Will Bill Gates give away his fortune ?

[Barakka]

I was reading an article about Bill Gates in the paper yesterday saying about his latest charity donation of £100m ($168m) to malaria research and treatment in Africa. This is more than is currently given by the rest of the world combined, all governments, all charities, the UN etc.

Now he is a charitable guy with the Gates Foundation having $1.9bn to help charities around the world (especially Third World Countries).

The question is, Mr.Gates is now estimated to be worth over $28bn and still says that when he retires he will take out "a few millions" for his family and donate the rest to charity.

Will he ? And how much of this do you think is merely for publicity, or is he the genuine, caring, open person his press office tells us?

[kaillum]

yeah.. he says he's gonna take out a few million for his family.. unfortuntately this guys idea of a few million and everyone elses idea of a few million are gonna be totally different!!!

"yeah, well i'm gonna need a couple of million for my boats, another couple of mill for cars, a couple of mill to pay for my shirts & jumpers, an gotta say at least 20mil for my house.. then i've got the kids to pay for so lets just round that up to 1bill.. oh stuff it.. heres a couple of quid for a coffee, i'm keepin my stash "

[5lab]

afaik he already gave away something like US$80billion to cancer research or some such. i may be wrong thou

edit: yep looks like im wrong ;P

[Bindibadgi]

Gotta admit, when youve got too much money to know what todo with giving it to charity is a good thing. How many other fat-cat companies do you know that do this on a regular basis?

[Punky]

i wouldn't mind some cash, i mite write him a nice letter saying i got some wierd disease. sumhow doubt it'll work though.

[TeePee]

28 Billion is 28,000 Million. Thats about equal to the total GDP of the worlds 100 poorest countries. A few millions for his family, or even a few thousand millions won't make too big a bent on that total.

Of course, most of that wealth is in Microsoft stocks, and were he to sell it all the value of Microsoft would plummet. He would also have to declare to the market that he was selling, and directors ditching stock doesn't do much for the confidence of other investors.

[Anders]

I’d always thought the story was that he’d leave a small percentage to his family (so still quite a fortune) and the rest to charity when he died rather then when he retired, but maybe it’s changed. I think it’s more likely to happen when he dies.

[spikegifted]

Bill Gates stated as long ago as 1993 that he's going to give his fortune to a charitable trust. Of course, I'd imagine his family will be amongst the beneficiaries of this trust - you gotta look after the kids of #1!

However, I think there is another motive... It's all to do with business!!

First, a question: If you were Bill Gates, would you trust anyone other than yourself? I think the likely answer is a big fat "NO". That's the reason why even though he has found someone to run Microsoft (Steven A. Ballmer), he's still stay as chairman - to keep an eye on things. To be completely honest, there will not be another Bill Gates - as a coder, a business person and a personality. So, instead of letting people argue over his wealth when he's not around, he's going to give it to a charitable trust.

As someone correctly pointed out that most of Bill Gates' wealth is tied up in Microsoft shares. A good reason why the wealth goes to a charitable trust is because if you want to gain control of Microsoft, you'd need to have the concent of the largest shareholder(s) and guess what the charitable trust will never give that concent and hence once the shares are transferred to this trust, MS will never face the danger of being taken over.

[Saracen]

Personally, I'd say the bloke means pretty much what he says. He does a lot more good works than many very wealthy people, and doesn't make much of a song and dance about it. Sure, he has some nice toys, but he also isn't ostentatious about it, like some people are when they get a few quid. He does, for the most part, hide his light under a bushell in that regard.

Yeah, he spent a lot of money on a VERY nice house, but he's one of the richest guys in the world, and who among us here wouldn't have done exactly that in the circumstances.

Gates is often portrayed as the Prince of Darkness and the head of the Evil Empire, but in my view, it's grossly unfair. Sure, MS has some very sharp business practices and I'm far from liking everything they do, BUT .... some of the moaning is from other companies that have been known to be a bit devious themselves.

Microsoft's devious, and debatably illegal, in some cases, practices may have brought the attention of the world (and the US justice system) but that is largely because as a company they are so damn successful and are therefore in the spotlight.

There are, in my view, many corporations that have done MUCH worse. For instance, those car manufacturers that have KNOWN about design problems and done nothing, denying it all, DESPITE the fact that their silence got a number of people hurt and some killed.

I doubt if you could find a single large, successful corporation that hasn't pulled a full legally dubious strokes in it's time, and that's without even thinking about the likes of Enron.

IMHO, Gates has a lot of people heated because they PERSONALLY buy products from his company. But I'm nore bothered about the practices of companies exploiting the third world and running child labour in undeveloped countries, producing designer label clothes or shoes for pampered westerners than I am about who wins the browser wars or whether MS keeps hidden functions in it's code or not.

Gates, personally, is a very nice bloke. Pleasant, friendly, chatty if a bit shy. He is not at all supercilious, and does not play the big "I am", 'cos look at all my money. Yet I've met a fair few wealthy people (by which I mean billionaires) that do exactly that. You get the impression that they'll talk to you, but keep surreptiously looking at their watch. Not Gates.

I can't say I'm a close buddy of Gates, but I have met the guy several times and based on that relatively fleeting experience, I'd say he's pretty sincere in most things, and that probably includes what will happen to his money.

[spikegifted]

I'm not doubting that Bill Gates is a nice guy. However, I still feel that there is more than being generous as a motivating factor to his decision to leave his fortune to a charitable trust.

[Big RICHARD]

By seeming like you are generous you can gain the trust of many people and their money. It's what being a business entrepeneur is all about!

[Oakey]

Let's be honest, he could leave $1 billion to be divided up for his family and the rest could go to charity. His family will still have plenty.

And by the time he does die, whose to say what he'll be worth then? How old is he now? Late 40's? Could be worth double, triple, more by the time he dies.

[DaBeeeenster]

I think it's a pretty disgusting state of affairs when treating something like malaria is down to an individual.

All this money being spent on the NMD, war on Iraq etc. etc. etc. It seems to me that the worlds priorities are _slightly_ wrong. Just slightky.

[Skii]

Originally posted by DaBeeeenster
I think it's a pretty disgusting state of affairs when treating something like malaria is down to an individual.

All this money being spent on the NMD, war on Iraq etc. etc. etc. It seems to me that the worlds priorities are _slightly_ wrong. Just slightky.

Agreed 100%

Despite his achievements and qualities, he has too much money, it is fundamentally wrong for an individual to amass so much wealth whilst countries are starving to death.

oh - that applies to that old bat in Windsor too

[Oakey]

Despite his achievements and qualities, he has too much money, it is fundamentally wrong for an individual to amass so much wealth whilst countries are starving to death.

I don't think that was his argument.

I think he was saying it's disgusting how governments, etc concentrate on weapons and wars and crap whilst one rich individual is doing something that these governments should be doing.

As for people amassing so much money, in a way I agree. People who do sweet fa and earn obscene amounts of money (Beckham, £90k a week ffs) and then just spend it on crap and flaunt it and have this notion they're above you I can't stand.

People like Bill Gates who are doing something worthwhile with their wealth isn't so bad.

[DaBeeeenster]

"The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $ 1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in 43 least developed countries is $ 146 billion"

http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroup...tatistics.html

"The world’s 225 richest people have a combined wealth of over $1million million. Only four per cent of this wealth – $40 billion – would be enough for basic education and healthcare, adequate food and safe water and sanitation for all the world’s people."

http://www.newint.org/issue310/facts.htm