Ask Lemmy

Assuming 6 million after taxes, I’d immediately pay all my debts and then set myself up with interest bearing instruments giving me $100k income per year.

After that I’d just chill and start traveling, looking for something to get involved in.

Setup solar panels with 99% of it then probably die in an orgy of hedonism with the remaining 6 million.

Obviously I'm gonna work out how much to set aside to live comfortably off the interest forever first. That should not require a big percentage of that much money. Get myself a house, make sure my loved ones are set and comfortable too.

Next I'm going to set aside a chunk of it to be completely irresponsible with. I'm gonna get on a train and see all the bits of Europe I want to see, stay in nice hotels, eat in fancy restaurants, and bring my friends and family along to various bits of it. There are a few things like videogames I would like to see developed but do not have the skills to make myself, so I'll throw a few tens of millions at those ideas. If they work out, awesome, they might even pay for themselves. I've always liked vehicle design so I will get a car coachbuilt. Not something flashy and loud, just something exactly how I decide it should be. A bunch of custom-built guitars.

So with needs and vices taken care of, and I cannot imagine I have even come close to getting through the first of five billions yet, it's time to actually try to do some good. I have a strong casual interest in history, so I think I'd enjoy funding work to be done by local institutions in places that are currently relatively under-explored. Ask universities in these places what they want, ask nothing in return other than that someone shows me whatever cool stuff they've learned every so often. You want to take the time to laser-scan a bunch of ancient buildings like the Zamani project is doing? Hell yeah, I'll pay everyone's wages for that. My thinking here is that if I'm not directing it I'm unlikely to unintentionally fuck something up through ignorance, and by paying for skilled work that is not extracting anything physical I am hopefully giving the local economies a boost in a way that should not result in me undercutting any local industries or anything

Investments, trust funds, paying off debt and my mortgage. Set up enough in investments that I'll always have a million or so in post-tax interest income.

Trust funds and investments for my family so they have money coming in.

Remodel my house.

Rent a condo in Wrigleyville during the Cubs season. Rent a condo in Mesa during spring training.

Open a bar or two.

Hire a dietician/personal cook.

Buy a handful of cars, the most extravagant would probably be a Catterham.

Open an automotive shop to restore cars. I know that'll be a loss but it will be a good hobby for something I like to do.

Travel a bunch. Follow the Cubs for a season and go to every game.

Buy dual citizenship somewhere.

Donate to AOCs campaign.

Club 33 membership.

Occasionally take private jets when I fly, but pick up families that are flying coach when I go and bring them along for free. It's no fun being alone.

Do a bunch of the traditional billionaire things like go fishing on a private yacht.

Finally not stress about going out to dinner.

So after taxes about $4B?

Take 500 million out for me, start a business and do all the stuff we want to.

If possible: Use the rest for a fund for perpetuity to fund transit all over my city, make the buses free and running every 15 minutes, and pay the drivers and all the other workers a really good wage.

If that's impossible, I guess I have to run for governor, win, and Make Florida Freaky Again! Work for the good of our state. Is billions enough to do it?

I would create a trust for my daughter, an annuity for my wife that includes payments for healthcare, and a separate fund for property tax and home maintenance to ensure my daughter has a residence and doesn't have to settle later in life.

Next, I would through my friend list (it's not big) and pay off mortgages for those that have them, and purchase homes outright for those that don't.

Finally, I would use the remaining funds to buy up and then forgive US medical debts for pennies on the dollar. This last one would probably exhaust the funds, but would have the broadest positive impact on people.

Fund everyone working on medical nanobots. I get down with living to 120 with a good quality of life. Of course, this would go a long way to helping a lot of people with serious issues.

After buying a home in a nice, non-HOA demon neighborhood, probably end up working on a company that makes mid-range phones with a headphone jack, slot for 2 SIM cards and a microSD, and have the system run on a 3rd party Linux OS capable of running APK files and other android apps. I'd definitely wanna have good R&D put into making sure it sandboxes android apps and makes it only allowed to see what's in the sandbox, though, so go*gle cannot see what you do.

That, or just straight up start up my idea for the Open Access Oasis community, where we believe open access to all scholarly articles found on databases like go*gle scholar and other such sites should be free in order to create a brighter tomorrow. Only exceptions to that being things like malware, viruses, worms, Trojans, etcetera, hidden behind a paywall not going open access because most people would just end up damaging their own devices. The idea I had/have for the logo is a playing card of the dual king in a lab coat being hung with an oasis in the background. That, and the card suit being a $, a king of $.

I may keep 1m, that's way more than what I need to live this life and donate the rest to hospitals and education institutions.