If you’re not someone who has tons of money, it’s easy to judge how people that do have money choose to spend it. Like, who needs a million dollar engagement ring when there are kids starving all over the world, right?
But even though it can be tempting to entertain the idea that good rich people should all just be super philanthropic and save the rest of us from ourselves (and from the government, which is full of bad rich people…), the truth is, nothing is that simple, or cut-and-dried.
Which is exactly what a woman named Theresa (who has since deleted her tweet) wondered aloud:
Photo Credit: Ruin My Week
Listen. The real, tough, short answer is that Jeff Bezos doesn’t give a crap about vets or hungry kids or clean water or whatever else.
The longer answer is that, if he did care about those things and do what he could to fix them, he would never have become Jeff Bezos, billionaire, to begin with, says Tumblr user olivesawl.
They used the example of their father’s business, and how it was profitable and he made a living, but they were never rich.
Why?
He did actually care about people, and put them over profits and even over his own earnings. Here’s a key part of what he said. You can read the whole thing after…
My Dad owned a business my whole life. It was profitable, but it didn’t expand. I ask him once why he never grew it, and he said it’s nearly impossible without climbing on someone’s back–your vendors, your customers, your employees. Particularly that last one. You don’t wait until your business is big to be a good human being.
I think the most telling line of her entire explanation is this one:
“If you don’t prioritize extracting profit from every corner of your business, you never become rich enough to give billions away.”
If you choose to put people over profits, you’ll never become a billionaire. So, if you are the sort of man who becomes a billionaire, you inherently don’t care about people as much as money.
Which is not to say that rich people everywhere don’t give away quite a bit of money to charitable causes (some bigger percentages than others, of course), but who knows what their true motivations are.
When it’s a celebrity, it’s probably more valid. If it’s someone like Bezos, we know he’s just in it for the tax break – just ask anyone who works in an Amazon warehouse whether or not they feel valued.
I’m going to guess you’re not going to get a whole lot of happy responses. Leave those in the comments!