Money Helps

“Even when wandering through the heat in the transport black hole of Pyrmont, Sam Morgan is alive to a gap in the market,” Tim Dick writes for The Sydney Morning Herald. “He asks why there’s no decent ferry service. Rather than blame the state government, he suggests starting one up, as casually as the rest of us might suggest a quick bite of lunch or a drink after work. Starting businesses is everyday fare for the low-key Morgan who now straddles media companies old and new. The founder of Trade Me, which dominates in New Zealand what eBay does here, he is now on the board of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Herald. He started thinking about philanthropy once he got money. ‘Not to be kind of crass, but I’ve got more money than I need to have lunch out at a flash restaurant every day. So what are you going to do?’ I wonder if he knows why he is in philanthropy. ‘Well, we’re all dead in the end. There’s no point dying with lots of money,’ he says, recalling talking to a Rwandan farmer about wholefoods in the US. ‘I could change that woman’s life and I would not notice it on my expense account. So why wouldn’t you do that?’”