[chromatic]

My hypothesis is that someone who continually gives his time and/or money to worthy causes over his entire life may end up being cumulatively less world changing than someone who spends half her life making money, then switches to philanthropy or world changing ideas later.

How do you know how long you're going to live, such that you can switch from miserly to altruistic halfway through?

[moultano]

A will?

[chromatic]

Perhaps. How many misers younger than middle age do you know who have wills?

[ktizo]

Doesn't really matter how long a specific rich individual lives for this to work. As long as there is a culture of rich people doing it, then things would average out. Especially given that the life spans of very rich people tend to be longer.

[Schwolop]

To an extent this was my point too - if a decent number of people do this, then the few who get mega-rich and become philanthropic will make up for the many who fail to get mega-rich, and also the few who get mega-rich but don't become philanthropic. Well... hopefully!