Dr. Brilliant's brilliance

There's an interesting story in today's New York Times about Google's philanthropy arm, Google.org, and the executive director it hired earlier this year, Larry Brilliant. Unlike most charities and foundations, Google.org won't actually be non-profit. It will be structured as a for-profit organization, which means that Google will have to pay taxes on whatever it earns. Dr. Brilliant, who played a big part in eradicating smallpox in India in the 1970s, says he had hesitations about this kind of structure at first, but he now believes that it will enable Google to donate more creatively by funding health care and environmental innovations that can be used to help cure the world's ills. "Why would we put Wi-Fi in a place where what they need is food and clean water?" he says. Seems like Brilliant has a wider scope and more practical way of thinking than a lot of the folks insulated out in Silicon Valley.