291–300 of 357 posts
>>>While Hire itself is interesting in its own right, it’s also interesting to see that Google is now looking to use the G Suite tools and back-end services it has developed over the last few years to solve problems in very specific verticals.
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I think it already paid off. She on-boarded Snap, Apple and Netflix Edit - I am impressed with Diane Greene. She donated all of her take from acquisition of her company - http://www.businessinsider.com/diane-green-donates-150m-to-c...
Correction: She didn't onboard Snap. Maybe you meant Spotify? Source: I worked with Snap when I was on the Google Cloud Platform team in 2012/2013.
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She donated all of her share ($150m) to charity to boot.
That's nice, but let's be honest: She is a billionaire, and will continue to make hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars during her future tenure at Google. A person of average means donating $500 may be a bigger personal sacrifice than Greene donating $150M.
I for one, will never use a Google product again. They level of creepiness and data they have on all their users is insane. I personally have switched to DuckDuckGo, Fastmail, FireFox (the mobile browser is awesome btw), and will replace Android as soon as a viable alternative is presented. Smooth sailing. The problem with Google, is they are building a repository for themselves, but also for government. Couple that…
Considering this, I switched to Fastmail and removed my Google account from all my browsers. I created a dummy Google account that I only use to set my home address (again, too handy) and to be able to set preferences and have a Chrome profile.
To me, this is the best of both worlds right now.
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For an extra $30MM in tax write-offs... because clearly she stands to make more taxable income than the $150MM in stock she donated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10844592 .
I don't quite understand the idea of tax dodging a smaller tax bill by donating a larger amount of money? She had $150mm in stock, and donated it all, avoiding a tax bill of $30mm? If she had paid the tax bill, she would have had net $120mm, but after donating it, she had net $0mm? There must be something I'm missing here. I've seen these kinds of schemes discussed before, but don't understand how they would work.
Can you imagine the optics of an active board member, of a multi-billion dollar company, profiting from said company -- she's on the board of -- buying the company she runs? Good grief that reeks.
She understood she couldn't take that money in good conscience. So, she got out in front of the optics for a small fee by "donating to charity." (I mean look at the comments here applauding her for donating her shares.)
When you donate $150MM in stock, not only do you dodge the $30MM capital-gains tax (at a 20% tax rate), you receive a tax write-off for the full market value of the stock when you donated: $150MM in this case. Which means, in any year, she can take $150MM in income taxed at say 55%, and pay $0 in taxes on it. Much better than the $82.5MM she'd originally owe. And it makes tax planning a lot easier -- you don't have to worry about timing.
All in all: $120MM net - $82.5MM write-off = $37.5MM total cost to her for shares she didn't even want -- for good reason.
Understand that I don't care. But I would've been more impressed if she had donated those shares to her employees...
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For an extra $30MM in tax write-offs... because clearly she stands to make more taxable income than the $150MM in stock she donated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10844592 .
I don't think you know how tax write offs work... https://youtu.be/XEL65gywwHQ
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For an extra $30MM in tax write-offs... because clearly she stands to make more taxable income than the $150MM in stock she donated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10844592 .
I don't get this. So you're saying she made more money by donating AND getting a tax refund as opposed to not donating?
Note: She was an active Google board member when they bought her company. That's not how boards are supposed to work generally.
This opens the possibility of launching further G Suite initiatives focused on other business problems and sectors
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For an extra $30MM in tax write-offs... because clearly she stands to make more taxable income than the $150MM in stock she donated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10844592 .
So yeah, she got 30m tax reduction and spent 150m. net "loss": 120m. and you consider it bad because she could have chosen paying those 30m taxes and keeping the rest (instead of donating it) ?
The net "loss" to her was $37.5MM for shares she couldn't even use in good conscience in the first place (think team morale, public optics, etc.)
She was an active Google board member when they bought her company. That doesn't exactly look good to the public or to the team.
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She donated all of her share ($150m) to charity to boot.
That's nice, but let's be honest: She is a billionaire, and will continue to make hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars during her future tenure at Google. A person of average means donating $500 may be a bigger personal sacrifice than Greene donating $150M.
I saw an interview with Bill Gates where he said much the same thing to a comment about his generosity. He pointed out he doesn't sacrifice a single item/experience he wants in life giving away what he does. And a ordinary person that gives a few hundred gives up more than him in terms of what it costs them.
Its a valid point as long as it doesn't take away from the fact the other is also generous.