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A letter to our daughter

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#81

Post by huac »

throwaway999888 wrote: post #73
nextos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Implication is competition is paramount - both level and quality of output

Re: A letter to our daughter

#82

Post by WWKong »

suyash wrote: post #43
prezjordan wrote: post #2

> 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.

There hasn't been another other thing that has had as much impact in bringing me closer to my family and friends across the globe. Waste of time for you, positive life changing medium for me. Further, who know what positive impact this have had on my health? Maybe it has prevented the need for medicines in many cases.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#83

Post by resu_nimda »

nextos wrote: post #22
prezjordan wrote: post #2

> 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…

If you're not already familiar, you might be interested in the Long Now. "The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years."

http://longnow.org/

Re: A letter to our daughter

#84

Post by astaroth360 »

Well, I'll say that I appreciate the effort on Zuck's part, but somehow I still can't make myself like the guy :\

Oh well, I guess I don't have to like him to appreciate that kind of cash going into worthy causes.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#85

Post by Cookingboy »

throwaway999888 wrote: post #73
nextos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It actually is in my opinion. If the top, elite research institutes show these kind of problem, then we can expect it to be very prevalent in the rest of the field as well. As in, this isn't some no name low tier school run by mediocre people.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#86

Post by vezzy-fnord »

ryandrake wrote: post #63

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…

You're becoming too clouded in fuzzy ideals and missing the ugly reality that there is no virtuous public and democratic society, but the state. You say we must rely on the judgment and values of a few wealthy, but then completely ignore the whole landmine of public choice. Not that "having to rely on a few rich people" is even true.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#87

Post by colmvp »

I feel only on HN and Reddit can people find reason to criticize a guy who is giving away billions of dollars for humanity. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#88

Post by [deleted] »

austenallred wrote: post #23
prezjordan wrote: post #2

> 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 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…

[deleted]

Re: A letter to our daughter

#89

Post by roymurdock »

Mark has set some ambitious goals regarding poverty, disease, nutrition, and equality, and connectivity. I hope for all of our sake that he is successful in realigning many of the perverse short-term incentives through his and his Priscilla's generous contributions and efforts.

I wish he had spoken more about luck and balance. This is something that Bill & Melinda Gates, as well as Warren Buffet do very well. Understanding luck and balance is the key to empathy, which is also a phrase that is missing from this letter.

I also wish he had not marketed this press release as a letter to his daughter. Perhaps he has another, private letter that is actually more relevant and personal, but if I were Max, I probably wouldn't be thrilled to read this 20 years down the road.

But I'm sure he had a reason to release this letter as he did, and that he thought for a long, hard time before penning these words. Best of luck to the new father, mother, and daughter.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#90

Post by 6stringmerc »

ciconia wrote: post #61
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…

Whether or not the letter is narcissistic, one has to admire their initiative. It is not, unfortunately, the obvious thing to do, and they deserve to be applauded for that. Whatever personal faults the man has, I'd argue this kind of philanthropy more than makes up for it.

That's fair, but if you notice a great deal of the letter is simply telling the child about the great achievements and dreams of the parents - if there's one thing I've learned the hard way, it's that dreams are easy to put into words and fuckin' hell on wheels to make reality. Philanthropy is a good social construct, for sure. I guess maybe I just have some inherent bias against preaching from atop the mountain of wealth inequality, a position that was obtained through a combination of luck and timing as much as any pure personal willpower and genius.
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