Hide table of contents

Folks in philanthropy and development definitely know that the Gates Foundation is the largest private player in that realm by far. Until recently it was likely to get even larger, as Warren Buffet had stated that the Foundation would receive the bulk of his assets when he died. A few weeks ago, Buffet announced that he had changed his mind, and was instead going to create a new trust for his assets, to be jointly managed by his children. It's a huge change, but I don't think very many people took note of what it means ("A billionaire is going to create his own foundation rather than giving to an existing one; seems unsurprising."). So I created this chart:

The new Buffet-funded trust is going to be nearly twice as large as the Gates Foundation, and nearly 150% larger than most of the other brand names among large foundations, combined. So what's going to happen with that money? That's where it gets really scary. The three Buffet children who will be in charge are almost entirely focused on lightly populated parts of the US, and one of them is apparently funding private militias operating on the US border. If you at all subscribe to ideas of effectiveness in philanthropy, this is one of the most disastrous decisions in philanthropic history, and like I said, not getting enough attention.

Source: Tim Ogden. July 15, 2024. The faiv: Five notes on financial inclusion

Addendum - Aug 7, 2024

Tim provides an update on The faiv:

First, here's an excerpt from a forthcoming book that details the beginning and end of the Buffet-Gates partnership; apparently that involves Buffet perceiving that the Gates Foundation had become too institutional. But it also includes the idea that the new trust that Buffet is creating, to be overseen by his children, has to give away all of the bequest within 10 years of his death. I just don't see how that is remotely possible, even with a McKenzie Scott approach, barring just dropping money from the sky (honest question from someone who is not at all a macro-guy--would more than $125 Billion of windfall consumption over 10 years show up in inflation statistics?). I remain of the opinion that this is something that deserves a lot more attention. 

151

11
0
5

Reactions

11
0
5
Comments15


Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

I understand that others don't want to criticize someone for how they spend their money. While I think this is a good principal in general, I don't think it applies to Buffet for two reasons.

First, Buffet controls an extraordinary amount of money. More money than anyone could ever spend in a lifetime. This gives him an extraordinary responsibility to the world.

Second, Buffet has made a promise. He said "My pledge: More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death.... Were we [my family] to use more than 1% of my claim checks [stock shares] on ourselves, neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health and welfare of others. That reality sets an obvious course for me and my family: Keep all we can conceivably need and distribute the rest to society, for its needs."

His promise was an extraordinarily important one - to distribute over a hundred billion dollars for the needs of society. Unless you want to argue that border militias, college scholarships, and Nebraskan politics are addressing the needs of society, he has broken his promise.

Immigration security, college education and early childhood development seem like they straightforwardly fall into 'addressing the needs of society' according to standard usage of the term. They're not EA causes, but I'm not aware of Warren promising it would go to EA causes, or even things we would like at all. This is philanthropy (doing stuff to change society) as contrasted with personal consumption (boats, wine, parties etc.)

Any ideas for ways to make a positive outreach to the Buffet trust… praising their past giving and discussing their ideals and strategy?

Seems like a bad incentive if we harshly criticise people for stopping giving, at least if we didn't praise them way more for the donation in the first place. Warren has been one of the most generous men in history, but this historical generosity shouldn't be held as evidence against him.

I agree he shouldn’t have his past donations held against him, and that his past generosity should be praised.

At the same time, he’s not simply “stopping giving.” His prior plan was that his estate would go to BMGF. Let’s assume that that was reflected in his estate planning documents. He would have had to make an affirmative change to effect this new plan. So with this specific action he is not “stopping giving,” he is actively altering his plan to be much worse.

I don't buy this is a morally or socially significant distinction. Do we really believe that a parallel world Warren, who made a public pledge to give his money away, and fully intended to, but never got around to actually writing a will before he changed his mind, would be significantly less blameworthy, or would escape opprobrium?

Part of my intuition is that the temporal ordering doesn't matter - if anything it's better to give sooner - so we should not treat more harshly someone who donated and then stopped than someone who consumed frivolously and then saw the light later in life.

I added an addendum with a later update 

re: your addendum

But it also includes the idea that the new trust that Buffet is creating, to be overseen by his children, has to give away all of the bequest within 10 years of his death. I just don't see how that is remotely possible, even with a McKenzie Scott approach, barring just dropping money from the sky 

My sense is the orgs and focus areas Yield Giving has gifted to probably can't absorb as much funding as the big line items in this Longview report (several of which exceed Buffet's entire endowment, albeit none shovel-ready AFAICT), so a MacKenzie Scott approach at 3-4x the scale for the Longview focus areas seems to have an outside shot at being possible? (Scott has been giving ~$4 bn per year over the last few years going by Yield Giving's public database alone, and Buffet's planned trust would need to give >$13 bn a year) 

The key facts seem to be that extraordinarily large amount of money that was previously going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (from Buffet's 2006 letter), which has a good track record, is now going to 3 of Buffet's relatively unknown children (compared to the Foundation) for the vague purpose of "help people". There's a lot of uncertainty and potential for less effective causes; we don't really know what these 3 people are going to agree on to donate. How can you persuade 3 strangers with ~$130b to donate to different causes, especially when they already have their own causes and when other charities (at least in the US) are going to be looking at them? Someone else will have to think about that one.

I'm not a fan of this negativity. Why not be grateful for all the money he's donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead?

Breaking a charitable pledge of this magnitude (he has no plans to actually give the money away, it could very well just sit there) should be severely looked down upon IMO - otherwise the concept of a pledge has no power.

[This comment is no longer endorsed by its author]Reply

Us feeling positive is unimportant compared to the future of humanity. Bigger things are at stake here.

I agree with you Falk. But to steelman Chris' argument... perhaps a reputation for being critical of people who did so much good but failed to follow through on everything they promised could dissuade people from engaging with effective giving/pledges in the first place?

Gates has more money than he knows what to do with. If he wants to spend another hundred billion, he could just donate it himself. He doesn't have quite as much money outside the foundation as Buffet, but almost. Donating to Gates has zero value. Maybe spending on militias has negative value, but so do most of these foundations.

Donating to Gates was a bad idea 20 years ago. Maybe there was some option value that he would think of a way to spend the money, but he didn't. Gates should have tried to convince Buffet to donate not his money but his time, his expertise in management. Maybe he tried, but he failed 20 years ago and today changes nothing.

[comment deleted]0
0
0
Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 1m read
 · 
 ·  · 5m read
 · 
The AI safety community has grown rapidly since the ChatGPT wake-up call, but available funding doesn’t seem to have kept pace. However, there’s a more recent dynamic that’s created even better funding opportunities, which I witnessed as a recommender in the most recent SFF grant round.[1]   Most philanthropic (vs. government or industry) AI safety funding (>50%) comes from one source: Good Ventures. But they’ve recently stopped funding several categories of work (my own categories, not theirs): * Many Republican-leaning think tanks, such as the Foundation for American Innovation. * “Post-alignment” causes such as digital sentience or regulation of explosive growth. * The rationality community, including LessWrong, Lightcone, SPARC, CFAR, MIRI. * High school outreach, such as Non-trivial. In addition, they are currently not funding (or not fully funding): * Many non-US think tanks, who don’t want to appear influenced by an American organisation (there’s now probably more than 20 of these). * They do fund technical safety non-profits like FAR AI, though they’re probably underfunding this area, in part due to difficulty hiring for this area the last few years (though they’ve hired recently). * Political campaigns, since foundations can’t contribute to them. * Organisations they’ve decided are below their funding bar for whatever reason (e.g. most agent foundations work). OP is not infallible so some of these might still be worth funding. * Nuclear security, since it’s on average less cost-effective than direct AI funding, so isn’t one of the official cause areas (though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some good opportunities there). This means many of the organisations in these categories have only been able to access a a minority of the available philanthropic capital (in recent history, I’d guess ~25%). In the recent SFF grant round, I estimate they faced a funding bar 1.5 to 3 times higher. This creates a lot of opportunities for other donors
LewisBollard
 ·  · 5m read
 · 
Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. ---------------------------------------- Progress for factory-farmed animals is far too slow. But it is happening. Practices that once seemed permanent — like battery cages and the killing of male chicks — are now on a slow path to extinction. Animals who were once ignored — like fish and even shrimp — are now finally seeing reforms, by the billions. It’s easy to gloss over such numbers. So, as you read the wins below, I encourage you to consider each of these animals as an individual. A hen no longer confined to a cage, a chick no longer macerated alive, a fish no longer dying a prolonged death. I also encourage you to reflect on the role you and your fellow advocates and funders played in these wins. I’m inspired by what you’ve achieved. I hope you will be too. 1. About Cluckin’ Time. Over 1,000 companies globally have now fulfilled their pledges to go cage-free. McDonald’s implemented its pledge in the US and Canada two years ahead of schedule, sparing seven million hens from cages. Subway implemented its pledge in Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, and Indonesia. Yum Brands, owner of KFC and Pizza Hut, reported that for 25,000 of its restaurants it is now 90% cage-free. These are not cheap changes: one UK retailer, Lidl, recently invested £1 billion just to transition part of its egg supply chain to free-range. 2. The Egg-sodus: Cracking Open Cages. In five of Europe’s seven biggest egg markets — France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK — at least two-thirds of hens are now cage-free. In the US, about 40% of hens are — up from a mere 6% a decade ago. In Brazil, where large-scale cage-free production didn’t exist a decade ago, about 15% of hens are now cage-free. And in Japan, where it still barely exists, the nation’s largest egg buyer, Kewpi