Results tagged “philanthropy”

Bill Gates has quit from his day-to-day role at Microsoft Corp, but he's not exactly "retiring" — the 52 year old is dedicating himself to full-time philanthropy through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest charitable foundation with a war chest of US$37.5 billion, four times the size of the next largest foundation. The amount is set to rise to US$100 billion by the end of Gates' lifetime (Note: The US philanthropy sector is now at US$300 billion).

There's an interesting piece in the Shanghai Daily today about the habits of China's rich, who, instead of learning from the moral paragon that is Warren Buffett, are spending more money on themselves. Says the report:

The Hurun Report will release its annual "China Rich List" tomorrow, ranking about 400 of the richest people in China. On their website (link above), you can also find all types of interesting rankings, from philanthropy (individuals or corporations) to the "power" ranking, which we surmise means something in addition to just the boku bucks. The 2004 rankings are on there as well. Just for kicks, you can check out Forbes' rankings, which are also yearly but as of now are limited to the top 200, which we suppose sucks for No. 201, but with all that cash, we're sure he/she can shop their way out of that funk. On second thought, maybe Nos. 201 and 401 are happy to have avoided the spotlight. There's a Chinese saying: shu da zhao feng (树大招风), which means "the tall branch catches the wind." Then there's a another saying: qiang da chutou niao (枪打出头鸟) or "the bird that stands out from the flock is the first to get shot." And yet another: ren pa chu ming zhu pa zhuang (人怕出名猪怕壮) or "people fear fame and pigs fear getting fat." Hmmmm. Wonder why the Chinese have all these sayings. We always thought to get rich was glorious.