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A letter to our daughter

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#71

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 am in your camp. I cannot even say that our culture is different, plenty of people fillin up FB with photos of their kids, but this just looks so wrong to me. And in this case, some mix of PR and bragging.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#72

> We will give 99% of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others. Ninety. Nine. Percent.

Will this ~$45 billion go to efficient use? Based on his track record of $100 million to newark and how effective that was, I am skeptical.

Good intentions in philanthropy are a dime a dozen, actual results are less common.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#73
post #22

> We will give 99% of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others. Ninety. Nine. Percent.

I think his point of "We must make long term investments over 25, 50 or even 100 years. The greatest challenges require very long time horizons and cannot be solved by short term thinking." is extremely important. As someone doing research at a top university, I am constantly annoyed by short term vision and optimizing for publication number at all costs. This system is broken. Alfred Sanger got 2 Nobel Prizes, and h…

Is _top_ university an important distinction in this context?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#74
post #43

> We will give 99% of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others. Ninety. Nine. Percent.

At last Zuckerberg realized real problems of the world can't be solved by Facebook or for that matter technology. I am talking about healthcare and medical problems. Personally websites like Facebook are wate of time and barely make ant impact in human potential improvement.They do make us feel worse and sell our personal data to advertisers though.

With the amount of money Zuk has he should start a non-profit drug maker that produces generic drugs at cost.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Assuming Facebook maintains it's valuation. Empires grow and empires crumble.

Chances are at least 1% of their wealth will be put into something stable. Index funds, bonds, treasuries. Hell, cash'd be fine.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#77

Something's always bugged me about relying on philanthropy as a source of funding the public good, as opposed to the public funding the public good through taxation and the democratic process: In the former case, the public doesn't really have much of a say about where the help goes. We must rely on the judgment (and personal values) of a few rich people and hope they pick charities that maximize the benefit. Would t…

Hopefully you're not the only one, as I share your reluctance to embrace it as the "go-to" model of social constructiveness. There's a lot of good that comes from people "giving back" in one form or another, be it financial, skilled labor, or just simple time and attention when possible. I think it's admirable to want to change "institutions" like education for the better - I've been an advocate for 'progress' ever since I saw some of the challenges back in my own youth - but I can't help but think of such experiments as pet projects. Those can be productive, sure, but do I believe, deep down, that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is going to have the answer to the variety of problems that plague Chicago's South Side, New Orleans, or any number of troubled communities? Sigh, might just be me.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming Facebook maintains it's valuation. Empires grow and empires crumble.

Chances are at least 1% of their wealth will be put into something stable. Index funds, bonds, treasuries. Hell, cash'd be fine.

Indeed. Bill Gates owns a railroad in Wisconsin, for example.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#80

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.

Exactly, when you have that much wealth, you buy things that don't have price tags on.
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