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Zuckerberg To Give Away 99% of His Facebook Stock (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Facebook stock currently held by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan is worth roughly $45 billion. Today, the couple posted a letter addressed to their newborn daughter outlining plans to give away 99% of that stock so their daughter can "live in a better world." They say, "Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities." The letter also includes a long list of problems that need to be solved and situations that need to be improved: human health, learning, clean energy, equality, unhealthy childhoods, and more. They go out of their way to mention that many of these will not be solved quickly, and will need investments on a 100-year scale to be worthwhile. They're making internet access another major issue: "The internet is so important that for every 10 people who gain internet access, about one person is lifted out of poverty and about one new job is created."
You don't make a better world by dissipating capital.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I love how so many people posting here are so cynical.
Personally I don't see why his motivations are hard to believe at all as they would be pretty much the same if I was in his shoes. No one on this planet needs to own more than a few million dollars, forget about billions.
Big deal; he already owns at least $100 Million in real estate; he is going to dribble the money out *through his lifetime", thus guaranteeing him a "security blanket, just in case". Let's say there is a world depression and his fortune dwindles to $10 Million (HIGHLY unlikely, this is a theoretical). Does anyone think he would give away 99% of $10 MIllion? The scale of these grand gestures by Gates, Buffet, Zuckerberg, etc. if fine as far as it goes, but one has to view these gestures within the context of scale of personal holdings. In a very real way, giving money away in this fashion INCREASES one's personal power. That's what this is all about.
Since he's selling his stock, he's also selling management of the company.
He may not be selling his stock. He can donate the stock directly to his foundation, and take the tax write-off, without selling it. Then he can name himself and Priscilla as trustees of the foundation. So he can give away his stock, but still retain full voting rights and control of Facebook.
There's some truth to the premise of the movie "Brewster's Millions". After a certain point, spending money is not easy to do. If Zuckerberg is keeping half a billion to support his family, the other $45 billion won't make any difference to him. He can still live more extravagantly than most other multi-millionaires.
By giving away what is basically his surplus, he gains positive publicity and maybe a bit of personal satisfaction. That's probably worth more to him than keeping the money in the bank. It wouldn't even affect his Forbes ranking since he has already said that he will still effectively control the donated Facebook stock.
But I don't begrudge him his notion of philanthropy anymore than I begrudge the NBA stars their philanthropic foundations. They all get their publicity, tax benefits, etc. It's their money, so they get to decide what to do with it. The one criticism that I have is that I don't think much of Zuckerberg's priorities. Curing a widespread third-world disease like malaria a la Bill Gates is an impactful thing. Increasing internet access is not even a first-world problem and will do not much for people who worry about basic necessities. The one philanthropist that I really admire is Andrew Carnegie, who used his gifts to build over 2500 libraries in the world, many of which are still operating after a hundred years.
He's not giving anything away. This is a 'donation' to his family 'charity'. In other words a way to get around the inheritance tax. It's not by accident that this decision comes just after having a child.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
It would be better if there was more equality, and we all got a voice. That is, to be able to donate relatively large and meaningful sums to causes we each believe in, instead of being at the mercy of the few who "made it" by capitalizing on a system that's so convoluted and complicated, where a dollar spent by the consumer doesn't signify a "vote" in the product or person behind it anymore.
You communicate to the world how much you value something by your willingness to spend money on it. The problem is that people don't think this way anymore, and the convoluted paths in which people "add value to society" and make a killing are disconnected from society's value for those good or services.