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A letter to our daughter

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#131

Post by Mikeb85 »

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…

The internet does democratize access to information, but part of me thinks that for every job the internet created, Facebook destroys by wasting peoples collective time...

Re: A letter to our daughter

#132

Post by queryly »

This is amazing. Money doesn't make us live longer, but does $45 billion help bring the future sooner? I bet it does. It will widen our horizons on what's possible. Everyone on earth will benefit from it.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#133

Post by webwanderings »

Never much cared for Zuckerberg but this changes my perspective.

Off-topic: can Facebook please go ahead and literally kill the blogging industry by giving the ability for everyone to use these updated Notes section? As is, the majority of the referrer on the Internet is Facebook. They might as well get the blogs out of the way.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#135

Post by wnissen »

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.

Exactly. Bill Gates came late to the game. He pretty much had to conquer the whole world before developing an interest in philanthropy. Now it's his "real work" and I guarantee you he'll be remembered more for that than MS-DOS!

Zuckerberg, like Gates, is a brilliant but deeply flawed person. However, Zuckerberg appears to be maturing much faster than Gates. I have lots of hope for him left.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#136

Post by sjg007 »

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…

Well there are more research institutions competing for the same dollars so the only way they can differentiate is based on publications. A lot of science is derivative and collaborative. Most important though it needs to be reproducible. Starting there is priority #1.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#137

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #131
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…

The internet does democratize access to information, but part of me thinks that for every job the internet created, Facebook destroys by wasting peoples collective time...

"I'm just going to quit my job / school so I can go on Facebook all day!", said no one ever. Ten years ago, few people could boast that they could reach out to hundreds of people all at once; I'd not call that a waste of time.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#139

Post by spicyj »

k__ wrote: post #91
arasmussen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why they created a non-profit organization, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Non-profits are taxed differently and I'm sure they'll figure out how to get the money where it needs to be and pay as little tax as possible.

Is it possible in the US to take both names after marriage? If so, I'm disappointed that Mark didn't choose to be Zuckerberg-Chan.

Neither of them changed their names.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#140

Post by Cthulhu_ »

gist wrote: post #99
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.

"During our lives" doesn't specify a time frame such that it will happen in the next 5 years or 50 years. What he appears to be really saying is "our heirs will only inherit 1% of our Facebook shares". Until both Chan and Zuckerberg pass away we don't know how many shares (or wealth) they will have access to.

It's very probable Facebook will get a competitor, and/or make a decision, that makes the company worth a lot less in a very short time, like its predecessors / previous competitors did. Internet companies can be fickle like that. Mind you, it's not likely to happen overnight and it also depends on how much the company's value is based on thin air, but still.
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