He sold the company for $1.6bn, but he had a 10% stake. So his stake was worth $160m. He kept $100m. So he gave away $60m.
He did not give away a billion dollars. The article headline and the article itself is written in such a way that it arguably obscures the facts and confuses.
It’s great he gave away $60m but it’s got little to nothing to do with his opinion that he doesn’t believe in billionaires; including that in the headline makes it seem like he gave away a billion dollars.
I saw a meme or something a while back that said to eliminate billionaires, every cent over 999 million should be taxed at 100%, we could give them a little plaque that says you won capitalism and they’d still have more money than anyone could spend in a single lifetime.
Well that’s certainly nicer than how the French handled it
I’ve said stuff like that before, but I bet we can do even better. You don’t just tax the extra money they make and be done. You publicize the great things the money does, and you give the people awards, titles, and attention in whatever way seems effective.
So maybe next year AWS keeps growing like crazy and Jeff Bezos’s yearly “donation” is like 30 Billion dollars. He never sees that money, yet he still lives a billionaire lifestyle. The government uses that money to have schools offer every child in the country three hot nutritious meals per day, and some hallway in DC gets a plaque that says Jeff Bezos: Savior of the Children and the Future of American Brainpower. We all win in the ways we care about.
If it’s ok for companies to psychologically manipulate and/or physically harm people in pursuit of profit, then it’s ok for we the people to use the bottomless narcissism and ambition of the CEO class as an energy source.
Good for him tbh, being a billionare WILL slowly corrode your mind and soul
Thats fucked up, why sell it? Give it back to the workers.
Sell it, keep $100M, distribute $1,500M to the employees who built the company with you.
…sit on the beach with your former employees as just people, discussing who has the cutest little umbrella in their drink and laughing at the stock value of the global conglomerate that bought a business that no longer has employees.
No, just distribute ownership amongst the workers. Keep a majority share if youre worried they arent responsible enough.
I guess it just depends on the scope. Since we were talking about giving way over a billion, I was envisioning the employees being set for life and having no concern for the continued operation of the business.
If we’re talking about thousands of people, then I guess either option is pretty sweet. Either you keep your same job but now have equity and control, or you keep your same job under new ownership but see an extra $500,000 cash just drop into your checking account.
I took a look at the article and I got no impression of the employee count, but the dude who sold the company seems like the rare ultra-rich startup CEO business owner who is somehow based as fuck.
It sounds like starting companies is just what he likes doing, and/or is driven to do. I have to admit I’m a little jealous because imagine being a decent person, and first being told you have no rent or bills ever again, and then being given 1,500 Million Dollars to just give to people and causes you care about. That would be off-the-charts fun and rewarding.
(edit to add: the article may have been written in a misleading way such that he gave away less than half the money rather than over 90%, so maybe he’s not quite so based. Still way ahead of the pack. Something I have often said is that in order to become a billionaire, you have to be the kind of person who can have $100M and still put in overtime because you aren’t satisfied. It sounds like this guy at least works because he wants to and is thinking in the right direction)
Article snippet:
The 48-year-old is now building his third startup, a supply-chain emissions data company called Scope3. Still, he claims you’ll never catch him joining the billionaires club. “I will never be that wealthy. Even if Scope3 is immensely successful, we will give that money away.”
Just seems sick to build a company off the backs of your employees then say, “you know what take the equity and spend it elsewhere who cares about the people who got me here. They have been gifted a job like the good servants they are.”
Sounds good
Put it in the bank and live off the interest
why didn’t he pay a bunch of that to the employees?
Because that’s against how the system works. Shareholders can and will sue your company if you don’t maximise profits. I honestly do not believe that we will achieve an acceptable distribution of wealth under capitalism.
That’s a certainty as equitable distribution of wealth is diametrically opposed to the fundamental working of the capitalist system.
$100 million invested into dividend stock would gross him $1-5 million per year. About 1/3 of that will be paid in taxes, depending on what kind of dividends those are.
Me personally, I think I’d be happy with $10 million but I guess you get hungry when there’s a lot of food in front of you.
Depends if you want rich people play money or just comfy people play money.
Also if you want to say buy a beach front house in california or a nice mountain home in Colorado. That alone can run you a few millions dollars upfront not to mention a the on going costs.
100m is honestly not a lot of money if you plan to not for for the next handful of decades and want to actually enjoy a rich life style.
10 mill will put you in a nice middle class home and keep you living a middle class life style for the same length of time.
Wealth to life style scales pretty well from 10 to 100 million dollars when your looking at a 35 year span.
In the US, the middle class generally encompasses households earning between two-thirds and double the national median income. For 2023, the median household income was $77,719, putting the middle class range between roughly $52,000 and $155,000.
now we have income vs earned/taxed 10mm.
155k pa puts you in the 22% federal tax bracket, since it’s progressive let’s assume 16% tax over all your income, this leaves you with 140k. and this is the upper end of the middle class. not just somewhere within.
if you just spend your 10mm at 140k pa it would last 71 years. okay, inflation is a bitch, but still …
if you put it in some ETF you usually beat inflation with about 8.5% pa, which is taxable I guess. but it’s only the gain you pay tax on off course.
so if you make 8.5% of 10mm and lose 3% to inflation, and tax 16% on the remaining gains you are left with 3.9% (=390k) after taxes pa to all eternity.
so unless you assume all variables worst case (living in most expensive city, getting divorced every year etc) I’d call 10mm way above middle class
and these numbers are fur 10mm, not 100.
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Good for him.
Raise the taxes, remove the cap on FICA contributions, implement universal healthcare.
I love the sentiment but want to make sure it’s understood that M4A would cost less, not more, than what we have today. The US government already spends more per citizen on healthcare than most governments with universal programs. The money just doesn’t go to healthcare, it pays for profits and unnecessary overhead (like CEO salaries) at insurance companies, physician networks, hospitals, and medical suppliers.
The US government already spends more per citizen on healthcare than most governments with universal programs. The money just doesn’t go to healthcare
Then the US is nor spending that money per citizen, now is it?
“Per citizen” doesn’t imply that the money ia going to each citizens. It nust means “total spent divided by the number of citizens”.
The government is spending it, then the private system is skimming from it.
Should have shared the money with the workers who built the company into a $1.6B valuation and worth acquisition.
Jesus Christ, it’s never good enough for you, why even bother trying.
That’s correct, there’s no way to be the good guy in a system like this. All you can do is try
At the end of the day, stolen wages are still stolen wages.
Lol, i know, right?
So many upvotes for the guy above you defending billionaires
Just because he gave it away, doesn’t remove his responsibility for how he “earned” it.
…by working hard for it?
I agree, but it doesn’t sound like his choices are bad. There’s a comment further down.
Look, at least he does not seem to have raped anyone.
That’s a low bar.
At least there is a bar
duckin’ A
If anything he should have invested it into effecting political change. But that other person is right; it’s never good enough for you.
In Russia that’s an oligarchy. Yet here you are advocating it?
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I’m not advocating for the system. I’m just suggesting a way the money could do the greatest good.
Money can buy political change. That shouldn’t be true, but it is.
If you’re so hungry for a target to be mad at that you imagine them like this, maybe it’s time to take a little break.
I reserve my praises until I learn how exactly he gave away the money. Family-controlled foundations that only do political lobbing while avoiding taxes are a thing .
I wasn’t able to find details with a quick search, but it sounds like it wasn’t his own foundation:
After the AppNexus sale, O’Kelley and his wife carefully chose which causes to support. Their donations focus on education, social justice, technology access, and healthcare initiatives.
https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2025/08/could-you-give-away-1-5-billion-like-this-ceo/
Perhaps the only good billionaire is one who isn’t.
Perhaps the only good billionaire is one who isn’t.
Duh
I honestly hope that’s the case. “Hopeful” is a nice change of pace.
Their donations focus on education, social justice, technology access, and healthcare initiatives.
Okay, but you realize the could just be the Gates Foundation, right? Or whatever bullshit charity Zuckerberg runs?
I think it’s the Cuck Foundation
well political lobbying would be good if it’s lobbying for socialism i’d say
I would argue that legalized corruption is bad, even if you happen to agree with the cause.
Well, the current method of taking the high ground to make change for good ain’t exactly working out too well.
Lobby for removing that legalized corruption?
I don’t know if there is something much newer and more focused on the foundation aspect, but The Rich and the Super-Rich spends a bit of time on discussing foundations and how they work to preserve wealth.
How many more people/companies do we need to see doing this before we see change?
I am praising the action not the individual :)
Just a general reminder to anyone to use a site like Charity Navigator to find good causes to donate to.
Seems to be only American
Because most other Western countries have social security networks paid for by taxes, which are infinitely more efficient than the temporary bandaid which is charity.
or GiveWell if you want causes ranked according to their impact as measured in QALYs. They research these things pretty carefully to determine the impact. If you’re not a utilitarian then you may not see the point of doing this (though on the other hand, if you’re not a utilitarian, I don’t know if there’s any way to evaluate charities well.)
O’Kelley’s [sic] says billionaires represent “such an incredibly ludicrous waste of money in a world where there’s so many people who don’t have that,” but he says actually being one is also “othering”—separating you from the limits and consequences that define normal life. “There’s something about keeping connected to normalcy that is really, really important,” the entrepreneur explains. “I don’t want a yacht and I don’t ever want to be able to be without consequences. I think that’s the biggest risk, is, how can we be accountable when we have so much money we can buy anything?”
He gets it. Past a certain point, wealth erodes your humanity. I think I’d have picked $100M too - at a safe 4% return that’s $4M per year, plenty for anybody to live on but not megayacht money.
I’ve always said If I could have enough where I could purchase in cash a cottage in a small cottage town here in Canada with a top of the line internet connection and I’d never have to work or worry about money for the rest of my life I’d be happy. what would I do? nothing. I’d pursue my hobby projects, more FOSS development, gaming, painting, build model kits, drink beer, eat whatever I wanted, and socialize with as few people as possible.
That’s all i want. I just want enough money right now to achieve that.
Motherfucking $4MM total is enough to live on with a return like that.
Sure, but choosing to live on $160k/yr would be a bit much when you’re starting with $1.6B. I can’t fault him for still wanting to enjoy being wealthy instead of upper-middle-class and definitely don’t think it’s reasonable to complain that giving away 95% of his wealth is somehow not enough.
Even if it still feels a bit wrong, I can somehow reason with there being wealthy people and the motivation of potential lavish life, since some seem to really need it to make any effort in society. It’s somewhat understandable at least. Talking about tens of millions, with a bit of stretch hundreds - okay, I can stomach it even if it still seems extremely excess.
But billions… that’s already ten times more than that. How anyone can stomach that, I don’t get.
While my heart disagrees, my brain can get, with some effort, behind what this guy says. It kind of makes sense at least. Retaining your humanity and giving up such an inconceivable amount of money for that, really sounds pretty good in this world we’ve been living in lately. Sounds fucking weird to feel good about someone still having such excess in comparison to all the people struggling with next to nothing, but at least there’s some amount of backbone and clear thought involved.
Not sure what to think still. Like someone else commented, better reserve outright okaying this until we know how the money was given away.
But if it turns out to be sensible and humane, I can honestly say I’m fine with the kind of millionaire this one is. It’s not ideal, but it’s tolerable and in some niche sense, justifiable. If it’s all good, I even wish all the millionaires were like this… if we have to have them, as a compromise with the part of people who need all that, the “dream” to strive for, for whatever reason, at least let them be sensible and moral in some way, such as this…
I don’t think the premise that you can “make it” is wrong, and being somewhat wealthy is definitely motivation for many great things. If you’re running a tech start-up you’re probably putting in 60-80 hours a week and have to cope with a great level of stress. Of course being passionate about your product is a very important factor but without the allure of living very well afterwards I think it’d deter a lot of innovation, sports talents, musicians and whatnot.
I don’t blame this dude for still wanting to live his life while being quite ethical; hate the game, not the player (in this case at least). This is about how fiscally conservative I can be. Billionaires shouldn’t exist - and especially these insanely wealthy individuals taking over the world with tech, but I don’t think you can take it away completely. In an ideal world there wouldn’t even be millionaires but people are gonna be people and sociopaths and narcissists are always gonna exist and trying to rig the system.
Right. The goal isn’t to make it so no one has more than anyone else, it’s to ensure that everyone has enough and no one has so much more than anyone else that they can mess up society on a whim, and that people aren’t being exploited.
You want there to be a reward for hard work, creativity, innovation and all that. Just actually proportional to the value being added as opposed to what they can get away with.
I don’t begrudge a person who has worked hard and had something they started become successful a more-than-comfortable and early retirement. It’s when they just had money and used it to make more money, or showed up did little and got fired with millions of compensation that I’m really bothered.
My point is that $160k is enough for anybody. That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.
I’ve been extremely fortunate to land in an industry I enjoy where I make a bout this much, and can confirm, single income in a relatively LCOL area, things are tight.
You’d think that, but hcol is hcol. Then add kids. Now those kids can drive, go to college and need a lot of shoes (seriously, I feel like I should get a part time job at a shoe store). Gotta put some up for retirement too.
It goes faster than you’d think, and that’s with buying used cars, no luxury vacations, little travel, bargain shopping and doing a lot of my own home/car repairs.
This is why I live in my medium size city in a “fly over” state.
I’ve found that where cost of living is lower, wages are also lower, and I’m still broke.
I’m living very comfortably with my partner in a desirable part of Seattle with a mortgage and high medical bills for just over $120k annually.
You’re doing great! But I’m guessing that’s double income no kids, or at least no kids. I think we can allow this anti-billionaire ex-billionaire to reproduce and give his kids the luxury of graduating without debt.
Single income, kids grown up.
I have to disagree with this unfortunately. Myself and many of my friends all make $160k or more each, but when it comes to life’s debts and surprises, family, medical bills, etc. - $160k is not enough. And that’s with me renting a room from family and not even really saving for retirement yet.
Yup, we make in that neighborhood. We live comfortably and frugally, and we still can’t just do what we want. We don’t sweat small purchases as much, and are upgrading things quicker than when we made less than half of that. But we still need to be smart about what we spend, especially with inflation the last few years.
The fuck are doing with your money? Ive never made more than £35k a year. And debt free at 47 with a fully paid off 3 bedroom detached house and fancy as fuck german car.
See that euro symbol in front of your currency those of us with dollars do not have good public transportation, we have to pay extreme amounts for health care and health insurance, we dont have public college for free or low cost, our housing is predatory, car centric infrastructure design necessitates car ownership with another high cost insurance, the car market has become predatory and ridiculously priced to the point its even inflated the used car market to match the prices of what new cars should be. There are numerous reasons the US salaries look better on paper than they do in reality. Should $160k a year be a great salary that leaves you with surplus, it really should and i wish that were the case. Even if you were to be able to secure a salary like that in a low cost of living area in the US it would go a decent distance but the problem being the places where that is the case usually have bad health care, shitty public schooling, lack of access to quality food, etc. which means most of those areas arent ideal for those with families unless they want to pay exorbitant amounts for private school, transportation costs to get to a location with quality health care access in the event they need it etc. Its not as straightforward as you think. We need major help across the pond here, and most people have become so brainwashed and dumbed down from our shitty education systems that they are willingly voting against their own interests because they believe the propaganda that one day they might be a billionaire.
Thats a pound sign, not a euro sign.
We have healthcare, but we pay for it in taxes. Our housing costs are just as fucked as yours.
Stop making excuses for being shit with money.
Doesn’t the UK also have expensive housing? I’m guessing you bought 27 years ago? Wise move.
I bought it three years ago.
I tried to start / invest in 4 businesses prior to COVID and lost everything and then some.
That’s part of it. I’ll be paying for that the rest of my life probably.
But even ignoring most things related to that, $160k wouldn’t be enough and my wife and I don’t even have kids.
What’s the net income? $160k after paltry long-term capital gains tax is going to go a lot further than a single person being taxed fully.
What’s the net income? $160k after paltry long-term capital gains tax is going to go a lot further than a single person being taxed fully.
- Federal Income tax of $160,000/year from long term capital gains: $24,000
- Federal Income tax of $160,000/year from ordinary income (without FICA and Medicare): $ 27,938.50
So in this case its only a $3938.50 cent difference between federal taxation on ordinary income vs capital gains income.
State and local taxes are all over the place for capital gains. My State, as an example, treats any capital gains income as ordinary income at the full tax rate.
FICA and Medicare count. But then so does health insurance premiums.
I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world where you can’t get by on $160k. There are plenty of places where it can be tight, especially if the comparison is just a number of your choice.
EDIT: corrected post with biweekly to monthly pay
My point is that $160k is enough for anybody. That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.
$160k/year is way low to live a “very comfortable lifestyle”, even more so especially in a HCOL area.
Lets use NYC as an example of a HCOL area. Here’s what that looks like for take-home pay:
Lets call it $8,800/month to make it easy.
So a person needs to house themselves. Lets look at NYC rents. Here’s median prices:
And here’s some specifics from a few places in the city:
So looking at the cheapest of the 3 listed here, the small 1 br 1 bath place in the East Village will set you back about $3200/month. Of our $8,800, we now have just $5,600/month for every other living necessities including food, transportation, clothing, and the big budget killer we haven’t talked about yet…health insurance/healthcare.
All of this also assumes a person would be single. If they have children a 1br apartment isn’t going to cut it, and the costs for raising children are also a large increase in monthly money burn. People still have to save for retirement too.
$160k/year is way low for: “That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.”
$160k / 12mo. ≈ $13k / mo.
You threw away $100k annually, chum.
First, thank you for pointing out I made a mistake. I didn’t see the calculator broke it into twice a month paychecks.
Take home for one month for $160k/year would be: $8,784
I’ll correct my post, but $160k/year is still way too low to meet your “That much per person would give any household a very comfortable lifestyle even in a HCOL area.”
You’re taking out too much tax. Closer to $9,300.
A household of two adults would have $320k gross annually, so twice that.
Also, I’m comfortably supporting two adults in a HCOL area, with a mortgage and high medical bills, for under $125k annually.
Actually it’s not. I used to live in a moderately HCOL area (Denver metro, Colorado). Not even the highest. On a low six figure salary I was worried about rising rents and couldn’t afford to buy a home anywhere around there, they were all like $400-$650k.
Mind you, this is just me and my wife, no kids, and few debts, the costs were just extreme. Looking at the costs I was looking at a mortgage of $2500 to $3200, and that was when the interest rates were only a bit over 3%, they’re much higher now.
I’ve moved to the boonies and had a cheap home built for around $200k, and I’m on track to pay it off while also saving for retirement since I’m in my 40s and can’t do this shit forever. Thankfully, my job is fully remote and I’ve built my skills to be able to be fully remote, but not everyone can do that.
Can you just let this story be a good thing? In a sea of shit there was a nugget of uplifting news. Go be negative in one of the bad-things posts.
Ha ha ha ha no. Lemmykins hate people with money almost as much as they hate cops.
He could have given it all away and they would bitch about who he gave it to.
Probably. I’ll take the W. So shines a good deed in a weary world.
Sadly, not necessarily true. In the US, all it takes is one family member with a severe chronic illness tovery quickly erode that to the point that you are back at work. I think $10MM is the magic number but $100MM is a really good number to ensure that you and.your loved ones are taken care of.
To add to this, this also probably goes to something that seems to have been largely lost between the Baby Boomers and the next generations: the concept of passing on generational wealth. I know my parents have flat out said that they’re planning on using all the money they saved working.
Keeping enough money not just to ensure that your family is taken care of today but in the future for possibly generations to come is the kind of thing I can only wish to do.
To add to this, this also probably goes to something that seems to have been largely lost between the Baby Boomers and the next generations: the concept of passing on generational wealth.
As a young gen-Xer, I remember seeing a book title (aimed squarely at boomers, much like nearly everything was marketed my entire life. Well, until the culture essentially skipped to marketing aiming nearly everything at Gen Y, lol.) that was about saving for and spending all of your money and leaving your offspring essentially nothing.
I remember being kind of taken aback by the brazen “me generation” pitch - enough to pick it up and read the back and a bit of the intro to see if it was really what the book was about…I wish I could remember what book it was.
That’s a good point, I’m currently leaning on corporate sponsorship to support my wife’s severe chronic illness. It’ll be a lot easier once Medicare kicks in.
Wishing the best buddy
It doesn’t make any sense to keep just enough, because then you may have to worry about weathering any economic storms in the future.
I think the amount he kept is reasonable, especially when they are pretty much one of a kind for doing this.
Yeah, I was thinking about fluctuating interest rates alone. If we are assuming 4% return on 4M and that’s where 160K/year comes from…that’s essentially a fixed income, risking all kinds of problems in the future, including very low interest rates and doesn’t even begin to get into problems like inflation spiking again or unexpected healthcare bills…
Plenty for a normal yacht, the kind you can sail by yourself or with a partner. Megayachts are basically private cruise ships that need a full staff to sail. Even if I had the money I wouldn’t want that!
The only people that should want one are cruise ship operators and you can rent one for a lot less.
And you would only pick 100mil because of how fucked up the world is. You can easly burn half a million in US if you have a serious health condition.
Joe Rogan’s punk ass couldn’t handle $100M
$4 million a year is absolutely mega yacht territory.
Not even close - megayachts are 9 figures and that doesn’t include the absurd crewing and other operational costs. There’s no way he could own let alone operate one on a $4M income.
I definitely underestimated the cost of mega yachts. But $4mil/yr is still and insane amount of money.
I mean, I could probably retire right now with 4 million and live comfortably. But hey, I’m not gonna fault this dude for doing the right thing here and still being wealthy. Dude put over 90% of the funds back into causes and recirculating instead of hoarding it like some sociopathic dragon.
Oh I don’t want anything I’ve said to come off as a criticism of what he’s done. I think it’s amazing.
Nah, just regular yacht
Yeah, and uncrewed, one where you can operate everything solo or as a couple. Big crewed ones can easily be 20k per day to run.
Uncrewed regular yachts small enough to singlehand are cheaper than a normal middle-class house. Hell, you can get an old one for $1 and some sweat equity.
(That’s a slight exaggeration – fiberglass and resin costs money – but there are definitely people who sail around on boats worth 5 figures and work occasional odd jobs when they need money.)
To buy, sure, but how much is fuel and dock fees? (I’m asking, I have no idea)
Well, they have sails and an anchor, so $0 and $0 if you’re hardcore about it.
It’s definitely really nice yacht territory but can’t afford the floating 100+ room compounds all the billionaires are buying.
There’s nothing wrong with billionaires in themselves, that’d be stupid. A billion’s js a number slowly losing it’s value as time goes on. It’s how the money’s acquired that matters.
A lot and overwhelming amt of billionaires in places like america make their money thru fistfucking their entire country and the destruction of society, but they don’t notice money’s just a number, a value and once that society’s destroyed you can’t eat money. Like I said nothing wrong with making money but it depends on how you make it.
Most billionaires make their money from coming out of the right womb.
Which is why inheritance tax is a thing even tho most find ways to avoid it.
As long as they pay their dues, instead of leaving us plebs to run their own state for them, which granted a lot of them don’t, idrc. I want to make P’s as much as anyone else but if the game’s rigged against my favour we need to change the game.
Same way how in sport people win and lose, that’s not the issue, but the game has to be fair, we can’t allow doping, the playing field has to be even.
You are aware that the billionaires don’t pay any tax at all and keep it in panama? You want to change the game, be contrary to some other opinion than billionaires being an insane plague (yes themselves)
Soft disagree. I think even numerical wealth past a certain number is a sign of, at best, incoherent markets.
When a billionaire gives money away, it’s usually to their own charity, and it’s to avoid paying taxes. Of course it sounds good to say they gave it away but it reality, they give it to a charity they fully control.
Or to reinvent their image, and not be look upon as a terrible person. Aka, gates
Basically he paid the cost of buying the Benevolent Nerd Dad image when you’re primarily known for running a company with some of the most anti-competitive practices ever around.
and his now potential association with epstein. i had a feeling it was because of this.
