“The word ‘philanthropy’ is often interpreted as someone who gives money,” he told the alumni magazine.
“But the Greek roots of the word ‘philos’ and ‘anthropos’ mean to love humans. What I have discovered is spending money is the easy thing, spending yourself is the hard thing. The 12 Neighbours project is how I can best spend myself.”yl
I’m not crying, you’re crying… Sniff
I also liked this:
“We have people who have been run over by trauma, by substance abuse, by all of these things,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It’s about excavating that person, buried under their circumstances, little by little.”
Seems like a decent dude.
I like this part as well:
“I won the parent lottery, the education lottery, the country lottery,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It would be arrogant to say every piece of my ‘success’ was earned, when so much of it was received.”
Someone must be cutting onions. Let’s add them to the billionaire stew.
This is fine, but millionaires won’t save us
This could be pointed to as a successful test case to get the gov off it’s ass and implement this at a macro level.
You are correct millionaires will not save us, however we should reward behavior we want to see. Lest we get more billionaires who are a net drag on society.
How though. Anti taxers would point out that it should be an 8 story concrete apartment building for maximum return of government investment, but no increase in taxes, any concerned official is left fighting politically for leftover funds to slowly build up in an account to initiate the project, and then they loose an election and the next guy uses it on fancy jewlery for his mistress.
Even just getting one building off the ground and they’ll be eviscerated for not using economies of scale. Building ten at the same time and a slight cost overrun which always happens is multiplied by ten.
Sorry for my pessimistic rant.
I really don’t like that you got downvoted so much for this. You are not wrong, that is the anti-taxer take, and your exposure to those who might not be aware contributes to the discussion in a meaningful way. I don’t know or care if you’re anti-tax I just know you brought up well thought-out points relevant to the conversation and I don’t like seeing the upside down vote count.
Thank you
I’m not anti tax. Just had to deal with somebody’s temper tantrum that school taxes are theft.
He did actually save those homeless people.
I don’t think it’s possible to amass “millions” as an executive, while giving fair payments to everyone down the chain.
Sure, but let’s pretend this one hasn’t done significantly more than others.
Absolutely, but it is food seeing some people who actually use their money for something good.
They could, but they won’t.
Maybe if they all teamed up and were organized to do so. But a tiny handful of billionaires control as much wealth as the millionaires. It’s much harder for a class to voluntarily do good than for a small handful of people. That’s why society needs to step in, tax them, and distribute to projects as needed.
Back during the gilded age and earlier it was common for wealthy individuals to found public services like hospitals and schools partly because these services were unlikely to exist without a wealthy benefactor to create them, so they’d found them with their own family and friends in mind first, but also as a hedge on helping improve their public image as the lack of any protections for the working class created literal battles between the working class and mercenaries hired by the owning class
Elon Musk would never lol. He could do so much good with his money but he just chooses not to. Has he built a library? A park? A school? Literally anything?
Didn’t you know empathy is a sin and weakness…
Can’t believe he said that shit.
Something something he could’ve ended world hunger, but chose not to.
He twisted and parroted the words of someone else. Fucker’s absolutely incapable of original thought or actual creation
If he said that, he needs to be ground into a fine paste, eaten, and then shit out because that’s some garbage-tier humaning.
He’s a billionaire. Id be surprised if he said otherwise.
Since you asked according to Wikipedia the Musk Foundation has given $50 million to st Judes, although Musk and his foundation have been criticized for their low payouts.
He also promised to solve world hunger if given a plan and when the UN gave him a plan, he backed out.
Thanks for looking, like honestly. At least he’s done something I guess.
Very smart to put solar panels on each unit. I hope the residents will be allowed to plant some flowers, bushes, and trees to brighten up the area.
This is in my town. They are allowed and encouraged to do so. Their place is THEIR place, it fosters a sense of community and ownership of the community.
This project really kicks ass and it’s making waves. I know the guy is a millionaire, but I’ve listened to a few interviews and his heart is at the right place. He genuinely cares and is being pragmatic about it.
I wish I could say the same for the billionaires of this province. Looking at you, Irving shitbags.
It’s actually not as crazy being a tech millionaire nowadays since so many people build a great service and then just have it bought up by the competition.
It said right in the article Salesforce bought his product in 2011 and thats what made him a millionaire. Pretty good way to use that life changing money for the better of others and not just himself.
A million dollars ain’t what it used to be. Won’t even buy a house in many cities anymore.
A million will get you a home in just about any city. Whether it’s a really nice one or not is the question.
Remember, theres a gigantic difference between the wealth of a billionaire and the wealth of a millionaire. For one thing, its possible to make a million without harming others, a BILLION though, you HAVE to sacrifice others to achieve.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars
While the guy happened to manage to acquire almost $400 million by selling his company, it seems that he’s really trying to do some good with that, quite frankly, ridiculous amount of money.
Also it seems that his employees were compensated somewhat above market rate while he owned the company.
Not exactly a dragon of his own making, we shall observe his career with great interest to see if he follows what seems to be his chosen path, as of now.
On paper, sure. But I might argue that the process of accruing paper wealth as a backstop against misfortune and a reserve during retirement is inherently deleterious - forcing people to forego quality of life in the immediate term as a hedge against the future. This is a highly inefficient process for individuals to manage - who carry the whole cost of an incidental risk/exceptionally long life. And it is the whole reason public pensions and public insurance came to exist.
That’s before you get into the moral hazard of certain professions and fortunate individuals being predisposed towards retirement, while others work right up until their dying days.
Some rocker tried to do that in LA and they arrested him and kicked out all the homeless.
I accept millionaires.
I’ve yet to see moral billionaires.
Yep, I’ve seen friends reach the seven figure area through steady seven day weeks and some luck picking their trade and finding industrial clients over a period of fifteen to twenty years. I have seen how little they slept and how kids were basically only possible because they were pretty self reliant from age 12 or 13 and helped a lot around the house. I have no idea how a human could possibly create a thousand times that value in their lifetime.
They can’t. Billionaires can only exist by taking value generated by others. Absolutely nothing Jeff Bezos could do within 60 seconds is worth continuously “earning” over 18.000$.
deleted by creator
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars. Although the millionaires have to stop clutching their pearls, step up and realize that they’re a lot closer in class to the homeless than the billionaires.
Well you sure as hell can’t have generally high moral standards and earn a billion from scratch. You have to either screw the environment on a very large scale and/or screw lots and lots of people.
And if you are in a context where you inherit a billion and think there is no problem with an individual having billions, odds are you are also not in a great position moral-wise.
I think the main ethical pathway to billions is through intellectual property. Write a beloved book series where each installment sells over 10 million copies, gets adapted into a movie cinematic universe that grosses billions, sells a shitload of merchandise, etc., and taking a fair cut of all that economic activity might result in a billion dollars.
Yes, in a sense it’s still rent seeking of being paid some kind of toll for someone else building on your work, but that foundation is still your own work.
On a smaller scale, you’ve got songwriters, filmmakers, other entertainers, who can do one thing that gets seen/appreciated by billions. Same with inventors or artists.
fair point, for creative stuff whether or not its worth is really billions is another discussion which might touch ethics but is not always an obv violation.
It can really be a grey zone though since some inventions could really improve humanity as a whole (such as those in medicine) but when capitalised becomes accessible only by a certain class and makes the inventor possibly a billionaire. Now if you categorize earning billions from this as non-ethical but earning billions from other creative processes as ethical this will likely create a loophole. So I am still in favor of putting these in the same bag.
Most millionaires probably don’t even know it and certainly don’t feel it. It’s old people who’ve been living in the same house for 50 years, who still worry about the price of beans.
Why can’t other people be more like this? Go Marcel!
When the time comes we let this one unbothered
I applaud the project but I’d still eat him. He is a near billionaire CEO throwing a few scraps to us commoners. Maybe his PR team can make me look good too as I go for seconds.
He gets a pass in my book. Maybe he did it because he wanted to be spared in the future.
We can pretend to eat him while we distribute his wealth.
“I won the parent lottery, the education lottery, the country lottery,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It would be arrogant to say every piece of my ‘success’ was earned, when so much of it was received.”
Looks like he did this because he’s actually a decent reasonable person.
This is how fucking easy it is. This is a millionaire. Imagine what someone with hundreds of billions of dollars could do.
You can have a soul, or you can have billions of dollars; not both.
Imagine what WE could do if we taxed millionaires and billionaires.
We could build these in every city in the country.
Imagine if the public sector did this and didn’t limit it to a single development.
We could even build bigger-than-tiny sized units. Maybe include additional amenities like schools and health clinics and food malls in the immediate vicinity. Throw in a rail stop so people can get to the metro center easily. You know… actual urban development.
No idea where we could get money for that, though. Maybe if Canada didn’t exempt 50% of capital gains income from taxation for some reason… But no, that would never work.
Feels like now is the best time for other nations to have low capital gains taxes. No?
My city built a bunch of these, but they are 10 ft x 10 ft pods. Hundreds of them. We still have 5-6,000 homeless living on the street. Our county has been handing out free tents for 8 years and guess what, didn’t help.
Our county has been handing out free tents for 8 years and guess what, didn’t help.
I mean, tents help keep the rain and the wind off you. It helps in so far as any amount of camping gear is going to help. But its not solving homelessness unless you classify rough outdoor living as a solution.
Also…
you’re paddling against the current if you’re handing out tents in a city where the police pounce on homeless encampments and tear them up.
Dude’s getting 20k/mo rent and helping the poor. That’s fucking awesome.
Considering utilities are included, I doubt he gets much of that
Eat this guy last
He can sit on my side of the table if he keeps this up
I have a feeling by the time we eat the other billionaires, he’d have donated it all away. We won’t have to eat him if what his PR team says is really true.
Rember kids; philanthropy is advantageous upon failure of collective efforts
