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Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#201

Post by jacques_chester »

mattmiller wrote: post #180
sp332 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I also don't like the idea of a permanent aristocratic class where generation after generation are born into opulence because your great grandfather created a great company. If you make a ridiculous amount of money, what's wrong with making sure that your family is financially secure for generations?

It cripples upward mobility for the rest of society. You could make an argument that upward mobility is one of Americas greatest strengths. It keeps people motivated and it allows the entire population the chance to contribute to advancement.

> It cripples upward mobility for the rest of society

How?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#202

Post by jacques_chester »

hugh3 wrote: post #144
scorpion032 wrote: post #86

I wonder if you can buy real groceries using facebook stock, yet.

Well I'd be willing to give you a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs for, say, 0.1% of the company. So yes.

BREAKING NEWS

Facebook valued at 12 billion gallons of milk in private exchanges

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#203

Post by quizbiz »

patrickk wrote: post #131
quizbiz wrote: post #70

How much liquid wealth does Mark actually have? Isn't the vast majority of it purely theoretical based on Facebook equity purchases?

Important paragraph in the article: "Mr. Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm before dropping out of college and working on the business full time in California, is one of the world's youngest billionaires, worth an estimated $6.9 billion, according to Forbes. Yet since his wealth is from his ownership stake a company that has yet to list on the stock market, much of that wealth is theoreti…

Right. So is there anyway to estimate his actual liquid wealth?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#204

Post by ashutoshm »

pero wrote: post #61
petenixey wrote: post #55

I happen to have just watched a brilliant TED talk on the value of angel investment (not aid) in Africa. The talk underlined how it is capitalism rather than charity that creates wealth. It would be wonderful to see some of SV's glitterati create more for-profit investment networks (bigger than Kiva, smaller than VC (...YC?)) in other hungry markets. Kudos to Mark for committing to this. If he applies his product-bri…

Capitalism creating wealth in Africa? Cruel joke?

"We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table?" - Oscar Wilde

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/wilde_soul.html

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Give Away Fortune

#205

Post by grandalf »

hugh3 wrote: post #188
grandalf wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just self-interested. I think such a battery would result in greater malaria eradication than direct efforts.

I think such a battery would result in greater malaria eradication than direct efforts. I might accept "greater good". There's no way I'll accept "greater malaria eradication". The Gates Foundation is working on malaria eradication because it's one of those things where you really do get great returns by just attacking the problem head on. Batteries have nothing to do with malaria. The other thing about super-batteri…

The cotton gin eradicated lots of diseases. If you think that the battery I describe wouldn't have a similar impact on developing economies, you're experiencing a bit of an imagination failure.

I just used batteries as an example. The money being poured into batteries is commensurate with the overall value to society of creating them. This is not a market failure. The reason money isn't flowing to malaria prevention is because the structural problems that lead to the disease prevent the resulting human capital from having much of any economic value.

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