Up to a certain point, more money doesn't make your life materially better.
At that point, the game becomes entirely about power and influence.
The consensus was that if you were the kids, you'd much rather have the post-tax cash in your bank account. :-)
It seems incredibly presumptuous to assume you know how the minds of children of billionaires work and what they aspire to have.
This calls to mind a scene in the series "Succession" that I can't find now. The father and owner of the company is considering selling the company and cashing out, and his children, who have all been fighting for years to become his key successor, are up in arms about it, despite the fact that they would all become cash billionaires due to the shares in the company they already own. The gist is that having billions in cash effectively makes you a nobody compared to the person actually running a multi billion dollar company. As the leaders of a global media company, you're somebody important, compared to just some schmuck with a billion dollars. Then again, these characters are all have deep insecurity living in the shadow of their father, and he plays them all like a fiddle to keep them fighting each other for his approval.
> Up to a certain point, more money doesn't make your life materially better.
> It seems incredibly presumptuous to assume you know how the minds of children of billionaires work and what they aspire to have.
Then again, I'm far from a billionaire, so perhaps there exists a valley of money disillusionment that I'm currently in, and more money starts getting desirable again further up the wealth ladder.
Apparently, you misspoke because you're now limiting your view on the value of marginal dollars to your view (v. a general truth above).
And what is the PV of that board seat at the family controlled charity/business that wasn't affected by an inheritance tax?
The trust is there to oversee the company (as its major shareholder) and to make sure that it is held accountable. They in in turn fund the charity and hold them accountable as well.
Some people will find problems with everything, what a depressing comment. I guess he also runs it as a B-Corp and wrote a book promoting the concept because he wants more power, there's no way he actually wants the employees to have more balanced lives and to put less impact on the planet, it's just a ploy to get more power.
You're the type of person that hears a friend donated money to charity and mutters to themselves that they just did it for attention and recognition.
Because Chouinard is 83 and getting close to his inevitable death, which would have triggered a tax bill for his heirs on the order of $700 million. Because the family likely doesn't have $700 million in cash to pay that tax bill, they would almost certainly be forced to sell off a large portion of their equity in the company, thus losing control to outsiders who many not be fully aligned with the family's interests.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-15/patagonia...
The scheme he just executed allows them to pay only $30 million in tax, and the family will be able to keep control for generations to come without ever triggering an estate tax as each member dies.
By the way, it's not just Chouinard. The Christian founder of Hobby Lobby just pulled the exact same move but "donating his company to God". https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2022/10/27/hob...
It's a marketing, tax avoidance, and power consolidation play. Nothing more.
If this was some oil company pumping out dividends or whatever I'd understand, but your problem is with Patagonia of all things?
Not to mention that the reason the family is receiving said tax break is because the firm's income will no longer flow through them. Giving up the future profits of the firm in perpetuity is surely more expensive than paying a one-time tax bill.
It is symptomatic of our society that people find it impossible to believe that there is even one wealthy man on the planet whose goals and actions aren't entirely self-centered.
Western civilization at least is currently of the opinion that heritable political power is net bad, even if there are plenty of examples of it being good. I suspect the primary reason for this is that competence, context, and experience aren't easy to pass on to your children, and most of the things that make an individual worthy of wielding tremendous power get lost and corrupted after only 2-3 generations.
Most of us can agree now that Chouinard is probably doing net good for Earth's biosphere. Why do you think that will continue to be the case when his grandchildren and great-grandchildren are in charge? Even if they still have the same surface level values, how do you know that they won't be so under educated and incompetent that they won't make counter productive and even destructive decisions with the unearned power they have?
I have zero problem with competent and successful individuals who become absurdly wealthy and powerful.
I have many problems with these individuals then attempting to pass on their extreme wealth and power to their offspring who almost certainly aren't strong enough to wield it.
You raise excellent points about perpetuating lineages and yet your proposal would immediately put a large portion of patagonia in the hands of the very people you propose to want to keep power away from.
If we get another nike or adidas in 2 generations instead of as soon as the guy dies, that's still a way better outcome.
Donate nothing? You're selfish. Donated money? You didn't donate enough. Donate a lot of money? As you say, people will say it was just for the attention.