311–320 of 555 posts
Time to short Facebook stock. Given stock is the best way to motivate executives, when the guy on top is giving all of it away you know where the stock price is going.
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…
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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'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. Yah, I don't necessarily disagree with their mindset. I've crossed a lot of spectrums, including chilling and rubbing shoulders with the rich to scraping by. I definitely do agree with a lot of the lofty 'moon shots' and some of thes…
IMO that's a really narrow-minded read of what Facebook is. >1B people log into products he founded every day. He lets advertisers target you using data you've provided, as you sit on the platform he helped build, but I'm not convinced that makes him an evil dude.
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Yeah, he wants to give away tens of billions of dollars to help reduce poverty and fight diseases. What a narcissistic jerk.
With Mark, saying and doing are two completely different things. Example: "Helping poor people in third world countries get online" turned out to be: "Deceiving poor people in third world countries into using something called 'Internet' that's actually 'Facebook with apps', and depriving them of real online access." That whole thing ended up being an attack on the free and open web. "Share with friends only" is short…
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They didn't announce plans to sell immediately and given the timeframe, I'd imagine that selling/transferring those shares will be done in the most tax-advantaged way possible.
Besides taxes, selling 44.5 billion worth of shares would affect the share value negatively. They will probably use some kind of derivative contract to get funds for the non-profit.
By donating stock directly, he still gets to deduct the full value of the stock without paying any tax, and the charity (or more likely, private foundation) gets to keep the full value without paying any tax. And it could take as long as it wanted to liquidate the stock and get the best price.
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Frankly, I find this is a very cynical approach to the lecture of this letter. Most everyday Joes might not have the means to change the world but it is certain that when turn into billionaire, they rarely pledge the quasi-totality of their fortune to improve the well being of others. If this is narcissistic, just let it be and be appreciate that for once, a great deal of money will be put to good use. The world is f…
As my mum used to say "It's easy to shit when your butt is full". How hard is it, really, to give away 99% when you're still left with enough to comfortably sustain 5+ lifetimes? Bill Gates said it well here: http://imgur.com/gallery/YDuoHdr That said, I hope that if I ever get into a position like that, I too will be able to look beyond my personal greed and desire to increase the high score.
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Their public pledge to donate 45 billion dollars to charity within their lifetimes with an eye towards long term solutions deserves criticism? Seriously, WTF?
If I may paraphrase the sentiment here: Firstly, Their public pledge to donate 45 billion dollars That number is based on current valuation of Fb and cannot be equated to someone writing a check for $45B. If Fb goes the MySpace way, how much is that donation worth? Secondly there appears to be a duality between how the company operates and what this post tries to rally for. Finally, using the pretense of writing a le…
3.Okay. Should've sent a friend request first.
This seems more like PR than a genuine letter to a child. Which is fine, but I wish they'd treat it as such. They talk about facebook, donations, improving the world, their beliefs, etc. but very little on how to be a better person or how to enjoy life. Maybe I'm projecting, but what would you want to find in your pillow after moving in for your first day of college? I hope they wrote their daughter a real letter. On…
Couple problems with this otherwise well-intentioned effort: 1. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what governments spend on a regular basis trying to solve these problems. (Bill Gates has said as much.) 2. Private charity by the billionaire class is not a scalable solution. Historically most social advancement has happened through popular organization and government programs, not charity. Silicon Valley itself is…