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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."
One percent being worth $500 million.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Interesting, but I've never heard such a claim before. That also sounds like correlation but perhaps not causation. And is the person who is lifted out of poverty and/or the job created one of those 10 people who gained internet access? What type of job is created? How is someone lifted form poverty? How soon after getting internet access? Maybe it's "eventually" due to education?
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
He's not the sole shareholder, and you don't just dump 45B on the open market. Deals are made in these kinds of transactions, and I'm sure his influence in FB will be preserved. Besides, they will grant him more... Good for him to give back though.
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."
0. Sell 5% of FB stock. Hold profits for step 3.
1. Destroy the data-mined profiles of people's lives that Facebook builds.
2. Shut down Facebook.
3. Use remainder of his fortune to fund a distributed, censorship-resistant, surveillance-resistant, easy to use social network not beholden to or run by data brokers.
Or... you could pay Facebook's taxes with it.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
If you wanted to be charitable you could have actually made your product less expensive, ...
(a) Facebook is free. (b) Its users *are* the product - already given freely.
Unless you mean Facebook could sell user information and content to advertisers for less...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
He really has to do this. The company isn't growing anymore, and has not been growing for a while. All of the side projects and ostentatious giving is necessary to try to hype up this over-hyped stock. I'm sorry for FB fanboys, but this is the dark and honest truth.
From a human standpoint, his commitment is amazing, much like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been and continues to be.
I say, best of luck trying to keep FB "profitable."
Kriston
or you could remit that money to the government instead which is governed by the people.
Or he could realize he has already amassed enough money to do meaningful change, unlike the rest of society that needs to pool their money into the government to amass wealth of a similar scale. Now that he has this wealth, I feel there are two "best" options based on where his motivations lie:
1) He doesn't care about helping people: Start a charity to funnel money into and avoid as much taxes as possible.
2) He does care about helping people: Start a charity to do enact meaningful change in a much more efficient manner than giving it to the government.
In both scenarios, giving his money to a charity that he and/or people he trusts have control over is the best play.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
According to this: "He will keep his majority stake in Facebook, and thus voting control, for the foreseeable future." I doubt there will be much change anytime soon.
By the time he's dead, what will 99% of his stock be worth? I'm guessing very, very, little. Yeah, right now it is still worth a lot, but that is because it is massively overvalued. It will eventually fade from popularity just like MySpace did and AOL did before that. I'd be more impressed if he said he was going to give away $44.5 billion.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
> 1) He doesn't care about helping people: Start a charity to funnel money into and avoid as much taxes as possible.
This is his stock. He's already paying 40% income tax plus 15% double FICA on his -salary- either way. The stock income is long term capital gains, taxed at 15%. Which means that for every $100 he gives away, he saves $15 on his taxes.
So let's do the math. He could either:
Gross gain: $45 billion
Tax: $7 billion
Net he keeps: $38 billion
Or:
Gross gain: $45 billion
Give away: $44.8 billion
Net he keeps: $200 million
Would you rather have $38 billion, or $200 million?
Giving away a million dollars in order to not pay the 150,000 tax on it would be STUPID! You don't give away lots of money in order to avoid paying a much smaller amount in taxes.
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.
$38M, since it's honest money not obtained by cheating while the other $162M is blood money. Besides, it's not as if one wouldn't end up receiving the $162M some other way.
You don't get to play the Almighty just because you're the 21st Century version of a robber baron.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This always cracks me up how wage slaves erm people continually fall for this.
Foundations are the biggest tax dodge ever. In fact, since Zuck is opening up a foundation he can "donate" his shares to an organization he wholly controls who can then sell that stock capital gains tax free. The best part is he can use that f*ck all amount as a tax write off on his future earnings as well.
Then with whatever the obscene amount of money he can pay some small group of people to manage it. His daughter when she comes of age can then become a "director" or some other BS title and get paid $350,000 or more for the privilege of doing so. His family can then live off of this foundations free cash from being properly managed for the remainder of time. It's how the Rochefellers and Rothchilds continue their wealth without doing any real work.
He's smart to be doing this now before the next big dip in the market which should be coming soon enough.
In fact, it seems it isn't a charity at all:
"Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have set up the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a limited liability company - not a charity or charitable trust. Legal filings show that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is owned and controlled by Zuckerberg.
A spokesperson has confirmed to Buzzfeed that as a company, the Initiative can spend its money on whatever it wants - including private, profit-generating investment."
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial