Any author of investment books is susceptible to a critique along the lines of George Bernard Shaw’s famous aphorism: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Or something like: those who can, make millions in the market; those who can’t, make a few pennies writing books about it.
My motives for writing Free Capital were confused (that’s another, longer post), but making money was never one of them. So I decided at an early stage to undermine the above critique by a sort of reductio ad absurdum: I would give all royalties to charity.
My chosen charity is the United Nations Stop Tuberculosis Partnership. I’ll publish their letters of acknowledgement on this site in due course.
I chose this cause and this organisation because they have a top rating for effectiveness from both Givewell and Giving What We Can.
Given this common conclusion by two issues-agnostic and obviously smart research groups, I have not investigated the details further myself. I’d be interested to hear any contrary arguments.
According to Givewell, estimates for cost-effectiveness of a sustained program of tuberculosis treatment are in the range $150 to $750 per death averted. So on the face of it, this is saving lives for less than $1,000 per life.
I strongly recommend Givewell’s research and their blog .