Billionaires create new investment fund: The Breakthrough Energy Coalition

[ProgressiveEconomist]

1. Now I understand the

"Breakthrough Prize" a bit better:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/science/breakthrough-prize-winners-2016.html

On Nov 8th in CA, a committee funded by an overlapping set of billionaires handed out seven prizes of $3 million apiece in physics, math, life sciences, and a few other categories.

I'd snip a few paragraphs from the NYT article above, but all I get now is a paywall because I must have exceeded my free monthly quota.

Anyway, a few tens of millions is chump change for them, but your article suggests they may plan cleverly to make back that money, and much more.

Think of the thousands of prize entries they must get each year from the best minds in the world, and think of how their prize money must influence those minds away from pure science to applied science. The billionaires could be trawling for early investment ideas, by the thousands. I'd like to see the footnotes on intellectual property rights in those Breakthrough Prize application forms.

In other words the BP may not entirely be philanthropic in nature.