He sees philanthropy as a way to address the areas that both markets and governments miss. Markets are good at greedy[0] optimization and growth, but are full of stupid coordination problems. Governments are good at solving some of those, but suffer from some of their own both internally and at global scale. Philanthropy, being basically rich people throwing away money on stuff they think matter, can cover some additional blind spots.
[0] - "greedy" as invoking computer science connotations, not "evil capitalist" connotations.
http://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Catalytic-Philant...
He sees philanthropy as a way to address the areas that both markets and governments miss. Markets are good at greedy[0] optimization and growth, but are full of stupid coordination problems. Governments are good at solving some of those, but suffer from some of their own both internally and at global scale. Philanthropy, being basically rich people throwing away money on stuff they think matter, can cover some additional blind spots.
[0] - "greedy" as invoking computer science connotations, not "evil capitalist" connotations.