I generally agree - but the suggestion that she might have been better off doing what is typically done with money is *very* implausible to me. For one thing a good - half? two thirds? goes to causes that I'd deem to be at least moderately effective. That easily makes up for any particularly poor expenditures - though I'm not even convinced that (most) of those are worse then stock.
I think you are seriously overestimating the marginal value of typical money expenditures. Excepting certain particular cases - the part of the economy that actually goes to improving human welfare simply isn't that large. Like some medical research, at least that which goes to new therapies and certain tech fields. Making food, games and Facebook ads more addictive just doesn't help much. And of course neither do the typical status games involved with wealth.
Your argument jumps really fast from -- she didn't spend her money on optimal charities to the charities she funded don't offer any more benefit than simply paying people to do something useless. You offer absolutely no evidence for the claim either.
As far as the issue of hiring 'diverse' leaders here's a plausible theory on which it makes plenty of sense. While it's true that adding such a requirement might have some impact on quality of hires the impact is going to be extremely small and the resultant harm will be smaller than the direct benefit of increasing employment opportunities for these groups and/or fostering a certain sense/vibe in those organizations that will make the employees more likely to believe in the mission.
Saying fiduciary isn't magic after all. That's why startups can't just replace founders who really believe in the vision with random buisness school graduates and expect the same result. Fiduciaries are just people who can be sued if the obviously intentionally undermine the interests of the principal.
Look they aren't the groups I'd fund and I share the ick feeling that she's less making the world better than making herself feel good -- but none of us are Vulcans and it doesn't imply it's less good than nothing.
Most philanthropy should be replaced with Give directly donations who give cash transfers to poor Africans. People are pretty good at spending money on themselves as opposed to benevolent government officials or billionaires.
I agree that would be better than 99.99% of what people end up giving to. Having said that, It's interesting to think about how much GiveDirectly could move in a given year without running into diminishing returns. I know the studies they've conducted thus far mostly show inflation isn't much of a concern if it's done in a targeted way and directed at the very bottom of the pyramid. But i'd assume it wouldn't do as well if entire impoverished regions received cash , such that it led to inflation in services and perhaps some inflation in goods as well.
There is a lot of aid and private charity money going to Africa anyway. In some of the smaller countries aid can be almost 10% of gdp. If it causes inflation western governments can always cut back or send it to another country. There are 54 countries in Africa most of whom are low or lower middle income.
Agreed. I guess I'd also be in favor of experiments around improving institutional quality, skills tranfer etcc. Perhaps charter cities? But anything systemic like that requires more humility and rigor not less, and throwing billions at the problem isn't in and of itself close to sufficient.
I'm actually against that. We can't go in and do nation building for them. Africans need to learn to stand on their two feet instead of relying on handouts. I'd be more OK with getting rid of foreign aid entirely but for geopolitical reasons we need to keep doing it.
Why do you think charter cities is doing their work for them ? We get land to replicate some agglomerationeffects and potentially cheap low skill labor with
I'm pro charter cities. It's basically FDI but for public institutions. I'm originally from bangladesh and would like to get one in my home country. But African leaders need to go out and exercise their own agency. If a project fails they can't keep asking for a bailout.
This feels like a classic Pareto problem. It seems best to give massive and indefinite funding to a much smaller slice of highly focused and effective organizations, rather than splash 10mil here and 15mil there on randos.
Yep, and if you don't like any of those highly effective organizations that curretnly exist, then with $17B, you can start new ones, or even a whole new field. Instead, she wrote $15M checks to several habitat for humanity franchises, $10M to japanese american museums and funded a ton of community centers and colleges for "underrepresented minorities" It's honestly inscrutable what goal this could serve other than trying to give and give fast.. Reminds me of Jesse from Breaking bad going around Albuquerque splashing wads of cash as randomly as possible.
While I acknowledge there's something gross about this situation, I don't know that this is exactly a common occurrence, a wife walking away with so many billions. To my knowledge there's only been one Mackenzie Bezos.
Melinda Gates only walked away with $2 bil, and the foundation was always a compromise between them. Left to his own devices, Bill would probably have just focused on technological innovation, but if she was left to her own devices, there'd be none of the EA-like focus on vaccines and maximum impact, a lot more focus on race and gender.
My wife was an architect that specialized in schools and museums. The donors are all women. The reason there are so many girls schools and few boys is that after the husband dies the wives are the ones that give it all away.
I'm not sure what a girl's school is in this context. Are we talking about other countries, or is this a rising trend in some parts of America? From where I'm sitting single-sex education has largely been done away with, unfortunately, even among Catholic schools.
I generally agree - but the suggestion that she might have been better off doing what is typically done with money is *very* implausible to me. For one thing a good - half? two thirds? goes to causes that I'd deem to be at least moderately effective. That easily makes up for any particularly poor expenditures - though I'm not even convinced that (most) of those are worse then stock.
I think you are seriously overestimating the marginal value of typical money expenditures. Excepting certain particular cases - the part of the economy that actually goes to improving human welfare simply isn't that large. Like some medical research, at least that which goes to new therapies and certain tech fields. Making food, games and Facebook ads more addictive just doesn't help much. And of course neither do the typical status games involved with wealth.
Your argument jumps really fast from -- she didn't spend her money on optimal charities to the charities she funded don't offer any more benefit than simply paying people to do something useless. You offer absolutely no evidence for the claim either.
As far as the issue of hiring 'diverse' leaders here's a plausible theory on which it makes plenty of sense. While it's true that adding such a requirement might have some impact on quality of hires the impact is going to be extremely small and the resultant harm will be smaller than the direct benefit of increasing employment opportunities for these groups and/or fostering a certain sense/vibe in those organizations that will make the employees more likely to believe in the mission.
Saying fiduciary isn't magic after all. That's why startups can't just replace founders who really believe in the vision with random buisness school graduates and expect the same result. Fiduciaries are just people who can be sued if the obviously intentionally undermine the interests of the principal.
Look they aren't the groups I'd fund and I share the ick feeling that she's less making the world better than making herself feel good -- but none of us are Vulcans and it doesn't imply it's less good than nothing.
It depends on what she's optimizing for.
Most philanthropy should be replaced with Give directly donations who give cash transfers to poor Africans. People are pretty good at spending money on themselves as opposed to benevolent government officials or billionaires.
I agree that would be better than 99.99% of what people end up giving to. Having said that, It's interesting to think about how much GiveDirectly could move in a given year without running into diminishing returns. I know the studies they've conducted thus far mostly show inflation isn't much of a concern if it's done in a targeted way and directed at the very bottom of the pyramid. But i'd assume it wouldn't do as well if entire impoverished regions received cash , such that it led to inflation in services and perhaps some inflation in goods as well.
There is a lot of aid and private charity money going to Africa anyway. In some of the smaller countries aid can be almost 10% of gdp. If it causes inflation western governments can always cut back or send it to another country. There are 54 countries in Africa most of whom are low or lower middle income.
Agreed. I guess I'd also be in favor of experiments around improving institutional quality, skills tranfer etcc. Perhaps charter cities? But anything systemic like that requires more humility and rigor not less, and throwing billions at the problem isn't in and of itself close to sufficient.
I'm actually against that. We can't go in and do nation building for them. Africans need to learn to stand on their two feet instead of relying on handouts. I'd be more OK with getting rid of foreign aid entirely but for geopolitical reasons we need to keep doing it.
Why do you think charter cities is doing their work for them ? We get land to replicate some agglomerationeffects and potentially cheap low skill labor with
I'm pro charter cities. It's basically FDI but for public institutions. I'm originally from bangladesh and would like to get one in my home country. But African leaders need to go out and exercise their own agency. If a project fails they can't keep asking for a bailout.
This feels like a classic Pareto problem. It seems best to give massive and indefinite funding to a much smaller slice of highly focused and effective organizations, rather than splash 10mil here and 15mil there on randos.
Yep, and if you don't like any of those highly effective organizations that curretnly exist, then with $17B, you can start new ones, or even a whole new field. Instead, she wrote $15M checks to several habitat for humanity franchises, $10M to japanese american museums and funded a ton of community centers and colleges for "underrepresented minorities" It's honestly inscrutable what goal this could serve other than trying to give and give fast.. Reminds me of Jesse from Breaking bad going around Albuquerque splashing wads of cash as randomly as possible.
Howard Hughes > Mackenzie Scott
re: 'Even if you believe leaders from other ethnic backgrounds couldn’t possibly care as much ...'
This is part of the problem. We don't want the people who care the most, we want the people who accomplish the most.
While I acknowledge there's something gross about this situation, I don't know that this is exactly a common occurrence, a wife walking away with so many billions. To my knowledge there's only been one Mackenzie Bezos.
Melinda Gates only walked away with $2 bil, and the foundation was always a compromise between them. Left to his own devices, Bill would probably have just focused on technological innovation, but if she was left to her own devices, there'd be none of the EA-like focus on vaccines and maximum impact, a lot more focus on race and gender.
My wife was an architect that specialized in schools and museums. The donors are all women. The reason there are so many girls schools and few boys is that after the husband dies the wives are the ones that give it all away.
I'm not sure what a girl's school is in this context. Are we talking about other countries, or is this a rising trend in some parts of America? From where I'm sitting single-sex education has largely been done away with, unfortunately, even among Catholic schools.
There remain prominent all girls prepatory schools. It's mostly an elite thing though, very high tuition.
Thanks.