my wife and kids depend on my salary for money". Now you state you gave your life savings away?

"my wife and kids depend on my salary for money" -> This part I lied, sorry. I have no kids and my wife works too.

Does your wife know you have done this and support you? This seems like unstable, possibly manic behaviour to me. I don't know what to make of you between this and lying about having kids as well.

Sounds like a man about to get divorced who really resents his soon to be ex wife and didn't want her to get a single penny from his lifetime of hard work.

I lie about details online constantly. It helps me stay more anonymous in case anyone had a beef with me and tried to track me down.

> Sounds like a man about to get divorced who really resents his soon to be ex wife and didn't want her to get a single penny from his lifetime of hard work.

Sounds like you are projecting your deepest fears. I'm lucky, my wife is capable. For now at least, we don't have the issue that you are forecasting.

When it comes to giving away a significant portion of your wealth, gotta make sure you talk about it as the idea is forming, WAY before action is taken.

That was in a different comment with a different context from a different perspective.

Yes yes everybody knows and accepts it. I'm supported by loving people in my life, and that enables me to feel secure enough to not have savings.

He has wife and kids?!

I mean, if I was his kid, I'd appreciate it if there was enough there for me to not have to take out loans for college.

edit: ok apparently he doesn't

> Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B.

> If I made 300k (my yearly salary) / month for my entire life, I still won't have 1B.

It would take more than a millennium of making 300k a month to match what she gave in 4 months.

I cannot begin to comprehend how one could donate this much money in such a short time, it would require a lot of planning and execution. I think it's impressive from that standpoint.

I assume it’s quite easy to donate that amount, much harder to do so in a way that is effective for your goals.

This. Really impressive.

I am wondering more specifically what life experiences caused them to do this -- I assume they were not always like this and more likely an event triggered this less than sane behavior.

"I don't understand how society became so unfair and cruel"

Society is MUCH nicer than it was a thousand, or even a hundred years ago. Much, much nicer. And people are on average much better off.

This is the issue with everyone guessing and not reading history.

The fact that you give money to people you know rather than to nonprofits suggests that your motives are not as purely altruistic as you'd like them to be. A good nonprofit is massively more effective per dollar, able to literally save multiple lives for the 5K you gave to your acquaintance.

Now, if you just think about your donations as a way of making you feel good, the same way other people would spend their entire savings on cocaine, then you do you. But don't get so high and mighty on it that you denigrate the vastly more important work that MacKenzie Bezos is doing.

> The fact that you give money to people you know rather than to nonprofits suggests that your motives are not as purely altruistic as you'd like them to be.

It doesn't really have to be altruistic. There's certainly nothing in what he said that suggests he is doing it simply due to altruism, either. He has more than he needs and injects the excess into things he cares about (specifically, people he knows)

> A good nonprofit is massively more effective per dollar, able to literally save multiple lives for the 5K you gave to your acquaintance.

The goal wasn't to save lives, but to give someone they know money to help them find reliable transportation to get to job interviews. I'd reckon a nonprofit would not be able to ever perform the same service for that person, so you're kind of off base when you say they're massively more effective per dollar - they aren't helping people like his acquaintance.

> But don't get so high and mighty on it that you denigrate the vastly more important work that MacKenzie Bezos is doing.

In what way is her work vastly more important than what he is doing? Him saying he didn't find the donations impressive in comparison to her wealth doesn't say anything about her not doing good.

> The fact that you give money to people you know rather than to nonprofits suggests that your motives are not as purely altruistic as you'd like them to be.

I think this is passing alot of misguided judgements. I'm not thinking to myself, "I want to be altruistic today" and donate, no. I see someone who is struggling with life because of monetary and I give them help (even though I don't get to write off these donations on my taxes).

> A good nonprofit is massively more effective per dollar, able to literally save multiple lives for the 5K you gave to your acquaintance.

I don't interact with people whom nonprofits are specifically targeting and I don't have bandwidth to reach out. How do I have time for that to save lives for X amount when people around me are struggling? Just turn a blind eye and donate to save "X lives" that I've never made and feel good about my actions? How is this altruistic behavior?

I would suggest, instead of spending your money on superficial acts, invest that money into your own company to HIRE people who are less well off and train them with your skills. You would do much better for society.

So he is giving out his money and your reaction is "not enough, put time & effort into it as well"

"Give a man a fish..."

What if they don't have time nor skill to teach people fishing and just happen to have fish? Perhaps they must drop other things in their life to turn this into some grandiose altruistic social enterprise? Because I guess they own these people something?

Heard this so many times before, please embark this endeavor yourself. I don't really have that time / bandwidth / interest.

Consider checking out Earning to Give: https://www.jefftk.com/giving

u/jefftk's one of the most prolific givers on HN I know: https://www.jefftk.com/news/giving

And also a strong proponent of effective giving. The charities he gives to (generally malaria-focused ones) can save a healthy human life for less than $5,000 on average. https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

>Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B. To put it in perspective, If I made 300k (my yearly salary) / month for my entire life, I still won't have 1B.

What you're doing is impressive and commendable, no doubt. But imagine if you didn't have any of those friends to give money to - how fo you then know how to allocate your money? Or let's scale up your salary so that you're now a millionaire. How do you divvy up that money in a useful way to your friends that are in need? There comes a certain point where your friends are no longer usefully absorbing money efficiently.

2.5k a month definitely helps out a couple with kids. Now if you increased the amount to 100k a month, would you say they're efficiently spending every penny, or would a portion of that be better spent given to other families? TBH, I think spending 4B in a year is already pretty good considering it takes a lot of time to figure out how to donate in an efficient matter, outside of straight up giving cash to everyone. Otherwise I could easily see these charitable donations getting soaked up by select brand name orgs that just sit on most of the money as a warchest.

> But imagine if you didn't have any of those friends to give money to - how fo you then know how to allocate your money?

Not sure tbh.

> Or let's scale up your salary so that you're now a millionaire.

I really don't see this happening, I plan to give out exactly what I make for the rest of my life.

> ... Now if you increased the amount to 100k a month, would you say they're efficiently spending every penny, or would a portion of that be better spent given to other families?

Judging from my other engineering peers, I would say 0% of my peers are "efficiently spending every penny". Or 100%, depending on how much you value mental health. One could argue that buying a Peloton is great for mental health. :shrug:

I remember talking with folks about gambling and they said you should gamble a certain percentage of your funds, but it wasn't like 80% it was more like 5%. This let you stay in the game longer.

But yeah, this is a black swan kind of time and good people are needing help more than normal. And good people are the kind of folks who don't stomp right over and ask for help.

"And good people are the kind of folks who don't stomp right over and ask for help" -> sad, but true.

https://medium.com/@dincerhazar/a-rich-man-who-gave-everythi...

1 incredible developer could potentially be as good as 100 in the extreme case. But 1 software developer will never be as good as 1000 developers, which is why organizations operating effectively at scale dominate in success.

Similarly I believe giving money to random people is primarily making you yourself feel good. This is fine, but it isn’t very effective except to make yourself feel altruistic.

I prefer to give to organizations that are focused and organized. One of my personal favorites is Liberty in North Korea https://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org

I firmly believe an organization dedicated to helping slaves in a communistic dictatorship escape is better than me giving $500 to my friend. But this should be an analysis you make for yourself in regards to your philanthropic giving.

"Similarly I believe giving money to random people is primarily making you yourself feel good" -> I don't think this is true.

Parting ways with my money was an incredibly painful experience internally. It went against every value I grew up with.

I'm also scared to get to close with the people I give money to. I'm too afraid to become too emotionally involved in their problems to be able to reap any rewards of feeling good.

I haven't "bragged" about it to anyone either, the only people that knows are are the recipients, readers here, and my wife.

I do what I do because I think life is unfair and I don't feel I deserve the money I have.

>> I prefer to give to organizations that are focused and organized

I have a hard time donating to an organization when I personally know someone who could use a bit of extra money. Hard to look at them in the eye kinda thing.

Do you mind explaining why you do this?

Genuinely curious.

My POV: Time is money. I'd rather spend my time playing video games instead of wage-slaving. I pay enough taxes.

Little thing called empathy.

Some people are literally incapable of feeling happy no matter what they're doing when they see so many people and friends in utterly fucked situations in life, especially when it's purely because of finances.

If you make quite a bit of money, and have never even remotely felt this way, you may actually be a clinical psychopath (not that this is in any way a bad thing. Really... can't be helped with our current state of medicine, even if the person would want it)

I have a good bit of personal anecdata that psychopaths that are financially better off do seem to enjoy youth-middle age a good bit, but crossing over into older age leads them towards some rather harsh methods of suicide fairly quickly.

Also, on a slightly different note - if all your wants in life are to be able to spend your time playing video games... well, many, many things can be said about this and related to why this person feels the need to financially help others. May want to consider some self reflection... or not. In the end, the world really owes you nothing, nor do you it. Enjoy your time here in whatever way you find yourself able to.

Giving money to your low income parents so they can retire early I can understand. I do that.

But that's not what that guy is doing. He gave away everything (except $3k with a $300k income)!

That's like a month's rent in the Bay Area, I'm kind of worried to be honest.

Giving money to other human beings that are emotionally meaningful to you so they don't have to live what's perceived to be a shitty life by the giver or even be turned to commit suicide because of their financial situation (if you don't think this happens regularly congratulations you're ignorant) I can understand :)

Like I said. Enjoy your life of video games - but realize that's not what makes quite a large amount of the population tick.

I would be more comfortable believing most of the world would rather be playing video games than working 8 hours a day for someone else (other than for their immediate family of course).

But I may be too naive!

I feel like when they say 'all my money' they probably have other assets. Plus at $300k a year, it's only two weeks until another $11k paycheck, right?

Unless they are unable to work for a few months due to health issues/accident. Unless they're fired. Etc.

There's empathy and there's giving away so much you're a step away from making your own life a disaster by giving away everything. I mean, given possible life situations, OP is on average likely to help more people by skipping one or two months of giving and building some buffer to make sure they're able to keep helping in the future. Giving away almost everything goes past plain empathy and is an interesting choice.

"making your own life a disaster" is purely a view of your own opinion. Stop thinking you know what makes another human being tick.

Not really, if someone is reliably earning $300K then they can borrow if they have an emergency expense, take money out of their home, etc.

The replies to your comment is correct. If you are making 300k+ a year, you can borrow money easily for rainy day. I also have many close friends and I have a developed a habit of reaching out for help early when I feel mentally unhealthy. So I think "a step away from making your own life a disaster" is not likely.

"OP is on average likely to help more people" -> A few years ago, I've come to conclude that the goal of achieving "more" is a toxic goal and I've come to accept the mindset of doing just enough. Helping only 1 person is good enough for me, I don't have a desire for helping a statistically significant number of people.

That was supposed to be "help people more" rather than "help more people", sorry. What I had in mind is that if anyone you're helping comes to rely on your continuous support and you're suddenly unable to work for a year due to health issues, you'll have a problem anyway. Unless you have a home with no mortgage and other people can step in to both support you long term and the people you've been helping.

I'm thinking less of "achieving more giving" and more of "what's the plan when you're current support system fails long term".

> "help people more"

Thanks, I agree :)

> If anyone you're helping comes to rely on your continuous support

From my experience, everyone I've helped is trying to get out of the situation so they are not depending on me for 2.5k / month. Compared to a real job, my help is unsustainable in the long run and depends on my job / health / lifestyle. They know that, I think its common sense. Also, 2.5k is not alot of money to rely on for their families.

> and you're suddenly unable to work for a year due to health issues, you'll have a problem anyway.

I have a great network of friends / family. Alot of friends I grew up with, I helped them get jobs in early 2000 and they are all millionaires. My family is not poor either so I think I have a cloud to fall back on (thankfully).

> I'm thinking less of "achieving more giving" and more of "what's the plan when you're current support system fails long term".

Despite a strong support group (family and friends), I'm always prepared for the worst case scenario. I've worked with a homeless person before, someone whom I really respected. I don't mind living homelessly. As long as I am a good person at heart and have good intentions, it doesn't matter what financial situation I live in.

The guy was genuinely curious and you go ahead and respond like this. Step back for a bit. What did your comment actually accomplish?

Wow! You are a good human.

Your giving is going to crack the brain of a decent amount of the HN userbase. Don't let their snide comments get to you. You're doing something that is highly likely to be a very morally correct thing to do with regards to prosperity of those in your life and the nation in which they reside.

I personally revere your choice.

I think many of the snide comments are in response to this:

"Hearing MacKenzie giving away 4B of her 60B is not really impressive because you can live pretty nice with even 1B."

His story was fine as it is. Why did he feel the need to compare himself against MacKenzie?

The other comments seemed more like curiosity than anything else.

> Why did he feel the need to compare himself against MacKenzie?

I thought about this and in hindsight I think I was unhappy because it seemed to me that billionaires get glorified alot by the media.

This behaviour by the media seems to result in (approximately) good incentives for billionares.

I'm sure many billionares are only doing it for the PR - but if they want to give away $4B for good PR then isn't that a still a benefit to society?

> I'm sure many billionares are only doing it for the PR - but if they want to give away $4B for good PR then isn't that a still a benefit to society?

I'm not sure. Growing up, I'm only occupied by achieving "success" and it was the only thing that mattered. "I'll help people when I'm a billionaire" is what I used to tell myself for years. I distinctly remember a few people who could have really used a friend, but I didn't have time for them.

I could've been a better person growing up and I blame part of my "assholeness" on the glorification of billionaires.

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