A letter to our daughter • Hacker News Board

Re: A letter to our daughter

#511

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

onewaystreet wrote: post #414

gnaritas wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now he's giving 99% of his wealth to a charity he controls. Which is just a way to setup a comfy retirement where you make more from the money than you have to give away to be considered a charity and everywhere you go is now "business" as long as you give some money away on the trip. Make 30% on investments, give away 10%, avoid all kinds of taxes and appear charitable all the while still in control of the whole f…

> Make 30% on investments, give away 10% Any profits made from investments go back into the charity's holdings. This is a good thing.

"Charity" being Zuck's control. I don't think it's a good thing, I think it's a fancy way to avoid taxes (victimizing american taxpayers) while maintaining control of your fortune. When he gives his money to a charity that isn't his other pocket, then it's charity.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#512

Post by arasmussen » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #469

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.

According to NYT, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is LLC, and not a non-profit. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10662073

Thanks for the correction.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#513

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 4:12 PM UTC

iamsohungry wrote: post #479

morgante wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sincerely depresses me that the top comment on Hacker News is so incredibly cynical. The man is giving away a huge amount of money and you can only find ways to detract. > Firstly, the donation is stock not cash, so the value of this foundation will be directly linked to the value of Facebook shares. So? The vast majority of his wealth is in Facebook shares. That doesn't change the fact that he's giving away the v…

> Not to mention he has never attempted to make Internet.org anything close to a monopoly. Do you even know what Internet.org is ? They're providing free access to a subset of the internet that Facebook controls, while forcing people to pay if they want to access the internet as a whole. The entire reason Internet.org exists is to create a Facebook monopoly on data access in developing countries. Your entire comment…

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Re: A letter to our daughter

#514

Post by Retra » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

tertius wrote: post #355

Retra wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider debt an asset? If I can feed myself by going into debt, am I wealthy?

Easy access to debt is another economic asset that most of the world does not have. If you can feed yourself by going into debt, then you have purchasing power. You need something (except if you're a student) to guarantee the loan.

Sure, but you'll still have to pay your lenders before donating to charities. Have you forgotten your original point so quickly?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#515

Post by tertius » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 4:44 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #402

rdtsc wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you an American? Well sir, your butt is full and you're keeping it all to yourself. Quite a few Americans live payday to payday. Some work many part time jobs to make ends meet. Do they in absolute dollar terms make more than someone in Africa? Yeah they do. Does it help them if they still can't pay rent? Is that supposed to make them feel better that they make more dollars per month than someone in Burkina Fas…

I've only been through that CBS link, but it's almost comically awful; a good reminder of why you should avoid nearly every story about a complex issue from a media outlet. As a representative line: "Mayors in 29 cities say more than 1 in 4 people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it." But at any rate, you completely misunderstood the parent's comment, which alludes to the fact that any American with…

That's better than I put it.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#516

Post by DaveWalk » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC

dhcar wrote: post #153

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…

My brain hurts just reading through this letter. I'm trying to picture my parents -- or anyone's parents! -- writing:

"Your mother and I don't yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the future... Our hopes for your generation focus on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality... We can do this work only because we have a strong global community behind us. Building Facebook has created resources to improve the world for the next generation. Every member of the Facebook community is playing a part in this work... Love, Mom and Dad"

Philanthropy aside, doen's this "letter" read like a scene from the Silicon Valley TV show?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#517

Post by scott_karana » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

markyc wrote: post #287

scott_karana wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has oodles of untaxed cash by virtue of the Double Irish, so it could choose any of a number of EU governments to invest charitably in. Not just the USA. I wonder what Greece would think of free cash injections, for example? What could improved infrastructure do for that struggling country?

what makes you think pumping even more free cash into greece would help anybody but a select few that handles that cash? just throwing cash at problems rarely fixes them, what these guys are trying to do (zuck, gates, etc) is create a movement that goes for the root of the problems. it's quite encouraging and kudos to them

Greece was a random (and poor) example.

The pith of my point was that Facebook does not need to repatriate money to America and get taxed to do good, contrary to my post's parent's assertion. There is plenty of good to be done all over the world, and Facebook already has untaxed pools of Euros to use.

Re: A letter to our daughter

#518

Post by lifeformed » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 5:34 PM UTC

psykovsky wrote: post #503

lifeformed wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is any of that stuff bad, though? Seems like a good trade. You put $45B into improving the world, we'll sing your praises. What's the difference between it being all done in vanity and it being all done in goodwill? It's literally the same thing to the rest of the world, the only difference is some internal chemical state in his brain.

Except he still didn't do a thing besides putting out a press-release. Do you think his real intentions will not shape the way he acts in the future? How can you say it is a good trade when no trade happened yet?

You think he's going to just put a press release out and not actually do it?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#519

Post by bduerst » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 5:35 PM UTC

jevgeni wrote: post #419

bduerst wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little nihilist. Traditionally the state has been a form of wealth redistribution, because while it may not be a true democracy, citizens still vote, and could potentially vote to have the majority of the wealth redistributed equally amongst themselves. But instead we have a power struggle between those with the means to sway others and the idealists. While I'm sure the idealists will probably never attain t…

I think there's a reason, why the people who attain the means to sway others stop being idealists.

Which is?

Re: A letter to our daughter

#520

Post by cJ0th » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 5:36 PM UTC

Alternative proposal: Use that money to turn Facebook into a self-sustaining non profit that solely cares about maximizing its users experience and stop breaching privacy so that data can be sold.

Perhaps that's not as fancy as investments in health, education or the environment but at least it seems very doable and could solve one problem (excellent means for human communication) for good.