Hi! I wrote the original software for Long Bets some years ago. I can't speak officially about the project, as I was just a coder. But maybe my take here is useful.<p>I enjoyed the article, and think the analysis is correct as far as it goes. If your goal is to donate maximum dollars in the future, a Long Bet may not be your best choice. I just think that's rarely the goal.<p>The main issue here is that nobody does a Long Bet so that their charity gets more money eventually. The Long Now's mission is to promote long-term thinking. Long Bets in specific promotes clarity and accountability via carefully-stated long-term predictions and bets.[1] Take, for example, Bet id 362: <a href="http://longbets.org/362/" rel="nofollow">http://longbets.org/362/</a><p>St. Warren of Omaha was not trying to maximize money to his charity. He has approximately infinite dollars; this was a rounding error. He was trying to make a point very publicly. He thought that hedge funds were generally horseshit, and that most investors would do far better making simple, straightforward choices rather than giving their money to people who promised to do wonders: <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/24/investing/warren-buffett-annual-letter-hedge-fund-bet/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://money.cnn.com/2018/02/24/investing/warren-buffett-an...</a><p>What he was buying was not a specific dollar gain, but a clear, visible test of contrasting views. And it worked wonderfully; this bet was in the news off and on for more than 10 years.<p>I believe another goal of most people doing a Long Bet is to support the idea of long bets and long-term thinking, so I suspect that they look at the Long Now's rake as another donation to a charity they like. This analysis values that at zero.<p>I'd note also that for truly long-term bets, this analysis discounts the fact that the bettors will be dead. I think our current longest bet runs from 2002-2150. For a mere $1000, I doubt there's a donor-advised fund in the world that will agree to act as trustee for 150 years, selecting the most appropriate charity at the time of resolution. And of course no DAF will provide the clear record and eventual judging of a bet.<p>And really, if one's goal is giving money to charity, I suspect the best thing to do is give the money now. Whatever need they're addressing is presumably urgent enough that they'd rather spend the money today than put it in a long-term fund. And if it isn't (as is perhaps the case with the B-612 Foundation [2], which is saving up for a satellite), the charity in question is probably a better judge of exactly how to invest the money until they're ready for it. At the very worse, they money could be given with the restriction that it be used as an endowment.<p>So I look at this analysis as a good start, but definitely not complete given who actually uses the service.<p>[1] It's very much in the spirit of the Erlich wager: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager</a><p>[2] <a href="https://b612foundation.org/" rel="nofollow">https://b612foundation.org/</a>