David Rubenstein: preference

Transcript context

…How do you handle or filter what must be a steady stream of solicitations and requests? Money, money, money, everyone wants money. How do you actually process the near-infinite demand? I don’t have the money that Bill Gates has. I asked Bill the same question now. I said, “Bill, everybody’s coming for money all the time.” He says, “I have a lot of people that are hired to say no.” They don’t really get to him so easily. I don’t have a foundation. I don’t have anybody doing my philanthropy, so everything comes directly to me. I have four standards I use, though. Number one is I want to see something with my money started that wouldn’t otherwise get started; or second, something that wouldn’t otherwise get finished; or third, I have an intellectual interest in it, so I think I will stay involved, and I just won’t write a check and ignore it; and fourth, I’m likely to see progress in my lifetime. Those are my standards that I use. I’d like to be involved in the things I’m doing as well. But in the end, I’ve made some mistakes in philanthropy, and some things have worked out well. Would you agree with the judgment that today, art museums are less culturally central than they used to be, and they need to do something to remedy that?…

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