MediumGiving Money Away Can Be Harder than Making It | by Roy Bahat | Jul, 2026 | Also by Roy BahatSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

Medium Logo

Get app<br>Write

Search

Sign up<br>Sign in

Also by Roy Bahat

Learning about the future of work

Philanthropy

AI

Money

Wealth

Giving Money Away Can Be Harder than Making It

Thoughts for people (at the AI labs and elsewhere) who want to make the world better with their money — Part 1 of 2

Roy Bahat

6 min read·<br>Jul 10, 2026

Listen

Share

Making money — gobs of it, all at once — can be a traumatic event.<br>Setting aside the obvious: for almost everyone in the history of humanity, achieving freedom from (financial, material) fear was punishing. People died trying! Gratitude moment.<br>Press enter or click to view image in full size

ChatGPT’s one-shot watercolor take on this pieceAnd still, you’ll have trouble figuring out what to do with the money. A few years ago, I helped organize a community of people in tech who were about to make money and wanted to learn how to give it away to make the world better — the First Principles Forum, which we housed at Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. I get calls from people in tech who are about to make money and want to talk about what to do. They usually have much more money than I do, so most of what I do is relay what I’ve heard from others. In Bloomberg Beta’s portfolio alone, 100 founders have gone on to make $1M or more, and 34 have made $10M or more, plus a handful with even more zeroes in their bank account.<br>I’ve probably sat through hundreds of hours of people with wealth talking about what to do with it. Those conversations are vulnerable. People talk about their childhoods, their families, their pride, their shame, and how to give money away without perpetuating the same systems that created the need for philanthropy in the first place (cue MLK, who saw this).<br>Get Roy Bahat’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Subscribe

Subscribe

Remember me for faster sign in

Some of you may already know a lot about giving, some may want to know where to start. So I’m going to go from the top. This is what I’ve learned:<br>People really do struggle with what to do with the money. It’s a dilemma for which almost nobody is sympathetic. There are precious few people to whom you can open up. (I do wish we had more honest talk about money in general, a few links on that below. Something my wife Sara has been encouraging for a long time.)<br>Enter the professional advisors. Wealth managers, tax specialists, and more. They can be helpful, though their focus — other than a handful of the very best — may be more about saving money on taxes than on enabling your life goals.<br>Many people ultimately decide that you can only live in so much house, or share so many experiences with friends, or even stare at so much art… so, enough! Then, they want to put the money toward making the world better. Some people even begin to share their aspiration to give away money in public (hello Peter Steinberger<br>, bravo). And some companies have been generously setting some of their people up to give much more away (hello Anthropic, brava). Some start from their first paycheck (and I’ve learned a lot by watching how Mike Bloomberg has given his money away, talk about professional). There’s a lot of money coming that may decide to do that (and Nan Ransohoff<br>described the impact that wave may have on the world).<br>People usually assume it will be easy to give away money : “There’s stuff to fund that’s important, those organizations and people need money, and I have it!” If your mental model is, I did the hard part, now I just get to sit back, give away my money, and watch people respect me and the world change… it’s not going to be like that.<br>You will be disillusioned, at first and often. You’ll give money to some organization, and either end up disappointed in how they operate, or unclear on whether the money had an impact. You’ll try to give money to something new and discover that “doing good is as hard as building a startup!” Yes, that’s right. Now you’re ready to begin.<br>People who focus on giving away money say it’s a full time job. The relationship building, the learning, the deciding, the support beyond money (the line many use in philanthropy is “time and treasure”), etc. Plus it’s rewarding, so you may just find yourself wanting to do more.<br>There’s a cottage industry of donor advisors who specifically try to vet which organizations or political candidates deserve your money. Many more of them arrive by the day with a specific focus on working with you, people at the AI labs. Many are terrific! Just be aware they also have their own interests and relationships, so they may be suggesting things for reasons other than your own goals.<br>Keep in mind:<br>People who want your money may be more polite than honest. Amazing how, once you have money to give away, you all of a sudden have *such* good ideas. (Pro tip:...