My Philanthropy Idea for Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is apparently crowdsourcing philanthropy ideas from the public at large. I wish him well, and hope he finds some interesting and useful outlets for his excess cash. I would however encourage him to find something whose model can grow and still remain robust. I have found that there are many charitable activities that work great because of the passion and vision of one person, but are not easy to grow (many examples of local successful public school reforms fall in the same category). If Jeff Bezos gives money, a charity is likely to see a huge increase in resources, both from Bezos's money and, because his decision is going to be public and high-profile, from money from others who donate because Bezos did.
Any decision he makes will likely be more to satisfy his inner need to be involved with something new and different rather than the optimal approach to help the maximum number of people. Because he is presumably uniquely good a creating businesses, probably the best way for him to maximize the use of his money and time in improving the lives of a maximum number of people is to go start another business. Certainly Amazon has created value for the rest of us that dwarfs the amount he has earned from it. Taken another way, via Amazon he has hugely improved the lives of many, many people and in turn taken just a small commission for himself on this value created. He has lowered prices for us, he has saved us time, he has brought us many more choices. He has created a platform for small businesses to sell their product that they could never duplicate themselves. He has nearly single-handedly created the self-publishing business and provided an outlet for a ton of new authors (myself included). He helps keep Apple and Google honest (and vice versa) from his competition with them.
Of course, he is likely tired of doing only this kind of stuff so he wants to do something more traditionally charitable, and that is fine, but I am exhausted with the notion that charity helps people but business and commerce do not. Learning from this, one decision criteria might be that he looks for something that not only needs his money, but needs his expertise and vision as well. The latter is likely way more valuable than the former.
If I had a billion dollars for philanthropy, I might start a new university with a totally new approach. I would call Brian Caplan and I'd see if we could build a curriculum and an entire educational approach out of engaging multiple perspectives on each issue. Admissions essay question #1: "Tell us about a time you encountered a perspective or opinion on an issue very different from you own and tell us how you responded."
