Several recent stories reminded me of this thread.
Phil Knight of Nike gave the Oregon Health and Science University $1 billion to fund a new engineering college.
Similarly, hedge fund executive Kenneth C. Griffin is giving $2 billion to Carnegie Mellon University to build a second campus in Miami as well as $1 billion to the original Pittsburgh campus.
Michael Bloomberg ranked as the largest donor for the last three years, with over $4.3 billion given out last year.
It remains true that the tech billionaires are libertarian assholes, but since most of the largest donors are older and over their acquisitive state maybe that might change.
Where are the billionaire philanthropists?
Are they all just old stony-hearted schists?
Shall they ne’er write a check for us
while making life a wreck for us?
Is there no noble conscience that insists?..
I never liked Griffin’s politics, especially as an Illinoisan, but your post made me reread his Wikipedia article. The Philanthropy section is pretty impressive; lots of donations and to a variety of causes.
To return to the original question, of course some billionaires support worthy causes, such as Bill and Melinda Gates, or Mckenzie Scott.
Silicon Valley was purportedly sold on the idea of “Effective Altruism”, where getting rich is justified because it allows you to give money away. Once philantrophy was for supporting libraries or NPR. In the age of superPACs and dark money, “philantrophy” might mean funding a think tank that supports your philosophy or buying influence in a government keen to accept this. Surely the Koch family, Las Vegas bigwigs and many give to causes they personally embrace like odd health beliefs, Long Now, libertarian or certain political movements. These are not quite the same as libraries…. but probably many university departments and hospital wings have benefited from some generosity.
