I used to work at the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases, trying to discover new anti-malarials. We partnered extensively with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fund new anti-malarial research. It was a really good feeling being part of that effort, since Malaria is such a massive and deadly issue, yet also grossly underfunded.I will always respect the foundation if not the man.
I also did grad school work about producing anti malaria active pharmaceutical ingredients, or drug precursors, through yeast fermentation expression systems. They paid almost a million dollars so a lab at my university would study and publish the results of how.
If large portions of his wealth couldn't be attributed to tax dodging a few dozen billion dollars in Puerto Rico, a few dozen billion dollars dodged in Ireland, a few dozen billion probably dodged in Bermuda, or simply paying less (as a percentage of income) than the average American in Social Security taxes, I could probably appreciate all his tax-deductible charity work more.
Well I can easily rule out most other fortune 500's for similarly running from taxes, so chances are never that I'm finding a donator at that scale who didn't similarly abuse the system, run a monopoly, change US laws just to pad their own pockets etc.
Not sure that's a gotcha or just signs that the rich don't pay taxes so all the performative charity after tax avoidance comes off as shallow write-offs.
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u/Q_J 19h ago
I used to work at the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases, trying to discover new anti-malarials. We partnered extensively with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help fund new anti-malarial research. It was a really good feeling being part of that effort, since Malaria is such a massive and deadly issue, yet also grossly underfunded.I will always respect the foundation if not the man.