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Man tries to help the world with his money and he's greeted with criticism.
by danielrm26 11y ago
Man tries to help the world with his money and he's greeted with criticism.
- bigbugbag 11y agoYou should not accept such a blatant PR stunt at face value. Why the Rich Give to Charity[1] Some give out of vanity. Some out of guilt. Some for the tax breaks. Some give out of conviction that their success in business makes them equally expert in solving the world’s problems. Yet perhaps the most powerful and common reason why the rich give is the idea most commonly referred to as “legacy.” would you rather be remembered as that guy who build the biggest and meanest personal data collection machine, tracking people, extending global surveillance, pushing to destroy the foundation of the internet and made a fortune out of it (and a little stock trickery), or as the guy who gave most of his billions of money to charity ? [1]:http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/03/08/why-the-rich-give-to-charity-2/ http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/03/08/why-the-rich-give-to-...
- markyc 11y agoso what? if he's really giving 99% of his wealth to charity, and on top of that puts effort into where the money goes and that it's put to good use, why do you care that he's doing that for legacy?
- gnaritas 11y ago> if he's really giving 99% of his wealth to charity By "charity" he means himself, his own charity foundation. He's basically putting the money in another pocket and calling it charity. It's a tax avoidance scam. Cheaper to give away 10% a year in the guise of charity than actually pay the taxes you'd owe.
- arasmussen 11y agoWelcome to Hacker News.
- kuschku 11y agoMan evades taxes, scams his coworkers, conceals a press release as "letter to daughter" and is greeted with "He just wants to do good".
- andreyf 11y agoI don't think cynicism and criticism are the same here. This is the man that about a decade ago who called his users "dumb fucks" for trusting him with their personal data [1]. The same man who used failed password logins to Facebook to access a journalist's email address [2]. Now he's giving 99% of his wealth to a charity he controls. This is an awesome step: dynastic wealth is stupid. However, it will take a few more good deeds to convince me that he's grown out of his youthful moral indiscretions. 1. http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims... 2. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-harvard-crimson-2010-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-in...
- visakanv 11y agoWhat in particular would Zuck have to do to convince you that he's "grown out of his youthful moral indiscretions"?
- andreyf 11y agoThe most important measure is how well he weaves his core principles stated here into how Facebook makes its money (the way Jobs did with Apple). More specifically, I worry that Internet.org is an advertiser-funded competitor to the user-funded internet as we know it, and that the interests of advertisers are in many ways contrary to the interests of individuals (e.g. w.r.t. privacy). Information pipes are a really important building block to a thriving political and economic ecosystem, and for those blocks to be sturdy, it's important that these pipes have built-in privacy protections which remove a lot of value advertisers derive from them.
- gnaritas 11y ago> Now he's giving 99% of his wealth to a charity he controls. Which is just a way to setup a comfy retirement where you make more from the money than you have to give away to be considered a charity and everywhere you go is now "business" as long as you give some money away on the trip. Make 30% on investments, give away 10%, avoid all kinds of taxes and appear charitable all the while still in control of the whole fortune. Color me skeptical.
- fieryeagle 11y agoNot money, shares. Any public letters are carefully crafted pieces of PR, intention notwithstanding. The criticism probably stemmed from that angle.