[jrochkind1]

You know what you should not do if you really believe "the money gets put to a better use, and they don’t get to accumulate prestige or connections from the donation because the public wouldn’t know about it."

> The financier would meet with faculty members, apparently to allow him to give input on projects…

(from the New Yorker article).

Also, if you know you are violating the policies of MIT's central fund-raising office, and you are taking active steps to HIDE it from them... you can say you just had a different philosophy of philanthropy than them, and this was so important to you that you were willing to violate MIT's policies and risk whatever consequences if found out...

...but come on, we all know it's just plain greed.

I don't think these are sincere philosophical beliefs about philanthropy, I think they are just the rationalizations that the powerful and greedy tell themselves to avoid admitting it's just about power and greed.

[DonHopkins]

The evidence it was all about greed is that Epstein gave Ito's investment funds $1.6 million, more than TWICE the amount of money than the chump change Epstein gave to Media Lab in exchange for highly discounted reputation and a cast of academic celebrities to parade at his parties.

Epstein bribed Ito with more than 200% commission to make the other cash-for-reputation deal, which they both knew they must covered up at all cost, because Media Lab would pay with its reputation when discovered.