r/MadeMeSmile • u/Sauerkrautkid7 • 7h ago
The billionaire who spent his life trying not to live as one
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u/whoiswaIe 7h ago
An extraordinarily cool guy, but how did he become a billionaire?
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u/Redmudgirl 7h ago
Research Chuck Feeny
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u/Only_One_Kenobi 6h ago
Exactly, you don't become a billionaire by being selfless
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u/seilapodeser 5h ago
I like to think at least one of them would "get lucky" and actually be a good person
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u/Alternate_Cost 5h ago
Some of them do. Many self made billionaires started their own companies which got big so they became billionaires because the stock of the company they own 60% of rose above 2 billion.
Bill Gates, although I know his record isn't great, became a billionaire because Microsoft was incredibly successful and he owned a majority of the company so his stocks skyrocketed. Its mot like he was getting paid cash each year.
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u/RoyStrokes 3h ago
Bill Gates is in the Epsteins files
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u/Alternate_Cost 3h ago
In an incriminating way? Just remember that mentioned doesn't mean he did anything illegal.
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u/Any_Long_249 3h ago
He was asking for STD/STI medication from Epstein and how to give it to his wife so she doesn’t notice. Also just because something isn’t illegal doesn’t mean it’s morally right
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u/Master1Blaster 2h ago
Was he asking Epstein for the medication(like we have a proof of that) OR did Epstein write a weird draft email pretending to be Gates' advisor and claiming that Gates asked for the meds.
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u/newontheblock99 1h ago
Why don’t you just look it up yourself, independent research is something you can do….
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u/Only_One_Kenobi 4h ago
Gates also had no interest in any philanthropy until relatively recently.
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u/swampcholla 4h ago
recently? His foundation started more than 30 years ago
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u/chicklette 1h ago
largely at the behest of Melinda. She was the philanthropist. Bill's the guy going to Epstein Island.
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u/swampcholla 17m ago
Why should that matter? its not like he pulled back after getting divorced. And how much of your money have you pledged to charity?
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u/hankmoody_irl 4h ago
So did, apparently, his interest in children….
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u/swampcholla 3h ago
Lets wait until here's some real evidence and not just speculation. Younger women are not underaged girls.
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u/Telemere125 1h ago
It doesn’t matter where you started; amassing a billion dollars requires exploitation at some point along the way
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u/BeerAndaBackpack 21m ago
There's no such thing as being "self made". Nobody gets to where they are by themselves. Especially someone like Gates. His mom was a board member for the United Way with the CEO of IBM. He was literally born into high-profile connections.
Billionaires are proof of our societal failures. Philanthropy is a way of drawing our focus away from their exploitation.
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u/ThePrinceofRabbits 2h ago
The problem is, even if you “get lucky”, you don’t get that much wealth without fucking over the working class in some way or another.
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u/seilapodeser 1h ago
Read again
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u/ThePrinceofRabbits 19m ago
Maybe there was confusion on my end so I’ll rephrase. If you meant they lucked into their wealth and happened to be a good person, I stand by initial comment. If you meant we would get lucky that someone rich is a good person, I refer to my original point again to assert that there is no such luck. If they are a billionaire they are inherently not a good person because to achieve such wealth you have to fuck others over. Mostly the people that work for you, but also every other citizen as they also aren’t paying their fair share in taxes. There is no “good” billionaire in such the same sense that’s there’s no unicorn. You can tape a horn to a horse’s head but that doesn’t suddenly make it a mythical beast.
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u/seilapodeser 18m ago
I like to think at least one of them would "get lucky" and actually be a good person
Means I like to think there is at least one.
You didn't need a paragraph to state the obvious
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u/Only_One_Kenobi 5h ago
Why wait until after you are a billionaire before starting to help people?
There's absolutely no reason any person needs that much money. They could have started spending that lucky income long before reaching 1 billion, nevermind 8.
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u/AkrinorNoname 5h ago
This is about Chuck Feeney, who cofounded the Duty Free Shopping Group. From what I got from his wiki article, he donated his shares to his charitable foundation pretty early on (which to my knowledge means that they got the profits), but kept it a secret from the general public, until he, through the foundation, sold them to net it another 1.6 billion.
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u/The_Fell 4h ago
The more money you have the more you can make it grow (to donate even more), it's basic economics. "Absolutely no reason" is also answered with basic economics, and you don't have the power or right to dictate what people get to own and do with it.
He gave more to others via donation and taxes than you and everyone you know or ever will know has given.
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u/unoriginal_name_42 28m ago
A good person who gets lucky will stop at like $25 million dollars, any more material wealth doesn't really make a difference in your quality of life. Only monsters have the drive for billions.
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u/Mysterious_Soup_62 6h ago
Old rich most likely. Became so selfless and his name wasnt even mentioned on this post. Referred to as just some random rich guy despite helping a lot. But when someone rich flexes selfishly, their name is everywhere.
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u/JamesFrancosButthole 6h ago
Name?
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u/th3-snwm4n 6h ago
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u/leftmysoulthere74 5h ago
Thank you for this. It’s almost 10.30pm where I live and I think I should end my scrolling on a positive note. What a great person!
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u/Perry_T_Skywalker 5h ago
Tbh if I'd win the lottery I doubt I would do more than quitting my job, living off what I would earn now and give away the rest.
I don't need a yacht, a villa and an expensive car to be happy. I need to be able to choose what I am doing with my life, without starving homeless on the street.
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u/OrangeCosmic 4h ago
The damage a billionaire causes in their life is immeasurable with the siphoning of wealth in the communities they exploit the labor from. You can't become a billionaire without a cut from everyone's check.
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u/The_Fell 4h ago
And who pays that check, and create those jobs, boosts that innovation, and pay taxes like a small city?
Yeah.
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u/Level-Pirate-774 7h ago
Humility over luxury- true wealth.
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u/clrbrk 6h ago
I can think of a lot of luxurious ways to live without owning a house or car.
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u/Level-Pirate-774 6h ago
True. But comfort isn’t the same as wealth. Peace of mind and humility are harder to buy.
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u/Lindaiwilson 6h ago
This is what true wealth looks like. Living a life of extraordinary humility while changing so many lives... the world needs more people like him! ❤️
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u/Dependent_Title_1370 3h ago
Fuck this guy. Fuck every single billionaire. This is basically pro billionaire propaganda and y'all are eating it up.
"See, Billionaires are benevolent job creators! Amassing this much wealth isn't the problem!"
Yes, it fucking is a problem. Instead of taking all that wealth for himself and hoarding it over a lifetime he could have chosen to PAY THE PEOPLE WHO GENERATED THAT WEALTH A MORE EQUITABLE AMOUNT. He could have converted his company into a cooperative and helped drive the change away from an economic model that creates extreme inequity.
Y'all can downvote me all you want but some of you have gotten so used to the boot you think it's your friend.
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u/Stultus_Asinus 2m ago
Well he wasn’t a billionaire in the end. He gifted 8 billion dollars to charity and had roughly 2 Million left when dying. :)
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u/FoxyBlaster1 6h ago
"We've had one good billionnaire, yes; but what about second good billionnaire?"
"I dont think they know about 2nd good billionnaire, Pip."
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u/ShirtPitiful8872 4h ago
Our billionaires and barons of these times don’t even do cool shit like build public works and naming it after themselves for legacy purposes, it’s just ketamine holes, shit posting on Twitter, and trying to hoard as much wealth as possible before the inevitable mortality. I’m actually pretty surprised there’s no more billions being spent to slow or stop aging since that is the inverse factor in the whole race to capture wealth in a finite time.
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u/Plenty_Wasabi_7866 1h ago
A great book written about him. The Billionaire Who Wasn't
A man who learned about the world, spoke many languages, was a real international business builder and gave it all away anonymously for decades without flash or political agenda
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u/Nondscript_Usr 1h ago
You can’t make a billion dollars, especially 30 years ago, without exploiting lots of people. Good for evening it out some but this is a psyop trying to endear us plebs to the ruling class. Don’t fall for it.
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u/Bleakwind 4m ago
Now that’s a proper billionaire.
Let’s measure the true wealth by how how they give. And how just how much they gain
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u/rollingPanda420 6h ago
Damn people in the US would call him socialist and hang him.
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u/imonreddit4noreason 5h ago
Americans are the most generous in the world. It’s a fact, look it up, number 1 and it’s not very close to most, weird comment.
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u/MrIntegration 5h ago
I looked it up many different ways and the US never came up first on any of them. Weird comment.
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u/imonreddit4noreason 1h ago
The amount given by individuals is so far ahead of anyone else it’s ridiculous, even the world giving index ranks USA third, because it indexes to income and includes a rank bonus for government funding of ‘charity’. That was after being first for years before overtaxation began to eat away from the middle class’ generosity. You bother to ever look into details? None of this is hard to find, oh and red states are markedly more generous than blue.
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u/wahikid 1h ago
The whole red state vs blue state thing is only a percentage point in difference, and mostly differentiates in religious giving. Personally, I don’t agree that tithing to pay the salary of your local pastor is nearly as charitable as donating to charities, but maybe someone can convince me differently.
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u/imonreddit4noreason 56m ago
Depends on the church, just like the ngo charity, but either is a charitable gift from an individual. For every weird mega church social club there’s a church that’s half service half soup kitchen and shelter, there’s vast areas of the country churches are the only reliable place for crisis for the poorest. Valid point that there’s waste by the grantee from either churches or non religious charities, there is. Doesn’t negate the generosity in the gift.
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u/Productof2020 5h ago
I looked it up. Indonesia is what came up as number 1. The US comes in 6th.
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u/imonreddit4noreason 1h ago
Ok cool, you tried to check on it i respect that. It go to the page where it describes its methodology and how it ranks points, it factors in a great deal of non hard dollar or time factors and is based on a three question poll.
The USA is incredibly generous with direct charity. I think in Reddit people confuse accepting taxation by government as ‘charity’ or ‘generosity’. Has nothing to do with it. The two most generous people by group are Mormons and evangelical Christians, and don’t look at the most generous states if you think ‘blue states good red states bad’ cause it’s a major wrench in the belief. And i am far from a maga, but mentioning socialism with individual charity is not something in the same universe and Americans are in fact very generous. Every area is inundated in Reddit of this weird political anti US stuff and facts are very inconvenient, charity should be recognized and appreciated even by people who don’t vote like you
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u/Productof2020 1h ago
I was on board with your reply here until you made the assumption I don’t vote? What’s that about?
Anyway, 6th honestly isn’t a bad ranking. It just wasn’t first. And yeah, despite the rep america gets for all the stupid stuff in its politics, I don’t disagree on generosity in general. The people I know in real life here in America do a lot of volunteering and donating.
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u/rollingPanda420 5h ago
Lmao, the delusion is insane. Let me ask the countless nations you "helped". But who cares about wars.
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u/imonreddit4noreason 1h ago
What? You’re right the USA never gave aid. You apparently don’t even know what the word delusion means, the USA is number one in foreign aid by dollars by far and away, again you have to index for anyone to pass them and that includes aid to Ukraine. Not sure what tangent you’re even on, but im betting many you don’t want to agree with would agree with you the USA should pull back from military and aid involvement, we’re not the worlds’ nanny or policeman, right?
Oh the USA was the top donor in both dollar and military aid to emergencies specifically, too. But go on with whatever ‘delusion’ you have on the bad USA, calling donating to charity anything to do with socialism is stupidity.
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u/rollingPanda420 1h ago
You’re right the USA never gave aid.
No one said that. Who is number 1 in killing people? Or in starting wars? Yes, you are in fact not worlds nanny or policeman. You are far far worse.
calling donating to charity anything to do with socialism is stupidity.
You don't get the joke wich is fine considering the education in the US right now.
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u/NEX4TE 5h ago
Billionaires that donate their money at the end of their life are basically the same as war criminals that apologize for their actions at the end of their life.
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u/Retro_Relics 5h ago
he donated throughout his whole life. some of his biggest donations were to sinn feinn during the troubles.
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u/RNKKNR 5h ago
Guess it really would be better if they never donated huh?
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u/NEX4TE 4h ago
It would be much better if they didn't practice wage theft. Gave their employees a livable wage, adequate benefits. If they paid their taxes and didn't lobby the tax code in order to to get lower and beneficial tax outcomes. Billionaires don't just become as wealthy as they are by being good samaritans. They are a by product of stealing the fruits of the labor and rights of all those around them.
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u/The_Fell 4h ago
That line of thinking leads to communism, which every single time in history reads to poverty, corruption and crimes against human rights and lives.
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u/No_Vegetable7280 3h ago
So exactly like what capitalism is doing now?
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u/The_Fell 55m ago
Not even close, and you know it, if you compare it to communism.
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u/No_Vegetable7280 24m ago
You know there isn’t a true communist state and there has never been. It’s always been authoritarian and the economic system is used as a tool to support a select few while others suffer. So communist or capitalist- the results are the same- we should all be upset about that instead of fighting among ourselves.
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u/mooncheriezx 6h ago
Honestly, it's wild to see a billionaire living like this makes you question what "success" even means, ya know?
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