(2006-08-13) Gates Buffett Charity Bubble

The Gates Foundation has to spend all the money that Warren Buffett gives them each year. Now, she said, it has a more formal, structured process. Increasingly, it creates horse races among potential recipients through requests for proposals, more like a business, Dr. Gayle said. "That takes time and is very hard to do piece by piece, project by project when you're trying to get that much money out the door," Dr. Gayle said. "In addition to the traditional approach of requests for proposals for specific projects, they may need to look at ways of giving out money over longer terms and turning to institutions that have the capacity to spend large resources." It sounds like a DotCom Start Up finding ways to spend money to justify a VC investment...

Separately, they're basically in the Economic Development business. Good luck with that. Time to call in Ernesto Sirolli (though he probably couldn't spend enough money fast enough...).