Bill Draper has died
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
RIP Mr. Draper. I didn't know it when we talked, but you helped make my career possible - thanks!
Bill would attend both events in support of Tim and Adam. I had a great experience with both the Drapers as a founder.
One time, while living with my cofounder in the hotel Tim was restoring in downtown San Mateo, I broke the hotel elevator.
The laundry was on the basement level and ~everyone used this brick to prop open the door so could dash to the laundry move it to the dryer and dash back without loosing the car.
Well, the brick was not well propped and somehow the door pushed it to a point where it could close but also somehow carry it up the shaft.
Watching the door close it was just like, uh oh.
Up goes the elevator idk a few stories and then the sound of a brick tumbling down the shaft hitting who knows what.
Ya, the elevator stopped working immediately. I owned up to it the next day, writing Tim and offering to pay for what probably would have consumed all of our accelerator funds of damage I had caused.
He thanked me for my honesty and said not to worry about it.
Tim (and Adam) went on to invest in not one but two of my ventures.
Anyway, I realize this is about Bill but I think a person can be reflected in not only themselves but those that they raise and wanted to share this.
Oh and Bill, at least back then, did not think much of Bitcoin. :)
Smart man!
Also clearly, what's the expectation that we hear that Kiva or Room to Read is baked by DRK? Have you heard of these? Which non profits have you heard of?
Consider this: "19% of all global Audacious Project awardees started out as DRK-funded entities and 10% of all Skoll Award for Social Innovation winners come from the DRK portfolio"
Does this help? Do you know who's Audacious or Skoll? And if, not perhaps can we reason when it's appropriate to challenge anything based on close to zero information about the subject?
RIP Bill Draper. I never got to know you, but your legacy certainly lives on.
There is no sane system of water rights which is why there are cotton fields in Arizona.
While there may be no sane system, the legacy of "first come, first serve" and ",use it or lose it" is particularly insane.
More frustrating is all the water waste due to "use it or lose it" type policies around commercial and agricultural water allocations.
What's worse is that California is effectively exporting 40% of the water in the form of agricultural products. That is, half the food produced is exported. California sells their water, much like oil, to the rest of the world. And half of the exports are foreign exports (rather than to another state).
Did you know California exports a very large amount of rice to Asia? There are rice paddies surrounding Sacramento.
Is this a bike joke or a typo?
1. Transition water rights from basically unlimited (subject to priority) to a specific, generous amount (i.e. double your yearly average over last 5 years or something). This would still be subject to priority order, and the sum of amounts would still be far more than the available water. So in this step, practically nothing changes. But it moves the problem from unlimited rights to a shared resource, to limited rights.
2. Have the state do a reverse auction to start buying back the water rights, starting with very low bids. Remember that those at the back of the priority line still aren't getting any water anyway, so buying those rights should be very cheap. The state keeps buying back the rights until whatever our goal is has been achieved.
In some sense, everybody would win. The people of the state get back control of the water. The lowest value use gets sold back or shifted to higher-value use. And the farmers don't have their water taken from them - in fact they get to sell it back if and only if they want to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Draper_Jr. (Personal life section)