As my daughter once mentioned to me, Jeff Bezos wakes up every morning and decides not to end world hunger.
World hunger is a distribution problem related to the shape of the global politico-economic system, and the politico-economic systems in the places experiencing the most serious hunger; the problems in the latter are the main short-term problem, but they are anchored by the problems in the former which tend to make solutions both difficult and temporary.
Jeff Bezos is rich, but not “overthrow the international politico-econonic regime and institute a just world which would solve the problems creating hunger durably through simple amplication of wealth” rich.
United Fruit Company did not have a carismatic CEO but still managed to overthrow governments and create banana republics.
The main reason that Bezos doesn't end world hunger is that he can't even end Amazon worker's hunger, and he controls them with an iron fist. I agree he should stay off politics and just pay his back taxes.
I think it's *likely a motivated mega-billionaire would be far more effective with 100B than a self-interested bureaucracy.
It’s pretty much impossible to get our human minds around $185 billion, but any which way you spin it, it’s an insane amount of money. His $2bn altruistic fund is sort of like the equivalent of me giving away £1000. It’s a bit generous, but really not very much. Plus, that sort of altruism is utterly skewed to your benefit when you’re that wealthy.
If he gave away 99.99% of his net worth, he’d still have $18.5 million, a figure that’d make anyone on the planet - and their family - blissfully comfortable for the rest of their lives.
Details aside (yeh, I know it’s not actual money, it’s in stocks, yada yada), the point is it is an absolutely obscene amount of money for any individual to possess. I have no understanding how he sleeps at night knowing the world around him is full of appalling poverty that he could help solve.