When I learned about this, the story was very applicable to me at the time, as my startup had acquired licenses for content that was historically sold directly to libraries by a salesman who would negotiate with each library individually. He used a standard contract. When we contacted the company to license content for display on the internet, they gave us a ridiculous contract with a small one time fee and access to display the content forever. Only after reasoning through their business model and history did we understand how this occurred, which was exactly the same type of gap that Ted Turner had exploited.
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1. I once had an idea for a party game which involved people trying to guess whether a formerly prominent person was alive or dead.
Side note, for those of you that enjoy biographies, his autobiography “Call Me Ted” is a real page-turner (pun intended).
A highly inspirational story of entrepreneurship, which includes a raw and authentic account of his flaws.
A true legend.
Rest in peace Ted.
I used to live in Newport, RI. I love sailing and introducing people to the world of sailing. When I had guests I asked them to watch this NBC video about Ted's 77 campaign [1]. It really captures the history of Newport, sailing, and Ted
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr7-BwzceYI&list=PLXEMPXZ3PY...
I don't know much else about the man, but as a supporter of Bison I can commend that part of his legacy. An impressive vision and execution.
If you support Bison, why commend someone who killed them for a profit?
If he had not created a profitable enterprise, there would not be 45k wild bison roaming free with the same amount of dollars.
It's not like I want bison to die, but if an American is going to eat a bovid, it's much better for it to be a bison. The American great plains are big enough to support vast wild herds and sustainable, profitable enterprises, but in order for that to happen, Americans need to eat bison, not cows.
Because they wouldn't exist otherwise.
The bison aren't roaming free on the land. It would be nice if they were, and there are efforts to restore wild bison herds, but these are commercial herds. Far better than cows and CAFOs.
Of course there's enough news; they simply choose not to report on it. This is true both domestically and certainly around the world. Presumably this is a mixture of highly dubious editorial decision and some reasoning that this doesn't make money.
They had a web subscription product around 2006 that gave you access to just watch all these raw feeds from CNN Affiliates all over the world. It was like Periscope but all "professional" feeds.
My memory is hazy, and I accepted it as-is at the time, but the idea that American news could be watched live shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union seems entirely wild.
Once you get a taste of "bad" it dominates.
I have no clue how you could ever even estimate this sort of ratio. How do you even quantify the "number of things going on", let alone confidently split them into good and bad?
Does The Giving Pledge still exist? Will this happen?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/business/the-billionaire-...
Yes.
The majority of people who have died since making the pledge did not meet the terms they agreed to and the vast majority of people still alive who made the pledge are on track to fail to meet the terms as their wealth is growing significantly faster than their charitable donations.
This is not to say everyone who has made the Giving Pledge is bad, there are some people on the list who have legitimately done a lot of good, but being on the list has overall been a meaningless indicator of actual outcomes.
there is a parable i cant quite remember, but something along the lines of "the starving kid does not care where the food comes from".
that doesn't quite capture it... but in this context: the people receiving the money/help do not care if they got it because of "reputation washing" or "real public good". they get the help in both scenarios, and that's what matters.
as long as the money is going to actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes... who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
The idea that you have to do good deeds without expecting any kind of reward or recognition seems distinctly Christian to me. For Christians, the intent of this requirement is to ensure people remain humble (pride is a sin, of course) but this clearly contradicts the (imo much more relevant) principle of self interest. You can't really expect people to do something for other people without some kind of reward -- be it the promise of eternal salvation, some kind of social credit, or simply an internal sense of satisfaction.
As long as people aren't merely simulating charity to receive it, I don't see any downside to allowing people a bit of social reward for their giving.
I do. I will accept the donation either way, but in terms of so much else, I fucking do.
if you want to be mad about other things, like how wasteful super yachts are or whatever, by all means go for it. but that is outside the scope of my comment.
We can argue all day about motives, but what really matters is action.
A lot of the money never goes to the starving kid, it goes into foundations that act more as tax shelters than they do actual charitable organizations.
> who cares whether the billionaire did it because they are truly generous or because they thought "this will look good in the news"?
It matters when the scope of their giving doesn't match the PR-generating pledges they make, which is the real point of my post.
If someone gives their money away to a good cause, I don't care what their real motivation is, but if they say they are going to give 50% of their wealth to charity to generate PR and then they never do that (true for the majority of Giving Pledge pledgers) that is behavior I think it contemptable and worthy of being called out.
this is covered by the "actual, real charities/non-profits/good causes" caveat in my comment.
Wonder what's going to be done with it now that he's dead.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TBS_(American_TV_channel)#Turn...
He was everywhere in the late 70s and early 80s. WTCG -- The Super Station.
This was a pivotal time for news coverage. The only thing that is at the same level was the JFK assassination. Until then, newspapers were the main source of news. The JFK coverage is where TV took over with live coverage instead of reading yesterday's news. Throw in the live coverage of Oswald being shot, and it was pretty much a standing 8 count with the internet being the final TKO for newspapers. PBS did a special on this called "JFK: Breaking the News"[0]
Growing up, TV stations shut off around midnight. Quite the sea change.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Planet_and_the_Planete...
Here's to you, Mr. Turner. Captain Planet was blatant propaganda, but you were largely responsible for my nerdy interest in animation.
> In 1996, Turner admitted, "For the 10 years I ran [the team], it was a disaster. ... As I relinquished control of the Braves and gave somebody else the responsibility, it did well."
When's the last time you heard a billionaire say something like that?
> "We're the only first-world country that doesn't have universal healthcare and it's a disgrace."
> Iran's nuclear position: "They're a sovereign state. We have 28,000. Why can't they have 10? We don't say anything about Israel — they've got 100 of them approximately — or India or Pakistan or Russia."
> dubbed opponents of abortion "bozos"
> In 2002, Turner accused Israel of terror
> in 2008, Turner asserted on PBS's Charlie Rose that if steps are not taken to address global warming, most people would die and "the rest of us will be cannibals".
There's more than wikipedia covers, but you get the idea.