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Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#121

Post by clarky07 »

saurik wrote: post #50

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…

FB trades an average of ~63 million shares a day. It wouldn't be that hard to sell these in the normal course of business over say a few months without having much if any impact on the share price.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#122

Post by clarky07 »

001sky wrote: post #54
jfoster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investment of $500MM is going to result in very poor ROI if this is a PR exercise. It's going to be roughly a few days (perhaps a week) of "Zuck is nice" news stories and then be mostly forgotten.

$1Bn was not material enough for FB bod to even be briefed on instagram. this is 1/2 that for scale. Furthermore, after tax shields, this is only $250 out of pocket. Spending $250 to protect a $10-50bn asset base is actually good math. Same as instagram purchase logic. BTW, $250m is also the amount that evaporated from the instagram deal for instagram shareholders during the 6m it took to close the deal (FB stock por…

This isn't Facebooks money, it's Zucks money. It is roughly 5-7% of his entire net worth, so I'd say it is fairly material.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#123

Post by aes256 »

Swizec wrote: post #65
crististm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

> Why would it matter if they're altruistic or not? It's a move, it's going to help. Who the fuck cares why?

You have to look at both acts of commission and omission when you're considering someone's impact on the world.

Zuckerberg is donating an eye-watering amount of money to charity. That's cool, but what about the rest of his wealth? His net worth is something like $14bn last time I checked.

That makes this a donation of around 3.5% of his net worth. No more impressive than someone with $200k of assets donating $7k to charity. In fact, given diminishing marginal returns to wealth, it's considerably less impressive. $500m is nothing to someone with a net worth of $14bn. It's just some digits on a piece of paper.

Consider a parallel universe in which Facebook never existed, and the $14bn that accrued to Zuck through his stake in the business was scattered amongst the many investors from whence it came. Who is to say these investors, between them, would not be donating an average of 3.5% of their net wealth to charity?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#124

Post by mahyarm »

powertower wrote: post #102
espadagroup wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, "throws money away", really? It's going toward something good, helping real people's lives. Second it's fine if you want to measure someone's charitableness by their personal sacrifice, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with measuring it by the impact of their actions. In your scenario I would say the money being thrown away would have much more of an impact.

I've long stopped believing that money helps improve the world. People do. If you throw money at a problem, often times you create a dependency on that aid, and other times you just end up with even more mouths to feed. It's not that monetary aid is always 100% ineffective. It's just that once you tally up the bad and the good, you're left with something that's in the red.

Money is an extremely effective social organization and incentive system. It's a way to get people to behave in a way you want to. The right investments can help change the world.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#125

Post by joonix »

epaga wrote: post #61

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.

Does it even matter? A charity now has 500 million dollars. That's the only relevant point.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#126

Post by SeanLuke »

epaga wrote: post #61

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.

You view charity in terms of the benefit to the recipient. I think that's the exact wrong way to view it.

I think charity should be measured by how much it hurts to give. $500 million is about 1/20 of Mark Zuckerberg's estimated wealth. He could donate $8.4 billion and still be a billionaire. He could donate $9 billion and still be set for the rest of his life. $500 million is almost inconsequential to him.

Compare this to an impoverished widow who lives off of $10K a year and donates half of that. Now that is charity. But by your measure, this is merely five thousand dollars, not 500. MILLION. DOLLARS. That miserly widow.

Also, charity isn't charity if there is any kind of quid pro quo. Your name on a building. Donating to that orchestra you always patronize. In Mark's case, the quid pro quo is the positive press he and Facebook receives from it. If he really cared, he'd have given as anonymously as possible (like Chuck Feeney did).

Generally, I view acts like this as the wealthy trying to buy their way out of hell.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#127

Post by scott_s »

powertower wrote: post #102
espadagroup wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, "throws money away", really? It's going toward something good, helping real people's lives. Second it's fine if you want to measure someone's charitableness by their personal sacrifice, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with measuring it by the impact of their actions. In your scenario I would say the money being thrown away would have much more of an impact.

I've long stopped believing that money helps improve the world. People do. If you throw money at a problem, often times you create a dependency on that aid, and other times you just end up with even more mouths to feed. It's not that monetary aid is always 100% ineffective. It's just that once you tally up the bad and the good, you're left with something that's in the red.

And you pay people with money.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#128

Post by dudurocha »

SeanLuke wrote: post #126
epaga wrote: post #61

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.

You view charity in terms of the benefit to the recipient. I think that's the exact wrong way to view it. I think charity should be measured by how much it hurts to give. $500 million is about 1/20 of Mark Zuckerberg's estimated wealth. He could donate $8.4 billion and still be a billionaire. He could donate $9 billion and still be set for the rest of his life. $500 million is almost inconsequential to him. Compare t…

I think you are viewing in the wrong way.

I see charity in terms of impact you can make. If I have 1000 bucks, and give 500 for charity, this means that I donate half of what I have. If Zuck fives 500 Million, he donated 1.000.000 times more than me. It doesn't matter how much do he has, it matter how much he can impact. 1 milion dollars are stiill 1 million dollars, despite if the donors has only 2 millions, or 1 billion.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#129

Post by ditonal »

powertower wrote: post #94
epaga wrote: post #61

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.

> Did I read this wrong or did it not say 500. MILLION. dollars? This isn't directed at Zuck or Facebook, or anything. Because I really don't know him. But regarding your shock about the dollar amount... Keep in mind that it's incredibly easy to be generous when you are at the top. It's actually so easy, that it's almost effortless . There really is a difference between a man that writes a check that makes no differe…

You're not the first person to glorify volunteering and charity work over monetary donations, but I think it's misguided. It's my impression that most charities could use money a lot more than volunteer time, especially because it's easier to convert the former into the latter. If you make $50/hr as a contractor, you could go work as a volunteer for an hour or do an hour of contracting and give 5 man hours to a charity, as well as giving 5 people some work. Or if they don't need any extra labor but they need anything else they can use the cash for that. Even if it's a lot less romanticized, getting full value for your labor out of a market economy then redirecting part of it to charitable causes probably does a lot more overall good than doing a (relatively) inefficient amount of labor. You argued elsewhere that people can get dependent on money, but they can be just as easily as dependent on anything else you do.

The only exceptions I can think of are blood donations or anything where you're donating a 'human' element (visiting the elderly) rather than your work.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg donates $500 million

#130

Post by edanm »

aes256 wrote: post #123
Swizec wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

> Why would it matter if they're altruistic or not? It's a move, it's going to help. Who the fuck cares why? You have to look at both acts of commission and omission when you're considering someone's impact on the world. Zuckerberg is donating an eye-watering amount of money to charity. That's cool, but what about the rest of his wealth? His net worth is something like $14bn last time I checked. That makes this a don…

"Consider a parallel universe in which Facebook never existed, and the $14bn that accrued to Zuck through his stake in the business was scattered amongst the many investors from whence it came"

You're making a mistake. There wasn't $14bn in investors pocket that was simply moved to Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg created wealth. It wasn't simply moving existing wealth.

In your parellel universe, there was less money to donate.

"You have to look at both acts of commission and omission when you're considering someone's impact on the world."

No, that's wrong. When considering someone's impact on the world, you only need to consider their impact. Mark's impact was creating Facebook, with all that implies, the good and the bad. And it also, now, includes giving 500 million dollars to charity, which will probably save at least some lives (doubtful it will have no impact or a negative impact, imo).

Unless by impact you mean something more like "considering whether someone is morally good or bad", in which case I'd agree with your statmenet, but still rule that Zuckerberg is good from the public info on him.

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