Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by WoodenChair 2546 days ago
> You don’t get to repair that karma with some donated vaccinations and mushy blog articles.

I'm sorry, but why don't you? He's literally saving millions of lives through his foundation, and through getting other billionaires to give to charity through the giving pledge.

He was the richest man in the world. He could have done anything he wanted to with his life, and he chose to do good things. He deserves some praise for that.

While he was a tough business person and sometimes may have done things that were borderline unethical, he never murdered anybody. He's certainly redeemable. And I think he has more than redeemed himself the past two decades for any of his past transgressions.
2 comments
erikpukinskis 2545 days ago
Because good deeds don't undo bad deeds. Morality isn't a math equation.
link
WoodenChair 2545 days ago
Depends on your religion and personal beliefs. Many people believe in redemption.
link
erikpukinskis 2544 days ago
Sure but in, e.g., Christianity, redemption isn’t a result of doing good that cancels your bad. Redemption comes from atonement.
link
magpi3 2546 days ago
I agree he and the Gates Foundation do wonderful things, but I will Never be entirely comfortable with one person sitting on that much money. He is worth in the range of 100 billion dollars. 100 billion dollars.

He has promised to give half of it away but as far as I can tell is no closer to doing that since he first made the pledge. I really wonder sometimes if that pledge was just PR for the absurdly wealthy. No need to tax us! We will be giving it away! But when?

He is doing good things but there is no way I can look up to someone who sits on such an obscene amount of wealth.

link
traskjd 2545 days ago
Bill has been giving away billions. He's just also been earning like crazy too.

I forget where I read it, but when Jeff overtook Bill, there were various articles highlighting that Bill would still have been a lot richer if you accounted for how much he'd now put through the foundation.

So just because his market net worth hasn't gone down (in fact it's gone up a bit), it's not from him not yet giving money away.

link