“We’re not running out of rich people,” Bill Gates recently told David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times Magazine in an interview about why he was deciding to close the doors of his foundation in 20 years. More than any other sentiment, it is this one that seems largely missing in the world of philanthropy today.
Gates was explaining why he decided to sunset the foundation earlier than originally planned. “The idea that I could write some set of goals that somebody would either honestly try to interpret or misinterpret 50 years from now — that’s kind of silly.” Gates cited the development of artificial intelligence, among other reasons, for why “the world is going to change very dramatically” in ways he cannot predict.
But the decision to close the foundation within a few years of his death is not just a decision about control — “If you’re giving while you’re living, you’re knowing where it’s going,” in the words of Sir John Templeton — but also a certain optimism about the future.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Washington Examiner (paywall)
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James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Naomi Schaefer Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.
Photo by BAY ISMOYO/AFP via Getty Images
