If IKEA can generate a higher return on capital than generally available, it could make more sense to accumulate and compound the money for as long as possible so he can donate a bigger amount later. Hard to quantitatively compare to the utility of early philanthropy.
What I'm suggesting is a form of portfolio diversity.
And who's to say that if you invest in NPO X today that the "ROI" won't be significant5 or 10 years from now. Why not try to put a value on lives saved, impacted, etc.?
So yeah. Use Capital as your only measuring stick and you're correct. But the real truth is, there's more to life than Capital. But of course the capitalist doesn't want you to know this.
Note: I'm not suggesting better (or worse), just different. There are alternative measurements.
I agree that there's much more to life than capital/money.
What I'm saying is its very very hard to put a value on life saved/changed and compare that to money. Is donating $1M to an NPO distributing malaria vaccines today better or worse than donating $2M worth of malaria vaccines in 2 years? Who knows? How would you even begin to compare those 2 scenarios? You'd have to translate the subjective costs of being sick, costs of a life, all the uncertainties around effectiveness of the vaccine, uncertainties around how well the NPO uses its capital etc. into a dollar value to compare.. there is no right answer there, its just too uncertain.
So if he did a similar calculation and decided more money later is better for the world than less money now, well I can't fault him because that calculation is infinitely complex. Seems like you are saying donating say 1% every year is better than donating 0 and then 100% at the end, but it is very hard to tell.
I don't want this to sound snark / too direct but...
Bill Gates must have some sort of formula. My sense is also, some of that formula is what he can contribute. You can't do much contributing when you're dead :)
Nothing of value is easy. And big progress / big change takes (big) time. The longer you wait the more difficult it is to move the needle.
My question is kinda like an A/B test. That is, instead of waiting til the race was over, what would the impact had been had some of this started 20 years ago?
