July 06, 2008
BillG's Last Day At Microsoft
- feat. Jay-Z, Bono, Napoleon Dynamite, Bill Gates playing Rock Band Guitar Hero (!), and so much more...
On a more serious note, there's an interesting conversation happening in economics about Bill Gates' theory of Philanthropy -- read his speech at the Davos Conference or this transcript of a conversation between #1 ($62.0 billion) and #3 ($58.0 Billion).
I haven't had time to read the above speeches yet but I wanted to share Anil Dash's unique view that Bill Gates has in some sense leveraged an across-the-board corporate tax (in the form of Microsoft software) which the Gates foundation is now returning in the form of philanthropy. Interesting perspective.
That does seem to be the end result... but it's not what's going on. At that end I'm pretty sure it's just about keeping score.
Keep in mind that before he got married, Bill Gates was widely chided (as much as you can chide someone for not giving their money away) for his lack of philanthropy:
Nonetheless, a lot of the rich are procrastinators when it comes to philanthropy. They fully intend to spread their wealth around -- someday. Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman and the richest man in America with an $11.2 billion fortune, is aiming to do some serious giving when he is 50 or 60 years old. He is now 39. The investor Warren E. Buffett, No. 2 on the Forbes list of the super rich is holding onto the vast bulk of his fortune until he dies.
This is a remarkable turnaround, and I'm pretty sure there's a good reason Melinda Gates' name is at the top.
Well she does have prior experience with "unit management"....
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the last link is a link to alkalineearth.com
(oops | thanks | fixd -- mgmt.)
posted by Valatan at 10:21PM CST on July 06