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A letter to our daughter

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#51

Post by cwe »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #39
austenallred wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what else are you going to do with $45 Billion? Build a really big house? I've had the opportunity to rub shoulders with a few billionaires over the past few weeks, and it's remarkable how differently they think about money than the people who don't have it. Sure, they may buy a nice car (or jet), but after a certain level the only thing you can do with that kind of money is plug it back into something meanin…

>I mean, what else are you going to do with $45 Billion? You are thinking about it the wrong way. You don't spend $45B on stuff for yourself. You spend $45B on changing the way governments and populations live work and how power is balanced. When Bud Fox asked Gordon Gekko "How much is enough" Gekko knew immediately that Fox wasn't in the same league. Money isn't about stuff, it's about power and influence.

Which is exactly the type of stuff Zuck is talking about here, although in less power-hungry ways. So you're kind of proving @austenallred's point.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#52

Post by tdkl »

ausjke wrote: post #6

A great read indeed, plus a nice picture. I'm going to print out this and read along with my next generation. I'm thinking about starting to use facebook again, left it a few years ago.

Seems that Zuck succeeded. So now all he has to do, to gain the old users who didn't agree with Facebook policies, to post cute family notes.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#53

Post by 6stringmerc »

rfrank wrote: post #49
6stringmerc wrote: post #35

Okay, maybe it's just me, but after reading the introduction and getting through the list of extremely difficult "Can we..." challenges followed by the "We must..." directives, the first quote that popped into my head was a variation of “a poor man is crazy, but a rich man is just ‘eccentric.’” I get the desire to solve the world's ills, of society's shortcomings, of essentially fixing the thousands of years of evolu…

I personally can't stand this sort of thing because it conflates something personal/intimate with a press release, and that's just kinda gross to me.

Oh for sure, there's a level of intimacy involved that, in a way, acts as a buffer against criticism.

To criticise the lovely sentiment would be like pointing out a child making a half-dozen spelling errors in their letter to Santa Claus.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#54

Post by goatforce5 »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #15
anonu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy. Even crazier when you realize that that 1% is $450 million....

so Max will still be (half) a billionaire once she grows up.

Assuming Facebook maintains it's valuation.

Empires grow and empires crumble.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#56

Post by harryf »

> right now, we don't always collectively direct our resources at the biggest opportunities and problems your generation will face.

One of the biggest problems facing kids in the west is digital addiction. Society as a whole is still collectively in denial here as adults gain from it, from parents who get some peace while the kids play with the iPad to game developers pushing out endless FarmVille clones attempting to get kids hooked enough to convince their parents to approve some in-app payments.

The problem is already there - just need to look at the amount of Ritalin being subscribed - http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/may/06/ritalin-adhd-...

Re: A letter to our daughter

#57

Post by masterponomo »

Just wow. I asked my parents how my birth changed their lives. They said they had to invest in some good ear plugs (for themselves) as a sleep aid, and that they lost a sock drawer until I graduated to the futon. While I did not spark the solving of the world's problems, at least I did have some small impact.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#59

Post by jay_kyburz »

littletimmy wrote: post #17

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, for some reason. Must one's private life be this public? I get that Zuckerberg doesn't agree with privacy, but surely putting his daughter in the public limelight as soon as she is born is an imposition on her privacy. Maybe I'm just getting old.

I see you have some downvotes but I came here to say the same thing. Zuck is using the birth of his daughter to advertise a new venture.

You want to be generous? Great, do it!

Telling us in a letter to your daughter as a hook to attract eyeballs is kind of weird and exploitative.

Update: I also thought I should say that this is no big deal, he has some different ideas about what's ok and what's not and I see that every day, I'm not mr perfect either.

I guess the reason it's interesting in this case is because he is head of facebook and entrusted with a lot of people's personal information. If his judgment is different to mine then I don't feel comfortable entrusting him with my social life.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#60

Post by boxy310 »

djhn wrote: post #26

Zuckerberg isn't planning on retiring. He will rival Bill Gates in the magnitude of philanthropic contributions. And in other news Facebook Notes is challenging Medium as the default one-column publishing tool. Note as well, that of all the immaterial goods that have the potential to create immense value to people and humanity, education and health are the ones strongly highlighted. Global equality is there, but to a…

According to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's financial declarations [0], assets as of December 2014 read at a hair under $45 billion. This very much rivals the size, even if it will take some time to build momentum and make as much of a difference as the Gates Foundation has to date.

[0] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informatio...

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