What I will do with a billion dollars

First I will build a giant Art House in the middle of Manhattan for kids to play in and make art

The house will be modeled after the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on 5th Avenue, and the Microsoft store on 5th Avenue. The former has a white gleaming interior and tight security.

The latter has computers and Xboxes on the top floor so kids can come in and play.

And why in Manhattan because this is where all the customers are, there are a lot of kids with bad home situations and probably no playrooms whatsoever but violence and just very little hope.

Also, it will allow kids from all backgrounds and ethnic communities to come together and create together. There will be serious security and no bullying will be allowed.

This is going to be at least a seven-floor building. In the basement, there's going to be a sculpture studio. The first floor will be for painting with lots of walls for kids to draw and paint on.

I'm going to hire lots of teachers and instructors to help kids.

The second floor will be painting on paper and canvas and crafting. Maybe more floors of that.

The top floors will be computer rooms and conference rooms where kids will learn how to build beautiful things on the computer, game design, 3D modeling, and animation.

There's not going to be homework ever. The place will be open from dawn until dusk, well I guess late into the evening so there's a place for kids to gather in the evening instead of on the streets.

This is going to be a true Art Palace.

(I know in some countries they have palaces and princes sit on with actual crowns but I am gonna use the rest of the money to ban that practice:)

The second thing I'm going to do is a mass painting performance in New York City

I'm going to have 200 people dressed as living paintings spread out in all neighborhoods and all New Yorkers are going to paint on the streets. More here.

I plan this performance to cost $200,000 but this time around I will spend at least a million dollars compensating the living paintings people and hiring photographers properly to document the event.

Eventually, all 200 resulting paintings will be exhibited and a giant art party will be held to honor that communal creation.

With millions of dollars at my disposal, I will be able to have that event regularly - dispatch living paintings, and have art being done right there on the street. Spread to other cities and globally.

And third I'm going to dispatch robots on Mars and other planets to create non-destructive works of art like drawings in the sand and the ice of other planets

That third act will serve as a kind of gleaming dream for the future when we will be able to do this in person.

I can't think of any other thing that I would like to do with money, I know there are all kinds of boring things that one can do like shuffle furniture around and I guess make handbags or decorate with diamonds and glow in the dark. But it just isn't interesting or awesome.

I imagine that in the future we will be a lot more conscious of our ability to perform art, we will be a lot less violent and a lot more creative. I would like to realize that dream here, today.