“The word ‘philanthropy’ is often interpreted as someone who gives money,” he told the alumni magazine.
“But the Greek roots of the word ‘philos’ and ‘anthropos’ mean to love humans. What I have discovered is spending money is the easy thing, spending yourself is the hard thing. The 12 Neighbours project is how I can best spend myself.”yl
I'm not crying, you're crying... Sniff
I also liked this:
“We have people who have been run over by trauma, by substance abuse, by all of these things,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It’s about excavating that person, buried under their circumstances, little by little.”
Seems like a decent dude.
I like this part as well:
“I won the parent lottery, the education lottery, the country lottery,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It would be arrogant to say every piece of my ‘success’ was earned, when so much of it was received.”
This is fine, but millionaires won't save us
This could be pointed to as a successful test case to get the gov off it's ass and implement this at a macro level.
You are correct millionaires will not save us, however we should reward behavior we want to see. Lest we get more billionaires who are a net drag on society.
Sure, but let's pretend this one hasn't done significantly more than others.
Absolutely, but it is food seeing some people who actually use their money for something good.
Elon Musk would never lol. He could do so much good with his money but he just chooses not to. Has he built a library? A park? A school? Literally anything?
Didn't you know empathy is a sin and weakness.....
Can't believe he said that shit.
Something something he could've ended world hunger, but chose not to.
He twisted and parroted the words of someone else. Fucker's absolutely incapable of original thought or actual creation
Very smart to put solar panels on each unit. I hope the residents will be allowed to plant some flowers, bushes, and trees to brighten up the area.
This is in my town. They are allowed and encouraged to do so. Their place is THEIR place, it fosters a sense of community and ownership of the community.
This project really kicks ass and it's making waves. I know the guy is a millionaire, but I've listened to a few interviews and his heart is at the right place. He genuinely cares and is being pragmatic about it.
I wish I could say the same for the billionaires of this province. Looking at you, Irving shitbags.
It's actually not as crazy being a tech millionaire nowadays since so many people build a great service and then just have it bought up by the competition.
It said right in the article Salesforce bought his product in 2011 and thats what made him a millionaire. Pretty good way to use that life changing money for the better of others and not just himself.
Remember, theres a gigantic difference between the wealth of a billionaire and the wealth of a millionaire. For one thing, its possible to make a million without harming others, a BILLION though, you HAVE to sacrifice others to achieve.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars
While the guy happened to manage to acquire almost $400 million by selling his company, it seems that he's really trying to do some good with that, quite frankly, ridiculous amount of money.
Also it seems that his employees were compensated somewhat above market rate while he owned the company.
Not exactly a dragon of his own making, we shall observe his career with great interest to see if he follows what seems to be his chosen path, as of now.
Some rocker tried to do that in LA and they arrested him and kicked out all the homeless.
Why can't other people be more like this? Go Marcel!
When the time comes we let this one unbothered
I applaud the project but I'd still eat him. He is a near billionaire CEO throwing a few scraps to us commoners. Maybe his PR team can make me look good too as I go for seconds.
“I won the parent lottery, the education lottery, the country lottery,” LeBrun told Macleans. “It would be arrogant to say every piece of my ‘success’ was earned, when so much of it was received.”
Looks like he did this because he’s actually a decent reasonable person.
Imagine if the public sector did this and didn't limit it to a single development.
We could even build bigger-than-tiny sized units. Maybe include additional amenities like schools and health clinics and food malls in the immediate vicinity. Throw in a rail stop so people can get to the metro center easily. You know... actual urban development.
No idea where we could get money for that, though. Maybe if Canada didn't exempt 50% of capital gains income from taxation for some reason... But no, that would never work.
This is how fucking easy it is. This is a millionaire. Imagine what someone with hundreds of billions of dollars could do.
Dude's getting 20k/mo rent and helping the poor. That's fucking awesome.
Based
Honestly when I see "tech millionaire" and "altruism" in the same article, I expect to seese seriously ghoulish shit.
I still have concerns around the long-term outcome - the land is ostensibly still privately held, and I assume the homes are as well. I'd like to
Rember kids; philanthropy is advantageous upon failure of collective efforts
Honestly when I see "tech millionaire" and "altruism" in the same article, I don't expect to see someone actually using their wealth to do something decent.
This is good, but if we address this at a systemic level, we don't need to put people in tiny low-density homes unconnected to anything for it to be affordable.
Presumably local governments have some mechanism for when they know a house costs X materials and Y labor, and they see new construction costing significantly more than that.
The result is detached homes@avg 75USD/sqft and apartments@55/sqft. With current interest rates of 6.768%, you'd get ~400 sqft homes with a $200/mo 30 year mortgage at those prices, 600sqft if interest rates were 3%.
Rent pricing is what the people should target first. Hard to fight the nutjobs when rent is so expensive
As for the residents of the houses, rent is kept at 30% of income, which means the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities and internet — every month.
How are they planning to sustain this long-term?
Surely, someone is paying for the difference. Unless I totally missed it from the article 🫣
You're one of today's lucky 10,000! Landlords typically charge even more than the cost of building and maintaining the house, and then just pocket the rest as profit. It's bonkers!
He donated money to pay for the housing units, possibly the land. So that's probably all paid off. There are still taxes and utilities to pay for, which is probably where the rent is going.
This is just an educated guess though.
It's why the tech millionaire financing this isn't a tech billionaire.
A place to post good news and prevent doom scrolling!
Rules for now: