By now, you’ve probably heard that, with Anthropic and OpenAI about to go public, San Francisco will soon be home to thousands of newly hatched millionaires and a handful of downy billionaires.
This is great news for them and their heirs, and nonprofits are apparently waiting in the wings, hats in hand. All that highfalutin’ rhetoric about “effective altruism” we were forced to read about in The New Yorker will surely translate into big, fat donations for struggling organizations, right?
This week, Wired’s Paresh Dave talked to several fundraisers about how they’re preparing for this “potential philanthropy windfall.” That followed Kevin Roose musing on Hard Fork that “I think this is something that people outside of San Francisco don’t quite understand … how much money is going to be flowing into these philanthropies over the next couple of years.”
People in San Francisco probably won’t understand it either, because they won’t see any of it. If this Great AI Wealth Transfer happens, it will probably be in the form of more public art or surveillance, not free medical clinics, food pantries, or arts and literacy programs. Honestly, it’s almost impossible to imagine that a generation of rise-and-grind “meritocrats” who dream of living forever with their blood boys on Mars even have it in them to endow the city with things its most vulnerable residents need.
I’ve worked for at least three billionaires and two decamillionaires (losers) in my career and I can tell you that, while the fabulously wealthy can be generous, they can also be capricious. Gifts almost always come tied up with strings, and I don’t mean the kind around the boxes.
As it happens, I’ve also helped raise funds for one or two nonprofits and I’ll always remember the advice of a veteran of the charitable ask game: High-net-worth individuals rarely give big gifts, but regular people can be relied on for smaller ones. You can starve fishing for a whale; but you can fill your belly on sardines.
Dreaming about a city transformed by the largesse of rich people has the foolish, slightly pathetic ring of Harry McClintock singing about “The Big Rock Candy Mountains,” a “land that’s fair and bright.” Pining for “cigarette trees” and “lemonade springs” is naive. Trust me, there’s no place where “the handouts grow on bushes.” (And don’t even get me started on the hens that “lay soft-boiled eggs.”)
That said, I’ll be very happy to be wrong. If those EA-indoctrinated millionaires turn this town into some kind of Big Rock AI Mountain, I’ll be the first one to thank them.
Until then, I won’t withhold my judgement. Or hold my breath.
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Dispatches from the fog
WIFE FLIGHT IN A PHONE BOOTH: If you can remember Gavin Newsom’s 2007 affair, were you really even there? (Vanity Fair)
THE NIGHT OF THE LONG TWEETS: Jamelle Bouie on Elon Musk’s widely amplified hate speech. (New York Times)
IF IT BANGS, IT LEADS: Drunk on its Pulitzer win, area paper goes another round. (San Francisco Chronicle)
HOT TAKE TIME MACHINE: Slate invites you to return to the year of its launch. (Slate)
SAD SEASON: Glen Hansard (RIP) and Markéta Irglová performing as The Swell Season at the Masonic on August 26, 2023. (YouTube)
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