3. What is it like to give away 60 Billion dollars?
SXSW 2019 started on the morning of Friday March 8th. Ideally you got to Austin the day before and picked up your badge, so on Friday morning you were good to go.
Priscilla Chan was speaking in a massive room in the Hilton. The morning was warm - the weather in Austin for the conference was perfect. You could wear jeans and t-shirt every day. The Hilton was rammed with people, massive escalators shunting crowds upwards, to the conference rooms looking out over the city.
Priscilla Chan spoke for a while, showed a couple of films, and then she was interviewed by Poppy Harlow from CNN. She seemed a bit nervous, but she got quite emotional as well. She talked about her own history, how her parents were refugees from Vietnam, and how, when they were in the boats, their parents - her grandparents - split the siblings up so that - in case of a boat sinking - they wouldn't lose all their children. She also talked about when she was a student volunteer, trying to help kids in the local community, and struggling to understand what their lives were really like, why they missed class and then turned up with broken teeth.
And now she runs the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with the express goal of spending 99% of hers and Mark Zuckerbergs stacks of Facebook money. At one point she was a bit self-deprecating. 'We can't spend as much as the government can.' But then the point was lost. 'If we spent at government rates, our funds would only last a few years.' Wow.
The focuses of the CGI are justice, health, and education. The story that got Chan most exercised was about a woman in one of their justice programmes, who had lost access to her children through the intricacies of the legal system. Talking about this woman, she had tears running down her face. talking to the people I was sitting near, we were all really impressed by the purpose and passion.
That impression took a hit the next week. More about that, and about Priscilla Chan later. Next, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
Priscilla Chan was speaking in a massive room in the Hilton. The morning was warm - the weather in Austin for the conference was perfect. You could wear jeans and t-shirt every day. The Hilton was rammed with people, massive escalators shunting crowds upwards, to the conference rooms looking out over the city.
Priscilla Chan spoke for a while, showed a couple of films, and then she was interviewed by Poppy Harlow from CNN. She seemed a bit nervous, but she got quite emotional as well. She talked about her own history, how her parents were refugees from Vietnam, and how, when they were in the boats, their parents - her grandparents - split the siblings up so that - in case of a boat sinking - they wouldn't lose all their children. She also talked about when she was a student volunteer, trying to help kids in the local community, and struggling to understand what their lives were really like, why they missed class and then turned up with broken teeth.
And now she runs the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with the express goal of spending 99% of hers and Mark Zuckerbergs stacks of Facebook money. At one point she was a bit self-deprecating. 'We can't spend as much as the government can.' But then the point was lost. 'If we spent at government rates, our funds would only last a few years.' Wow.
The focuses of the CGI are justice, health, and education. The story that got Chan most exercised was about a woman in one of their justice programmes, who had lost access to her children through the intricacies of the legal system. Talking about this woman, she had tears running down her face. talking to the people I was sitting near, we were all really impressed by the purpose and passion.
That impression took a hit the next week. More about that, and about Priscilla Chan later. Next, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
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