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Uploaded: Friday, February 20, 2009, 8:08 AM
When you're given $30 billion, 'First you cry'
Former Gates Foundation CEO reflects on philanthropy in Stanford talk
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by Chris Kenrick
Palo Alto Online Staff
What do you do when someone gives you a gift of $30 billion? First you cry, said Patty Stonesifer, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from its inception in 1997 until August 2008.
Stonesifer recently described to a Stanford audience both the overwhelming generosity and daunting challenges of Warren Buffett's 2006 decision to entrust $30 billion to the Gates Foundation.
Challenge No. 1, she said, was to make sure the immensity of the gift did not cause other donors to step back and assume that Gates alone would "solve" problems such as malaria and inadequate public schools.
She aggressively sought partnerships with many other groups, public and private, including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation and the World Food Program.
Another challenge, Stonesifer said, was giving away the money on the swift schedule specified by Buffet. "How do you responsibly return this to society at this pace?" she asked herself and her staff. Eventually program officers developed a "Holy Cow Award," in which staff members choose colleagues who have excelled at carrying out that challenge.
"I hope we've lived up to Warren's expectations, and I'm sure we've made some mistakes," she said, noting that a measure of uncertainty, boldness and experimentation is inherent in finding new ways to solve problems.
Stonesifer, the sixth of nine children who grew up in Indiana, was before the age of 40 the highest-ranking female executive at Microsoft. Often the only woman in the room, she would find herself thinking of the Sesame Street jingle, "Which of these things is not like the other?" However, she said that now is a time when people are becoming freer to be themselves. Many women have succeeded not by trying to imitate men but by doing things their own way, she said.
From its early days, a core value of the Gates Foundation has been that "all lives have equal value and everyone should have the opportunity to lead healthy and productive lives," Stonesifer said. Seeking to address the greatest barriers to that goal, the Gates family decided to focus their resources on education in the United States and on health in the developing world.
Stonesifer's lasting observations from her decade at the foundation are that good leadership is critical to solving problems and that despite the enormous value and transformative nature of technology, human factors play a huge role, she said.
"Often solutions can be so close at hand with a little bit of ingenuity," she said, citing a simple $40 water pump that doubles the number of growing seasons for farmers in India. She was pleased to learn that profits from the extra growing season made it possible for the first time for some farmers to marry and was delighted to hear from them about babies on the way.
Stonesifer currently serves as senior advisor to foundation trustees Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. In addition, she chairs the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. She spoke at a free public seminar sponsored by Stanford's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.
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Posted by Rob, a resident of Woodside, on Feb 20, 2009 at 1:50 pm Bill Gates has some type of tax strategy set up via his charitable trusts which only his tax attorney in NYC knows about. Bottom line is his charitable contributions are more for his own gain, financialy and for publicity, rather than being a nice guy.
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Posted by Chris, a resident of the Ventura neighborhood, on Feb 20, 2009 at 2:03 pm Rob,
Does it really matter if his charity is a tax write-off? The end result is still the same: billions of dollars for wonderful causes. Isn't that what is most important?
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Posted by Sharon, a resident of the Green Acres neighborhood, on Feb 20, 2009 at 4:22 pm Bill Gates is giving back on a worldwide basis and his foundation is impacting many lives. Additionally he does a lot of good things for the Puget Sound/Washington area, things that people here in Silicon Valley don't hear about because these generous acts are not spun through a publicity machine. Microsoft offers one of the best employee benefit programs; employees and their dependents do not lack for any type of health care coverage -- both traditional and alternative medicines. He is not only a nice guy, he is indeed one of the good guys.
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Posted by Cie, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Feb 20, 2009 at 5:31 pm Yes I would like to see Larry Elison or the Google boys do something like what Gates has done. You can't take it with you. The only other I can think of who can stand tall is Ted Turner.
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Posted by Tim, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Feb 20, 2009 at 6:58 pm Larry Elison is "working" on a way to take it with him. Very sad. Thank you Bill and Melinda Gates!
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 20, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online The givmint owes Bill and all the other shareholders because their ill-conceived "monopoly" charge cut the value of his first foundation in half, in effect this was money stolen from the poor to make a political point - you can't do business without a "friend" in Washington.
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Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Feb 20, 2009 at 9:57 pm I have to question the philanthropic motivation of Bill Gates in light of the business of "Microsoft"
Not only is "Windows" a de-facto monopoly, it is also the most defective consumer product ever produced.
I just have to wonder if guilt is a factor in the philanthropy.
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Posted by Rob, a resident of Woodside, on Feb 20, 2009 at 10:16 pm The scheme goes something like Bill gives to a charitable trust, he gets a tax write off, trust somehow pays him back. Not all the money goes to a good cause. Like I said, only his NYC attorney knows how.
Anyway, I do prefer Gates to your typical silicon valley scumbag. He's more worldly and savy with accounting and business.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2009 at 2:17 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online I remember operating systems before Microsoft, their cost and the loss when incompatible upgrades were offered. I also remember when Bill told us that if we wanted him to keep writing software we had to stop stealing it. Only an idiot calls what Microsoft had/has a monopoly. There have always been, and still are, competing O/s on the market and some do well. I stay with Microsoft because they have the aps I need in my profession, not because of the panache an all white computer might give me. I am annoyed when an upgrade makes a standard feature an optional extra, but hey...
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Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Feb 21, 2009 at 8:54 am 93% of market share sure sounds like a monopoly to me:
Web Link
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2009 at 10:01 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Would you say that the Steelers had a monopoly on football since they won it all, or would you just say they were the best in the marketplace?
A monopoly is a government or private license of exclusivity. Microsoft has neither.
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Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Feb 21, 2009 at 3:33 pm Walter,
I said "de-facto" monopoly.
I assume you do agree that Windows is "the most defective consumer produce ever produced", since you didn't raise a contrary argument.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online I stay with Windows, warts and all, because the software I need is not available in Linux or in whatever Apple calls their O/S. I was happy with TRSDOS and CPM. The most defective consumer product ever produced is, of course, "Global Warming" and its bastard descendant "Global Klimate Change".
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Posted by PARes, a resident of the Triple El neighborhood, on Feb 21, 2009 at 6:45 pm Would any of you who are critical of Bill Gates' philanthropic motives be willing to share what you are doing to make the world a better place?
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Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Feb 21, 2009 at 8:37 pm Walter,
"The most defective consumer product ever produced is, of course, "Global Warming" and its bastard descendant "Global Klimate Change"."
OK, you got me. Windows in only #2.
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Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Feb 21, 2009 at 9:00 pm PARes,
"Would any of you who are critical of Bill Gates' philanthropic motives be willing to share what you are doing to make the world a better place?"
OK, I'll bite.
Years ago My wife and I tried to adopt an orphaned niece from a 3rd world Asian country. What we were doing was perfectly legal, yet my government intentionally set up a "catch 22" situation by deliberately delaying the process and putting up roadblocks. The government's intention was to delay the adoption until the time that my niece would be too old for adoption, irrespective of when the paperwork for this was initiated.
Even bottom-feeding immigration lawyers told me I'd been had, and one way or another a reason would be found to deny the adoption.
Well, charity starts at home. I'm a man of modest means, and adopting an impoverished orphan was my way of "making the world a better place".
My government prevented me from adopting her, yet turns a blind eye to the millions of illegal immigrants from south of the border. Go figure....
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 22, 2009 at 7:13 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Some engineers have a saying - perfection is the enemy of good enough. Another is "In the real world, everything is a Beta."
And, Outie, whadda you done lately?
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Posted by About those Google boys, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Feb 22, 2009 at 11:17 am Someone above mentioned the Google founders and what they have done philanthropically. Ever heard of Google.org?
And Global Climate Change is not a hoax. It's amazing that most reputable relevant scientists believe in it, other than those who derive their funding from the oil and gas and coal industries or other CO2 and methane generating industries.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 22, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online Very few butchers advocate vegan, and grant suckers tend to not break others' rice bowls. I have worked in extractive industries and can attest that we had more environmentalists than the liblud class has. Let Gore and Hansen give away their pelf before you condemn industry scientists.
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Posted by Outside Observer, a resident of another community, on Feb 22, 2009 at 8:16 pm Walter,
I'll answer, only because part of the answer is relevant to Bill Gates.
Besides raising her "in absentia" and putting her and 4 others through college, I'm currently mentoring an impoverished nephew who is an IT undergrad. Very, very bright kid who is studying under a full scholarship. I wish I could get him a H1B visa, but alas I don't have the billions Gates has to grease all the palms necessary.
I've also set up an impoverished relative in a self-sustaining business, and here's the Bill Gates connection. The business is digital video surveillance, and it's affordable to the middle class and small business owners in the 3rd world, whereas the systems available in the 1st world are not. Besides the individual benefit to my impoverished relative, it brings this technology to those who couldn't possible afford a 1st world system.
My system has all the features you would expect from a state-or-the-art system, but it utilizes obsolete PC's (in terms of Windows) for servers. Our e-waste is recycled as viable video servers that run under Ubuntu Linux and utilize either Firefox or Safari as the client.
An old Pentium-II makes a fine video server. A Pentium-III can support 16 cameras, and in some respects is too fast.
Neither of these are capable of running Vista.
So, thank you Bill Gates for the endless sequence of OS upgrades that move component locations around (so you have to learn where they went), add more "automatic decision making" into selections, which are almost always wrong, and are only there to further dumb-down the product and sell it yet lower levels of humanity(?)
And in all of this, the processing power required has increased exponentially, yet it's only usage is in unnecessary overhead to dumb-down windows more and more. It's a vicious cycle between Mircosoft who drives things, and the CPU producers who improve their products, not to increase effeciency, but only to keep up with the bloat of Windoze.
So, Walter, you are using Vista, of course.... And all your apps from XP, 2000, and 98 are running just fine on Vista, right? And they run faster than on your old Win98 PC..... true?
OK, one more thing for you, because you are an engineer, maybe you could appreciate.
I'm working on another business idea to help another impoverished relative. One that doesn't have a formal education, but is very good with his hands. Low temperature differential stirling engines. Google it, or more importantly, ebay it. These are basically tech-toys or middle school science projects, but they sell well on ebay and elsewhere. I'm very close to having one that is labor-heavy in manufacture, but only requires a 1/4 inch drill and some special tools I've made to build. If this works, they will be hand made in the 3rd world, sold in the 1st world and at over $50 profit/unit.
Despite the labor intensity, 2-3 can be manufactured/day.
$100/day income in 3rd world Asia, is huge. It's nearing upper-middle class.
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Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 22, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online My latest computer, a notebook, cost less that $300 and runs many of my apps. The $100 laptop that Gates apparently tried to stop is here anyway, of very close to it. Yes, I was pissed that I had to go ultimate to get functions previously standard. You know the old saying, no matter what hardware comes up with the software guys will piss it away. The sterling engine used to be a motor for home appliances before electricity. I admire its adaptability to slow speed and minimum delta- T operation, and consider anyone who can make something of the monkkeymotioning cranks as close to genius. Just remember, Outie, Gates is what the market made him, and so was Gary.
When you are in the neighborhood I'll buy you a drink.
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Posted by Dena, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2009 at 11:00 am I have an idea...why doesn't Microsoft cut their prices in 1/2 and I'll donate the other half to my favorite charity. That way, the charity wins, I get the tax write off, and Bill, Melinda and Microsoft still have money to spare.
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Posted by Get a Life, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2009 at 11:33 am [Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
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Posted by Darrell, a resident of Woodside, on Feb 23, 2009 at 12:14 pm Bill and Melinda sufficiently impressed Warren Buffett that he donated an additional $30 billion into the charitable pot. That's a pretty good accomplishment right there. I'm sure the people getting this assistance are greatful and I can't figure out what all the snipping is about. Perhaps some of these writers are jealous they are not getting a cut, or something for their local citizens. I like the world view that helping someone grow more food in India will be helpful to me in some unforseen way. We'll never know all the good this charitable funding will accomplish. California once led the nation in supporting education at all levels. Now we're in the bottom 5% in terms of expendatures per student and our kids don't get the benefits their parents got. So I get that these funds are doing something for our country long term too, and the social benefit of this foundation donating funds is it assists our country's image in the world too.
Darrell
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Posted by PARes, a resident of the Triple El neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2009 at 1:44 pm There sure is a lot of hate here. Could any of you who have time to post diatribes about what Gates is doing possibly spend that time more constructively - maybe by volunteering your time somewhere or doing your part to help the world? I have no particular allegiance to Gates or Microsoft, and there is no solution to anything that is perfect. But the guy has spent a ton of money and time trying to find answers and doing what he can - that, alone, seems like something we should all be inspired by and possibly try to do a little more of ourselves, rather than just sitting around griping about Microsoft products and speculating about what Gates' underlying intentions may or may not be. The guy has saved a lot of lives with his work - how many of us can say this? And would you be as quick to gripe about him if one of those lives saved was your own child's? If you don't like the way he has gone about trying to improve the world, then get out there and do it differently. What is wrong with our culture that we have lost the ability to admire anyone for anything but instead just feel compelled to tear them apart?
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Posted by Michael Wright, a resident of the Meadow Park neighborhood, on Feb 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm [Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]
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