Bill and Melinda Gates and the problem of the “good billionaire”

Bill and Melinda Gates are odd billionaires.

The Gateses, who released their foundation’s annual letter this week, are not cartoonishly out-of-touch like Stephen Schwarzman, the private equity billionaire who gave Yale $150 million for a performing arts center; they’re not magnates attempting to use their money to swing elections like Charles and David Koch or Tom Steyer.

They’re also not self-hating plutocrats like Nick Hanauer who openly decry their station in society and constantly demand just economic policies. And they’re certainly not among the dozens of barely known billionaires who fill out the Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people (quick, tell me all your thoughts about, uh, Thomas Peterffy?).

But I think in some ways, the Gateses (and to a certain extent, Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz as well) raise the hardest questions about the role billionaires and philanthropy play in our society. Which is to say: The Gates Foundation has the kind of money and power that there are very, very good reasons to not want a foundation controlled by a private individual (or, in this case, three individuals — Bill, Melinda, and Warren Buffett) to have.

It is able to spend vast sums of money to influence the lives of people around the globe with minimal accountability, without the discipline that consumers and competitors force on businesses and voters force on governments.

When I look at figures like Steyer or Schwarzman or the Kochs or Howard Schultz exercising the power derived from their wealth, my reaction is easy: You’re doing this wrong. You’re not living up to the responsibility inherent in having that kind of money and power. The money you’re spending would probably be better used in public coffers.

I think the Gates Foundation, by contrast, has mostly used that money and power well. And I’m not entirely sure how to design a system that preserves the genuinely valuable work they do while dramatically lessening the role of billionaires in general, even as I think the latter shift is important and necessary.