I find it disgusting that he's just had his first child and is already piggybacking a PR exercise off it.
In spite of the enormity of the announcement, to tie it up as "A letter to our daughter" is deeply crass and makes me feel queasy.
A letter to our daughter
461–470 of 555 posts
Re: A letter to our daughter
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps billionaires will spend their money more efficiently. But they'll spend less of it on the public good. The government may be less efficient (also, citation needed there, as I don't buy that at face value), but even if it is it has access to WAY more funds. Sure, we have some nice billionaires like Zuckerberg and Gates who give their money away, but if you required all the billionaires to give up some money, y…
If you force rich people to give away a large enough percentage of their money, perhaps you will remove any incentive for the non-philanthropic ones to keep earning more money. If they weren't inclined to give it away in the first place, they probably won't be inclined to make more, knowing they'll be required to give it away.
And therefore the people who end up making the most money are the people who are the most philanthropic and that is worse than the current system how?
Re: A letter to our daughter
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sincerely doubt Zucker wants to make the world a better place, else why would he be doing the opposite while making billions out of it ? Usually a billionaire giving his fortune away does it out of vanity, out of guilt, for the tax breaks, out of conviction that their success in business makes them equally expert in solving the world’s problems or last but not least as “legacy” as explained by John Caudwell: http:/…
What is so awful about Facebook? I mean it's hardly an original idea, and if Facebook never existed, I'm sure that Myspace or Friendster or some hereto unknown company would have taken its place. It's like hating Ford because they make cars, while ignoring all other automobile companies.
Yur analogy makes more sense if Ford make cars that contain cameras and microphones and they monitor everything you say and do and where you go and they send all that information back to the mothership.
And they want to build cars for all poor people, but those cars can only travel to certain destinations on certain roads, but Ford making and providing these cars means other organisations who sell bicycles or mopeds or small cars (which provide a lot more freedom) are hampered.
Re: A letter to our daughter
#464[deleted]
Re: A letter to our daughter
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Zuck is still power hungry, he's just more veiled about it. Everyone with enough power (through money) wants to shape the world in their specific ideal.
I'd go one better: "Everyone ... wants to shape the world in their specific ideal." Most people give up on this idea in their mid-20s though or never really believe that they can.
That's because most people actually can't.
Re: A letter to our daughter
#466Maybe I'm being too cynical, but this seems about as philanthropic as Ron Hubbard starting a religion. Firstly, the donation is stock not cash, so the value of this foundation will be directly linked to the value of Facebook shares. Secondly, it has been stated that one of the things this foundation will do is "participate in policy debates". If the headline was "Mark Zuckerberg to put $45 billion is stock behind lob…
You are being too cynical. He's giving away stock not cash because if he sold the stock first to raise cash to donate, he'd have an enormous capital gains tax liability. By gifting stock, he can gift a far greater amount and the tax-exempt recipient charity can sell the stock itself to raise cash. This is standard in situations like this - e.g. it's what Buffett did when gifting away almost all of his billions. Also…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/technology/mark-zuckerberg...
Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, said they were forming a new organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to manage the money, through an unusual limited liability corporate structure. [...] By using a limited liability company instead of a nonprofit corporation or foundation, the Zuckerberg family will be able to go beyond making philanthropic grants. They will invest in companies, lobby for legislation and seek to influence public policy debates, which nonprofits are restricted from doing under tax laws. A spokeswoman for the family said that any profits from the investments would be plowed back into the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for future projects.
Re: A letter to our daughter
#467[deleted]
Re: A letter to our daughter
#468Disappointed once again in the immediate cynicism here but by now I should know not to be surprised by it in any community where nothing is sacred.
What should be considered sacred?
Re: A letter to our daughter
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
I give Mark and Priscilla a lot of credit for this. There's a big difference between 50% and 99%. There's a big difference between leaving your children a few hundred million and many billions. They have certainly exemplified the challenge to ''put your money where your mouth is''. Having said that, the first thing I thought of was the tax implications. If the shares were to eventually be sold (but not donated), the…
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.
According to NYT, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is LLC, and not a non-profit. See my comment here:
Re: A letter to our daughter
#470Maybe I'm being too cynical, but this seems about as philanthropic as Ron Hubbard starting a religion. Firstly, the donation is stock not cash, so the value of this foundation will be directly linked to the value of Facebook shares. Secondly, it has been stated that one of the things this foundation will do is "participate in policy debates". If the headline was "Mark Zuckerberg to put $45 billion is stock behind lob…
You're just picking the part of the story that you don't like. Zuck maybe has taken decisions that some of us don't share (most likely all related to privacy/monopolies in the internet)... but (like Bill Gates) he's undoubtedly in a unique position to bring deep changes and improvements to the world through philanthropic activities.
If having a child has made him rethink his views (which would be normal) then that's great. Too bad he didn't have a child before and started this initiative few years ago!
What part of "curing diseases" sounds greedy, egomaniac, or bad in any sense? I hope he joins Gates, Thiel, Parker, Diamandis, Page, Kurzweil, and many others on their quest to eradicate diseases from the face of earth. And I hope he funds Aubrey De Grey like Thiel is doing...