Question: If you had $100 billion to give away, how would you spend it?
Jimmy Wales: One hundred billion dollars to give away? Wow, that’s really interesting. It’s an interesting thing because one of the things when I look at my work philanthropically and thinking about how to get Wikipedia around the world, one of the things that just comes very naturally to me is to try to avoid really thinking about it in a top down manner. So the first fleeting thought that crosses my mind is let’s take the $100 billion and give everybody in the world a computer or something like that. I don’t know if that’s enough money to give everybody a computer, but it would be a pretty good shot, right? But then on second thought, I think that’s probably not the right answer. That answer presupposes that a computer is what people need. And clearly that’s probably not what lots of people need. So I suppose if I could just sort of magically sort of give it out, I would just say give people the money. Just give, you know, $100 bucks each to as many people as you can and let them do what they will with it. Some of them will waste it; a lot of them won’t. Something interesting will come out of it.
Recorded on: Aug 10, 2007
Discuss
William Green on January 19, 2008, 11:31 AM
That's hard to swallow. More likely, a lot of people will waste it, and few will save it.
William Green on January 19, 2008, 4:31 PM
That’s hard to swallow. More likely, a lot of people will waste it, and few will save it.
Matt Huebert on January 25, 2008, 3:58 AM
The editorial comment is misleading and should be changed to reflect what Wales actually said beyond the first few seconds of the video.
Matt Huebert on January 25, 2008, 8:58 AM
The editorial comment is misleading and should be changed to reflect what Wales actually said beyond the first few seconds of the video.
Zachary Wolk on February 2, 2008, 2:05 AM
I would create a committee to reform education, with a primary focus on creating an environment to develop the ability to think meta-cognitively.
Zachary Wolk on February 2, 2008, 7:05 AM
I would create a committee to reform education, with a primary focus on creating an environment to develop the ability to think meta-cognitively.
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