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The cynicism must be pretty darn strong to try and explain that away by anything other than Zuck wanting to do some good with his shares and money. We should be applauding it, not over-analyzing it for how it benefits him.
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A large social network called Facebook.
1) Myspace provided a large social network with free web hosting and some PHP doodads before Facebook did. Did Mark Zuckerberg create anything new? 2) Facebook is a weapon deployed against the integrity of human personality. Does facebook quality as wealth considering that it is a destructive force?
The market shifted from radio, newspaper and television to web advertising. 20 years ago the $500M that Zuck donated would have otherwise went to an aristocratic media owning family empire. I prefer it going to somebody who has created new value and who will be putting the money to better use. Simply spending and gifting the money is a better use than hoarding it and establishing a genetic dynasty.
The argument about Facebook being a weapon against human development and integrity is the same argument that luddites (and the Amish) made against radio, television, the telephone and many other new inventions.
95% of the people that I know in my life, and 100% of the career moves I have made in my life were through people that I met online. The difference is that I was technical enough to know how to use IRC, how to use early blogs, etc. Facebook is simple and accessible, and allows the other 99% of the world population to take advantage of the same networking technology to enhance their lives.
I'm getting a bit miffed at the comments talking about this being a "PR move" or helpful for a "tax break". Did I read this wrong or did it not say 500. MILLION. dollars? The cynicism must be pretty darn strong to try and explain that away by anything other than Zuck wanting to do some good with his shares and money. We should be applauding it, not over-analyzing it for how it benefits him.
I'm somewhat confused. If $500 million in shares are donated by Zuckerberg, does that mean a tax write-off of that amount? Also, to verify, the foundation would have to liquidize the shares, right? That kind of instant sell-off would cause massive drops in price... I really hate to ask this (as I honestly don't have anything against Zuckerberg, and really don't feel that "rich people" or "all companies" are evil or a…
Zuck wasn't the one who put a dollar value on the donation, that was CNN. Zuck only mentioned a number of shares. He also said he is committed to giving away most of his net worth.
There really is nothing that can be criticized here. You could perhaps discuss his choice of how to distributed his wealth, but the fact that he is giving it away, and starting so soon in his life (as opposed to waiting for when he retires), should be commended.
And if Facebook "should" be trading at $10, then it would be trading at $10.
I'm getting a bit miffed at the comments talking about this being a "PR move" or helpful for a "tax break". Did I read this wrong or did it not say 500. MILLION. dollars? The cynicism must be pretty darn strong to try and explain that away by anything other than Zuck wanting to do some good with his shares and money. We should be applauding it, not over-analyzing it for how it benefits him.
Why would such moves be automatically altruistic?
The saying goes "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
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Well he deserves the hammering. The guy is clearly immoral and has damaged people's privacy and the world wide web forever. $500mil doesn't suddenly make that ok, especially considering the charity is basically a quango.
Why do you think he's immoral? If you equate "enabled people to share more of their lives more broadly" with "damaged people's privacy" then I agree, but I'm not sure even a majority would agree with a sentiment of that necessarily being a bad thing. People share what they feel comfortable with, don't they?
To whom is hard to control and is made harder on purpose as after all, their entire model is based on encouraging sharing legitimately or otherwise.
Don't underestimate the power of the majority to make a crap decision. That's why we have privacy and data protection laws in the EU: to protect people from predatory information gathering and sharing.
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Why would such moves be automatically altruistic?
Why would it matter if they're altruistic or not? It's a move, it's going to help. Who the fuck cares why ? The saying goes "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
It'd come with strings attached...
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I would always prefer the wealth coming from inside the system, not being first taken by individuals and then spread at their whim. Such wealth would much rather be a sustainable source. A well functioning society/government would know exactly how to spend it well. In many cases, to me, the good the rich do does not nearly weigh in for their wrongdoings.
Your comment has been downvoted, but there isn't yet an explanation of why it is incorrect. I'll provide my perspective. 1) Zuckerberg didn't "take" wealth. He created it. 2) Governments don't have particular insight into the best ways to spend resources. We spent a couple of decades comparing market economies with command economies, and market economies won.
Definitely agree with your point 2.
People can say what they want about Zuckerberg, maybe he doesn't have the amazing charisma of Jobs, or the genius of Torvalds, and Facebook gets constantly hammered in the press (and him as well), but this is a great gesture on his part, I applaud him.
It depends - does he benefit personally from a tax writeoff from this? From all of his previous behaviour it would seem that this would more likely be the motivating factor here.
I'm somewhat confused. If $500 million in shares are donated by Zuckerberg, does that mean a tax write-off of that amount? Also, to verify, the foundation would have to liquidize the shares, right? That kind of instant sell-off would cause massive drops in price... I really hate to ask this (as I honestly don't have anything against Zuckerberg, and really don't feel that "rich people" or "all companies" are evil or a…
There is not a lot to write the donation off against . Zuck is on a salary and won't be selling any stock for a few more years. This is straight up just giving away $500M. Zuck wasn't the one who put a dollar value on the donation, that was CNN. Zuck only mentioned a number of shares. He also said he is committed to giving away most of his net worth. There really is nothing that can be criticized here. You could perh…
(I do understand that he only saves some portion of the $500 million so it doesn't make sense to say he is doing it for tax purposes.)