According to Bill Gates, the Covid-19 pandemic remains “worse than people think.”
Much like the war in Ukraine, not to mention the economic downturn and “a political context in which the will to think globally and do things complex seems to be at least at a fairly low level. Bill Gates said all of that the day before announcing one of the most significant donations in philanthropy history, by comparison $20 billion. Which he gave this month to the eponymous foundation he originally co-managed with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates.
This donation brought the Gates family’s endowment to $55 billion, making them the most outstanding philanthropist. They outperformed their friend Warren Buffett, who has given $48 billion, much of it to the Gates Foundation.
The real impact of this prize is enormous: it means the Gates Foundation, the largest in the world, will increase its spending by 50% to $9 billion per year by 2026; according to Gates’ math, that’s more than the development spending of all but five countries or so.
“It’s going to boost or accelerate, supercharge, turbocharge, all the work we do,” the Microsoft co-founder said in an exclusive interview yesterday.
More than $3 billion annually is at stake for gender equality. Eradicating disease and child mortality, among other causes demanded explicitly by the Gates Foundation. It’s an 11-figure statement about the need for the very rich to use their philanthropy more aggressively. Rather than allowing it to accumulate over generations of administrators to pour out on their behalf for centuries to come. “It looks like they’re trying to maximize the longevity of their foundation,” Gates said, “rather than asking, ‘Is there some impactful thing they can do now?'”
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The surge in spending reinforces the “give while you live” principle embraced by Chuck Feeney.
The 91-year-old founder of Duty-Free, who is honored by the Forbes 400 for giving away more than $8 billion—approaching bankruptcy. Rather than waiting for his death, Gates now says he intends to get off the Forbes billionaires list while he is still alive. (Thanks to his recent bounty. He’s dropped to fifth in the world, with an off-base net worth of around $102 billion.) More prizes of this magnitude. I will be at the top of the list,” Gates said. “It will be long before I am removed from the list, but my direction is clear.”