Bill Gates has a problem, a big problem, billions of problems.

Hey, this is Emily in the Bronx and you are listening to a special archived episode of a Kimbo.

So what's his problem?

So what's his problem?

His problem is that he did something brave and generous and powerful in 2010 about nine years ago.

He and Warren Buffett, at the time the two richest men in the world, invented the giving pledge and the idea is that if you have

more than a hundred million dollars you can join their exclusive club and what the

club says is that every member pledges to give at least half of their

net worth away to charity now before they die or in their will. When they began they had

about a dozen members. Quickly it grew grew to 40. Now, it's more than 150, with most of them being

billionaires. This is great news. It's great news because it means that talented leveraged people are playing a second game, a game that's about weaving our culture and leading there helping those in need

instead of only seeking to make one metric go up. So what's the problem? The problem is that Bill Gates has more money now than

when he started this project, that as much good as the Gates Foundation has done, as much money as he has given

away.

Billionaires make money from their billions, and he has more money now than when he started.

In fact, if we look at the charitable spending of the men and women who have signed up for the giving pledge, we see that

they are almost all falling behind. They are falling behind because on average they're giving 1.2% away, while the money that they have in their assets is earning 8, 9, or 10% a year.

So at that rate, it will take infinity years

before they have given away half of their net worth.

The gap gets bigger year after year.

The collected group of billionaires, as measured by bridge span,

has given away about $45 billion a year.

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