Someone Asks Why Billionaires Don’t Use Their Money To Solve World Problems, This User Explains It Perfectly
It’s easy to talk about honest business when you’ve never been a businessperson yourself or have never been exposed to all of the nuances of managing one. It surely is possible to develop a business that would be capable of generating millions of dollars (or more) in a given time span, or one that would be completely ethical from an employee’s perspective. However, this result is more of a trade-off rather than a fully compatible coexistence between the two.
Theresa Searcaigh, an Irish-American author of literary fantasy genre novels, posted a tweet asking the internet why billionaires like Jeff Bezos don’t use their wealth to start fixing things like helping homeless veterans and hungry children. According to her, “he could be Batman,” but it’s all “wasted.”
A woman asked why people like Jeff Bezos don’t impulsively start fixing things with their wealth
Image credits: Theresa Searcaigh (deleted)
A Tumblr user by the nickname of olivesawl posted a response to this, explaining how people who do business with a mindset of using their profits to further humanity don’t really become people like Bezos.
He continued telling a story about his dad, a businessman of 35 years, who had a business that was profitable, but it did not really expand. And the underlying reason was that it is nearly impossible to do business this way without climbing on someone’s back. He elaborates on this in the pictures below.
A Tumblr user ventured to give a little bit of perspective
Image credits: olivesawl
Olivesawl told a story of how his dad saw and did business, not trying to take advantage of the people involved in it. He never waited to be a good human being when it came to business, always choosing his employees’ health over profits and going to such lengths as to dock his own salary in order to make sure his employees’ needs and securities were met. And he was proud of it.
Another user, earlgreytea86, added to this by also talking about his own father, and how this same decision led their family to living a good and successful life and how they don’t need to be billionaires to do good in life through their business.
Another Tumblrer joined in, expanding upon olivesawl’s story
Image credits: earlgreytea68
While for some this was a mind-blowing reality check, many online were already aware of this, sharing their own stories and thoughts about business. The reblog was a success on Tumblr, garnering over 63,000 notes, but it also found its way to Imgur recently, where it gathered over 188,000 views in under a day.
What are your thoughts on this? Got any social business stories to share? Let us know in the comments section below!
Here’s what the internet had to say about this
Bill Gates... just saying. He never makes claims that he is sacrificing to help others, but he has used his wealth to do so much good, especially in areas that other people won't fund because it isn't "sexy", like infrastructure and toilets.
Nanci Casson is a great example of a tinfoil hat wearing loonie who loves conspiracy theories that are based on lies and deliberate misinformation- some of which can be traced to political groups with a series agenda against certain individuals. It's quite sad really- scientifically illiterate and not capable of logic or reason.
Shut up, Nanci. Your batshit insane anti vax conspiracy theory bullshit is distracting from us being able to have actual critical conversation about Gates. It IS an important thing to do, because he’s being treated like a celebrity when he should still be seen as a ruthless business man who thinks he knows best on way more topics than those in which he actually has any expertise.
Bill Gates isn’t what he seems. He’s still doing things that prop up preferred corporate interests. Worse, like many billionaires, he has the arrogance of believing that his success in becoming a billionaire means he knows enough about [insert topic here] to know best on influencing things. Our culture of wealth worship just adds fuel to that fire by acting like he does know everything. Our naivety helps fuel his arrogance and hubris. I’m not saying he’s the worst kind of human being. I’m saying he’s not the kind we should be promoting like he’s been getting promoted for the last however many years. His “donations” aren’t what we are made to see them as. He is no expert on education; he is interested in promoting businesses that sell products he likes and therefore pushes certain education system notions that feed those businesses (like standardized testing; one of the popular factoids about Gates is that he never graduated college... and it’s not because of inferior testing).
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Oh Karen, just post a link. Everything is on the internet, true of not, I'm sure you can find it for us.
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You realize that everything Bill Gates claims to help with is said by Bill Gates himself, right? All the financial details of the Gates Foundation is kept private with only Bill, Melinda, and Warren Buffet knowing the details. Every information about the Gates Foundation is put out by them. That's like me saying that I've donated $300 million to help people. Do you believe me? Why or why not?
I've worked for several nonprofit organizations that have received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Nonprofit organizations publicly report where money is coming from. So no, not all "claims" come from Bill Gates.
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Bill Gates has done nothing but used African children as guinea pigs for his stupid mandatory vaccine that he want's the world to get. His vaccines are responsible for killing thousands of children in 3rd world countries......he's nothing but a eugenist who believes that only black and brown populations need to be exterminated.....oops I mean controlled
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this is extremely simple-minded - you really have no idea about deeper topics
It’s true, when someone has a lot of money, most of the time the did something to someone to get there. Not in all cases, but we’ve all seen this. Congrats to the people who don’t rip each other off to get to the top.
Who gets to “the top” without stepping on and ripping off other people? Does it happen?
They have a lot of good points on this. I will point out that they've been doing research on the mega million and billionaires, as well as people who really 'succeed' in the business world and they have traits similar to a Psychopath. Pretty interesting research if anyone wants to look at it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-psychopathic-ceo/#5fbcf905791e
Thanks for posting that link. From article “I would say that psychopaths or people with psychopathic traits, thrive in chaos and know that others don’t, so they will often create chaos at work for this reason,”.....sound familiar to anyone?
You're welcome. Please remember psychopaths and psychopathic traits are two different things, and also that they aren't inherently evil. There's a lot more factors involved, and I've done a lot of research into this because I was curious about it. Surgeons, Lawyers, Salesmen, those are all careers that people with those traits will get into, because they can deal with stressors and chaotic environments in a way others can't. I was just trying to point out that there are some mega million and billionaires that are like that. Not all of them.
Yeah, that is so me...
Roadkill - I absolutely understand. You have to have a certain disposition to be work in fields that are high risk/high reward. My family wanted me to be a lawyer, but I can't imagine having it on my conscious if I lost an important case. What if a criminal didn't get convicted and then hurt someone? What if the wrong parent got custody of a child? What if a company wasn't held accountable for hurting people? What if a person was wrongly convicted of a crime? You have to have the right kind of mindset to not be consumed by these thoughts.
Christina: no, their job is to provide the best legal support possible within her justice system, not get them off if they are indeed guilty of a crime. Acquittals aren’t the requirement. Proper legal protection from overzealous prosecution is.
Or you need to be a sociopath and only care about winning. Unfortunately, those are the ones that these jobs are best suited to and so sociopaths are thriving while destroying the society around us.
Tabitha, you are talking about defense layers. What about those who defend criminals? This is how the "justice" system works: prosecutors want to convict an accused - guilty or not, that's their "job"; defense attorneys must work hard to get their clients acquitted - innocent or not - otherwise they'll be disbarred. That is called justice.
Same for politicians... any person seeking to have that amount of control over other people are inbalanced.
Same exactly. We should probably have a system where formally educated people (not because I devalue informal education but because it’s undocumented), are all put into a pool of people to draw from for public official duties. Like countries with mandatory military service periods.
I don't think they're all imbalaced, but it's hard to catch the wrong guys until after you already vote for them and see what they do with the power invested in them.
I really wish people would distinguish between psychopathy and sociopathy. There’s a good reason to do so. A sociopath isn’t apt to commit violent acts, but they ARE apt to be very destructive to society. We filter out psychopaths via their criminal acts but we have no such filter for stopping sociopathy getting into power.
As for the rest, Sociopaths are just as dangerous and can be just as violent, they usually get caught first before their crimes get that bad because they are so volatile. People notice them more, its so much harder for them to 'blend in'.
The designation of Psychopath and Sociopath aren't actual medical diagnosed disorders, those two names were brought about by culture, especially the crime shows that have taken over TV. They're both known as ASPD, or Antisocial personality disorder, and there are more separations from there. The two most common types can be considered the Psychopath and Sociopath, but once again those two will not be found in the DSM you'd have to look up ASPD. The biggest difference between the two is calm v.s. chaotic. I've lived with both types, and the Psycopath is calmer, yes they love to master chaos and create it at will, but they're so much calmer than the Sociopath. That being said while I was scared of both, I never knew what the Sociopath was going to do, what would set it off, hell one wrong look and it would go off. I'm not using gender identifiers for a reason on this. That's my experience at least.
Bill Gates... just saying. He never makes claims that he is sacrificing to help others, but he has used his wealth to do so much good, especially in areas that other people won't fund because it isn't "sexy", like infrastructure and toilets.
Nanci Casson is a great example of a tinfoil hat wearing loonie who loves conspiracy theories that are based on lies and deliberate misinformation- some of which can be traced to political groups with a series agenda against certain individuals. It's quite sad really- scientifically illiterate and not capable of logic or reason.
Shut up, Nanci. Your batshit insane anti vax conspiracy theory bullshit is distracting from us being able to have actual critical conversation about Gates. It IS an important thing to do, because he’s being treated like a celebrity when he should still be seen as a ruthless business man who thinks he knows best on way more topics than those in which he actually has any expertise.
Bill Gates isn’t what he seems. He’s still doing things that prop up preferred corporate interests. Worse, like many billionaires, he has the arrogance of believing that his success in becoming a billionaire means he knows enough about [insert topic here] to know best on influencing things. Our culture of wealth worship just adds fuel to that fire by acting like he does know everything. Our naivety helps fuel his arrogance and hubris. I’m not saying he’s the worst kind of human being. I’m saying he’s not the kind we should be promoting like he’s been getting promoted for the last however many years. His “donations” aren’t what we are made to see them as. He is no expert on education; he is interested in promoting businesses that sell products he likes and therefore pushes certain education system notions that feed those businesses (like standardized testing; one of the popular factoids about Gates is that he never graduated college... and it’s not because of inferior testing).
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
This comment has been deleted.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Oh Karen, just post a link. Everything is on the internet, true of not, I'm sure you can find it for us.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
You realize that everything Bill Gates claims to help with is said by Bill Gates himself, right? All the financial details of the Gates Foundation is kept private with only Bill, Melinda, and Warren Buffet knowing the details. Every information about the Gates Foundation is put out by them. That's like me saying that I've donated $300 million to help people. Do you believe me? Why or why not?
I've worked for several nonprofit organizations that have received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Nonprofit organizations publicly report where money is coming from. So no, not all "claims" come from Bill Gates.
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Bill Gates has done nothing but used African children as guinea pigs for his stupid mandatory vaccine that he want's the world to get. His vaccines are responsible for killing thousands of children in 3rd world countries......he's nothing but a eugenist who believes that only black and brown populations need to be exterminated.....oops I mean controlled
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
this is extremely simple-minded - you really have no idea about deeper topics
It’s true, when someone has a lot of money, most of the time the did something to someone to get there. Not in all cases, but we’ve all seen this. Congrats to the people who don’t rip each other off to get to the top.
Who gets to “the top” without stepping on and ripping off other people? Does it happen?
They have a lot of good points on this. I will point out that they've been doing research on the mega million and billionaires, as well as people who really 'succeed' in the business world and they have traits similar to a Psychopath. Pretty interesting research if anyone wants to look at it. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-psychopathic-ceo/#5fbcf905791e
Thanks for posting that link. From article “I would say that psychopaths or people with psychopathic traits, thrive in chaos and know that others don’t, so they will often create chaos at work for this reason,”.....sound familiar to anyone?
You're welcome. Please remember psychopaths and psychopathic traits are two different things, and also that they aren't inherently evil. There's a lot more factors involved, and I've done a lot of research into this because I was curious about it. Surgeons, Lawyers, Salesmen, those are all careers that people with those traits will get into, because they can deal with stressors and chaotic environments in a way others can't. I was just trying to point out that there are some mega million and billionaires that are like that. Not all of them.
Yeah, that is so me...
Roadkill - I absolutely understand. You have to have a certain disposition to be work in fields that are high risk/high reward. My family wanted me to be a lawyer, but I can't imagine having it on my conscious if I lost an important case. What if a criminal didn't get convicted and then hurt someone? What if the wrong parent got custody of a child? What if a company wasn't held accountable for hurting people? What if a person was wrongly convicted of a crime? You have to have the right kind of mindset to not be consumed by these thoughts.
Christina: no, their job is to provide the best legal support possible within her justice system, not get them off if they are indeed guilty of a crime. Acquittals aren’t the requirement. Proper legal protection from overzealous prosecution is.
Or you need to be a sociopath and only care about winning. Unfortunately, those are the ones that these jobs are best suited to and so sociopaths are thriving while destroying the society around us.
Tabitha, you are talking about defense layers. What about those who defend criminals? This is how the "justice" system works: prosecutors want to convict an accused - guilty or not, that's their "job"; defense attorneys must work hard to get their clients acquitted - innocent or not - otherwise they'll be disbarred. That is called justice.
Same for politicians... any person seeking to have that amount of control over other people are inbalanced.
Same exactly. We should probably have a system where formally educated people (not because I devalue informal education but because it’s undocumented), are all put into a pool of people to draw from for public official duties. Like countries with mandatory military service periods.
I don't think they're all imbalaced, but it's hard to catch the wrong guys until after you already vote for them and see what they do with the power invested in them.
I really wish people would distinguish between psychopathy and sociopathy. There’s a good reason to do so. A sociopath isn’t apt to commit violent acts, but they ARE apt to be very destructive to society. We filter out psychopaths via their criminal acts but we have no such filter for stopping sociopathy getting into power.
As for the rest, Sociopaths are just as dangerous and can be just as violent, they usually get caught first before their crimes get that bad because they are so volatile. People notice them more, its so much harder for them to 'blend in'.
The designation of Psychopath and Sociopath aren't actual medical diagnosed disorders, those two names were brought about by culture, especially the crime shows that have taken over TV. They're both known as ASPD, or Antisocial personality disorder, and there are more separations from there. The two most common types can be considered the Psychopath and Sociopath, but once again those two will not be found in the DSM you'd have to look up ASPD. The biggest difference between the two is calm v.s. chaotic. I've lived with both types, and the Psycopath is calmer, yes they love to master chaos and create it at will, but they're so much calmer than the Sociopath. That being said while I was scared of both, I never knew what the Sociopath was going to do, what would set it off, hell one wrong look and it would go off. I'm not using gender identifiers for a reason on this. That's my experience at least.