8 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg responds to critics of his $45B pledge

44 points by e15ctr0n 11y ago

Albright 11y ago
I don't really have any expertise to comment on whether setting up an LLC versus a non-profit is a good idea. I'm not even a big Zuck fan. I just think it's so very… western culture in 2015 that a bunch of internet warriors are getting irate because they think a self-made bajillionaire isn't donating $45,000,000,000 of his personal wealth the proper way.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- gohrt 11y ago
  I think it's fair for people to insist on a measure of honesty and accuracy in communication, and to reserve gratitude until meaningful acts are performed, not just general statements of future plans.
  - bkmartin 11y ago
    There is a difference in reserving gratitude and flippantly stating myriad difference versions of, "I'll believe it when I see it." People are giving him a hard time for making a public pledge, a public accountability for his future actions. He is not doing it for himself as much as he is for a rallying cry to other wealthy people and to spur others to try and find ways to use the funds as he sets it all up. The extreme cynicism is a bit unwarranted if you ask me. Has he made a similar pledge in the past and not performed? No. Have other billionaires made similar pledges and not performed? Not than I know of. <s>Thanks goodness for the interweb moral police! </s>
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- mikeash 11y ago
  Yep, I don't get it. "Rich guy sets up foundation in tax-advantageous way." This is news?
  - issaria 11y ago
    This is no news, the problem is that people are trying to make it like a big deal.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      The only people I see trying to make it sound like a big deal are the ones criticizing it. If not for the relentless stream of naysayers, I wouldn't have even known this whole thing was happening. This whole thing is just celebrity gossip. It's exactly like those glossy magazines you see at the supermarket checkout line, except instead of movie stars it's tech stars.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  The proper way is a social contract: you set up a charity, get tax breaks, and in return, you're required to spend a certain percentage on charitable causes. Zuckerburg's pledge aside, if he were to do nothing with his new LLC, he would face no tax penalties and would essentially be moving money from one place to the other with nobody benefiting in any tangible way. The reason people are upset is because the last 30 years have amounted in an enormous transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the very rich. All that wealth - everybody's wealth - was created by the labor of people long dead, all the way down to the first humans to develop agriculture. A staple of any society has been the need to tax wealth creation so public goods can be provided, from national security to a functioning court system. By dodging taxes (which is what happens when you make a "charity" that isn't structurally obliged to make donations) you are circumventing the social contract and depriving the public of a portion of the profits derived from being a part of that society. Creating Facebook or any other large company with a big workforce is no excuse to not pay taxes. Those people use roads, water, courts, and require protection from the police and military. That causes additional strain on the system and has to be paid for somehow. I don't care how he spends his money, but establishing an LLC as a charity is a poor form of philanthropy.
  - lgas 11y ago
    The proper way is: However he wants. It's his money.
    - res0nat0r 11y ago
      In addition to that Zuck already dispels the meme that he isn't paying taxes in his post, the LLC will be paying taxes just like everyone else. All of the complaints really are just proxy reasons to complain about Facebook and the guy who founded it. If Warren Buffett did this exact thing last month none of these articles would have been written.
  - andzt 11y ago
    First, he's not moving money currently. He's pledged to move a tangible asset to a new entity. Second, if you had read his latest comment or understood how a LLC functions and taxes apply, you would know that the LLC will have to pay taxes on the sale of those assets. Third, any profit the LLC makes from investments in for-profit organizations will also be taxed. In a previous comment I made on charities and trusts, he would be more likely to be avoiding taxes if he did create a charitable remainder trust for his kid. There's an immediate tax benefit, you get to use the yearly distribution any way you see fit, and there's no guarantee the money will ever see a charitable cause.
- ritchiea 11y ago
  It's not about "the proper way", no one is telling Zuckerberg that he needs to donate the money. People are calling into question whether his claim that he is donating the money is truthful or not. That's not western, that's asking a question and being skeptical about the content of a press release.
  - bkmartin 11y ago
    It will take his entire lifetime to bear that out... so why are people trying to claim some sort of fraud before anything has even been done? It is not fair to try and call him a liar or to suspect him of making some false claim when that cannot even be remotely verified until after he is dead... let alone when he is in his early 30's. People just like to blow hard and complain for the sake of complaining. The guy is making a big promise and I'm going to watch what he does and hopefully he will make as big of a positive impact on society as he claims that he wants to... way to early to tell... I applaud him for even stepping out to take on the journey.
    - cerebrum 11y ago
      > to suspect him of making some false claim when that cannot even be remotely verified until after he is dead... That's exactly the point. Why does Zuck make huge claims when not a single cent has changed hands yet. Fuck this PR campaign. Just to make it clear: I wouldn't mind if he kept the money for himself and invested it for profit as any good capitalist would. But if you open your mouth to make a claim then you need to follow trough in a credible way.
      - bkmartin 11y ago
        It is day #1! What the hell are you so upset about? He announced that he has some really big intentions for his massive fortune. Did you blast Bill Gates the day he announced he wanted to do the same thing? What about Warren Buffet? I am still not quite sure what you are so pissed about? Do you harbor some hatred for Zuck?
        11y ago
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  If he didn't want people to nitpick it, he shouldn't have been showboating about how much money he's giving away to charity. I'm a conservative so I'm not much into controlling what people do with their money, but Zuckerburg invited this when he decided he wanted a lot of praise for being charitable and telling the world he was giving away a lot of money. It's not news that he has that money; he could've spent it however he liked without having to toot his own horn and fish for accolades re: his "generosity".
  - Albright 11y ago
    Okay, I can see the "it's not that he did it; it's that he did it in such a self-aggrandizing manner" argument. That's a fair argument. Thanks for the response.
- cerebrum 11y ago
  > his personal wealth the proper way. I'm irate because he didn't donate anything at all and yet still makes a big announcement. Let's talk again once a significant(more than 30% of the pledged) amount of money has actually changed hands.
- wfo 11y ago
  I think if his foundation wasn't accompanied by a multiple page long self-aggrandizing commitment to charity people would simply appreciate and not scrutinize. But in particular we have a model for what it looks like when a tech billionaire tries to donate his time and money to do something good for the world instead of building widgets and does it very well: the Gates foundation. And his previous "public works" attempt was a lobbying group for "immigration reform" that claimed to try to make life better for vast swaths of people and yet was simply a front to lobby the government to let tech businesses exploit immigrant slave labor more effectively. Accompanied by a similar impassioned speech about doing good works. Most of the lobbying was in the form of pretty despicable character assassination. In particular he takes jabs at the Gates foundation for not lobbying for example. The Gates foundation is enormously successful and Zuckerberg hasn't accomplished anything. Right now all he's done is set up a company that he has control over and promised "guys, I'll give this money to 'charity' however I define it at my discretion whatever that means". I'm hopeful and at its face I think it's a wonderful thing he's pledged to do but I think it's a bit premature to fall all over ourselves thanking him for reorganizing his finances because that's all he's really done so far.
- __jal 11y ago
  If Zuckerberg wanted people not to comment, perhaps his "letter to his daughter" should have been delivered to his daughter, instead of a "bunch of internet warriors". I mean, come on. Is everyone supposed to reverently worship their betters? Do we thank our $deities (in respectful silence) that we have such nice overlords who promise to someday pursue a structured financial transaction in a tax-preferred manner, along with a promise that it will promote "human advancement", whatever the hell that is? Sounds to me like whatever you have in mind as the opposite of "western culture" is a bit insulting to those cultures.
afdnewlkewwd 11y ago
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks EDIT: It's pretty gracious to assume someone who directly called anyone who trusted him an idiot has somehow reformed himself into a someone deserving optimism, despite no evidence that he's changed.
- Xcelerate 11y ago
  You are assuming people's personalities remain static over the course of their lives. EDIT: Then again, they might not vary. I'm not a personality expert.
  - threatofrain 11y ago
    It irks me that you would rebut this guy with this argument simply because I know that the empiricism strongly leans toward personalities remaining very stable throughout the lifespan, and that changes move together as a population than within-individual. Academics might not have yet built consensus on a general personality theory (Big 5 is more a descriptive research framework than a theory), but there is consensus on personality empiricism. Surely there is another angle of counter. I don't believe in winning argumentation by any means, especially by scientific disinformation without empirical cause.
    - intjk 11y ago
      I think the guy just grew up. People say dumb stuff when they're young. Not much need for empirical backing when the heuristic (in this case: people mature as they grow older) explains it well enough.
      - threatofrain 11y ago
        Your narrowly crafted argument is the proper response, but this guy made an empirically testable statement relevant to the sciences. You might not have clicked his profile, but he's also a PhD student of the sciences, meaning he has institutional access. You won't find adequate empirical backing on personality change over the lifespan, because the ecology of the evidence suggests that personality is stable. Disciplined speech is difficult and worthy.
nugget 11y ago
So it's not actually a charity after all - it's a private LLC that will make ''philanthropic'' investments which, if well run, could snowball the $45b of Facebook stock into hundreds of billions of dollars of privately owned and controlled wealth. Will the LLC take equity in projects like a venture capital firm or will it truly gift money away? (If gifting money, there's no reason not to leverage the charitable structure to manage taxes, which makes me think they will seek equity positions.) This structure might be a more effective way to impact the world but it's definitely a bit of whiplash from the way this whole project was initially reported.
- skadamat 11y ago
  So maybe the reporting was off :)
  - zardo 11y ago
    Well... yeah. His letter said exactly what it was.
- ameen 11y ago
  It could've been undone by a rush of cold blood to his head on the back of the birth of his offspring. In any case he reserves the right to do whatever he deems appropriate.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    He is, but it's not like he also gets to say he's doing one thing when he's doing another. Or that he is suddenly immune to criticism.
    - ameen 11y ago
      Exactly, but you have to realise being a dad suddenly changes the world for you (I mean if you've had an intention of having a family). The world suddenly seems a cruel place for your child, your current salary as insufficient, current residence as inhospitable for an infant, etc. You always see room & make excuses for improvement. His post could've been nothing more than an emotionally charged outlet yet not stupid enough that he'd lose his station immediately. In any event, him doing one thing or another isn't going to affect most of us in our lifetimes (the fruits of research are usually tasted by further generations than by ours)
SCAQTony 11y ago
There is a 5% rule for non profits that his LLC gets to avoid: "...What is the 5 percent payout requirement? The purpose behind the minimum payout requirement is to prevent foundations from simply receiving gifts, investing the assets and never spending any funds on charitable purposes. The basic rule can be stated simply, but its calculation is complex: Each year every private foundation must make eligible charitable expenditures that equal or exceed approximately 5 percent of the value of its endowment. The word "payout" while convenient is somewhat misleading and is not used in the Tax Code section that creates the rule. The word "payout" suggests grants or contributions paid out to other charities. Although these grants normally make up more than 93 percent of the expenditures of most foundations, many other expenses can also qualify in meeting the minimum payout requirement. In short, the 5 percent payout rule need not be satisfied solely with grants. ..." http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.abagrantmakers.org/resource/resmgr/abag_publications/the_five_percent_minimum_pay.pdf http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.abagrantmakers.org/resource/res...
chollida1 11y ago
I think everyone gets why he chose an LLC - can make political contributions, People complain about it alot, but as Bill Gates said,even his own fortune is a pittance compared to what the government spends each year. Political persuasions moves the needle in the US more than charity ever could hope to. Why give up on that option? - invest in companies, how many people here have said they'd invest in SpaceX because they think its good for the human race. - charities have to give a way a certain percentage every year - charities are subject to alot of rules and oversight. You don't get rich by having other's tell you what to do with your own money. Would you feel a bit pissed if you put the vast majority of your wealth into a charity and then found out that, that meant that you really couldn't do the things that were important to you due to the tax rules imposed upon charities? What he's doing is smart if he wants to have the maximum impact on the world. Consider the alternative. He's doesn't ever need to sell any FB shares in his lifetime, he'll just get loans from the bank against his shares, so this isn't really about dodging taxes.
- wavefunction 11y ago
  > Consider the alternative. Well, and he won't get plaudits for "donating his fortune" either.
- Aleman360 11y ago
  But is it right for one person to be in control of that much money? Why do we allow individuals to amass that much power?
  - chaz72 11y ago
    Whole separate question. He already has that much money and that much power.
  - dnautics 11y ago
    Is it right for one person to be in control of so much political power? Why do we allow individuals to amass that much power? Is it right for a committee to be in control of so much political power? Is it right for people to be obligated to commit their economic output to such a group that has been selected by a process as pedestrian as a popularity contest? Perhaps we should choose experts instead. Then who gets to choose the experts? Quis ipsos custodies custodies
numlocked 11y ago
I really don't think this deserves the level of skepticism it's being met with. What else could this guy possibly do to demonstrate that he is genuinely not interested in material wealth? Look at how he lives, and how he has (not) monetized Facebook along the way. Look at how he turned down a million-dollar-plus acquisition offer for a company he didn't care about in high school. Whatever you think about Facebook, Zuckerberg truly and somewhat uniquely does not appear to be motivated by money. Apparently that's very difficult for most people to understand, and they attribute their own motives to his actions. He's given away gobs of money before; he's still incredibly well off with 'just' 1% of his wealth remaining; why doubt his intentions here?
- viscanti 11y ago
  > Look at how he lives You mean buying multiple homes around his home for privacy? http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24285169/mark-zuckerberg-buys-four-houses-near-his-palo-alto-home http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24285169/mark-zuckerb... Or you mean driving his neighbors crazy with his over-the-top construction http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Neighbors-feeling-squeezed-by-work-on-Mark-5771069.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Neighbors-...
  - numlocked 11y ago
    I live in SF and this is happening everywhere. The house directly next to me has been under construction for more than 18 months, with parking blocked off, huge amounts of noise, etc. And I live on a fairly undistinguished block (though one that is about to have a $5m home hit the market...). This is just par for the course in SF. His home attracted a particular amount of attention because it's his. $10 in SF for a billionaire is really pretty modest. Compare to e.g. Larry Ellison: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2011/05/31/pacific_heights_larry_ellison_buys_house_next_door_for_40m_shrubbery_fracas_settled.php http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2011/05/31/pacific_heights_lar...
  - DevX101 11y ago
    So what? If I was a billionaire I'd have multiple homes too!
bherms 11y ago
Donate to a charity and people complain it's not the right one. Donate to several charities and people complain that the charity doesn't spend money the right way. Set up an LLC geared towards allocating $45b to social good, charities, promising startups for the human race and armchair activists use it as a platform to question your true character and call into question the nature of your announcement... I wonder how many of those people have donated or helped someone in need this year.
lintiness 11y ago
the guy created an online yearbook. it would suck if the genius and his wife couldn't tell us how to vote.
notatoad 11y ago
Everybody's getting way too caught up in the structure of this pledge. Yes, he could use an LLC as a way to accrue more wealth. But it's just as possible to use a registered charity as a way to purchase influence and avoid taxes. Whether it's through an LLC or a charity, the amount of good he accomplishes will be entirely down to his intentions and the effort he expends on his philanthropy. It's too early to judge. This could be just pure good, it could be a tax dodge, it could be a PR move, or it could be good intentions that don't get followed through on. We won't know until his foundation actually starts spending this money.
staunch 11y ago
There is no good reason to question Zuckerbergs's motives. He very clearly means to donate his money to good causes over the course of his life. Maybe it's wrong for billionaires to influence the world as if they had billions of votes, but good or bad, anyone who questions his sincerity or general goodness is a bad judge of character. And even if you can't imagine Zuckerberg as a good person. Good luck trying to convince yourself his paediatrician spouse is not genuinely interested in helping people.
jasode 11y ago
There seems to be lot of emotion-laden writing about MZ's pledge but I looked at his letter[1] to his daughter and this is what it actually says: Our hopes for your generation focus on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality. [...] Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities. We will give 99% of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission. He didn't actually use the word "charity". Was the term "charity" something that the media outlet pushed in its stories? Now with the closer inspection of the LLC structure, the media looks to blast MZ for being dishonest about it being a charity? Did MZ get free hero publicity by not explicitly stating it was not a 501c in his letter to the daughter? I didn't follow the story closely enough to judge if there was deception and media manipulation. As for MZ going with the LLC structure, I think it's just a general zeitgeist of tech-billionaires to believe that other institutions besides non-profits can make more progress on improving humanity. A similar sentiment was Larry Page's "I'd rather give my billions to Elon Musk than charity". I don't know if MZ and LP are "right" but I sort of see where they're coming from. I was looking at a startup that matched donors to charities and when I researched charities such as Pink Ribbon and Mother Theresa, etc, it really made me mistrust the whole landscape. Yes, there are sites such as GiveWell but then I'd need to research the integrity of GiveWell itself which I never got around to pursuing. I don't know all the confluence of reasons but it does seem like traditional non-profits are not getting 100% mindshare of philanthropists. [1]https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-our-daughter/10153375081581634?pnref=story https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-o...
dkbrk 11y ago
I wonder if forming a Benefit Corporation [0] was considered. This is a type of corporate entity that has only come into being in the past few years. Unlike a traditional corporation which has a mandate to operate in the best interests of its shareholders [1], a Benefit Corporation is formed with a mandate to produce a benefit to a broader class of stakeholders, which could be the general public or all of humanity. As a practical matter, if you have the assent of the shareholders a corporation can act however it likes within the law and doesn't need to try to return a profit, however it seems to me that there is a serious impedance mismatch in using a corporation for philanthropic endeavours and I wonder why, seeing as how a legal tool specifically for this purpose has recently been created, it wasn't used. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
jstalin 11y ago
The fact still remains, more taxes will be collected from this LLC arrangement than if he had donated his shares to charity, a la Bill Gates. Why is everyone having a collective aneurysm over that?

44 points by e15ctr0n 11y ago

I don't really have any expertise to comment on whether setting up an LLC versus a non-profit is a good idea. I'm not even a big Zuck fan. I just think it's so very… western culture in 2015 that a bunch of internet warriors are getting irate because they think a self-made bajillionaire isn't donating $45,000,000,000 of his personal wealth the proper way.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gohrt 11y ago
I think it's fair for people to insist on a measure of honesty and accuracy in communication, and to reserve gratitude until meaningful acts are performed, not just general statements of future plans.
- bkmartin 11y ago
  There is a difference in reserving gratitude and flippantly stating myriad difference versions of, "I'll believe it when I see it." People are giving him a hard time for making a public pledge, a public accountability for his future actions. He is not doing it for himself as much as he is for a rallying cry to other wealthy people and to spur others to try and find ways to use the funds as he sets it all up. The extreme cynicism is a bit unwarranted if you ask me. Has he made a similar pledge in the past and not performed? No. Have other billionaires made similar pledges and not performed? Not than I know of. <s>Thanks goodness for the interweb moral police! </s>
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mikeash 11y ago
Yep, I don't get it. "Rich guy sets up foundation in tax-advantageous way." This is news?
- issaria 11y ago
  This is no news, the problem is that people are trying to make it like a big deal.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    The only people I see trying to make it sound like a big deal are the ones criticizing it. If not for the relentless stream of naysayers, I wouldn't have even known this whole thing was happening. This whole thing is just celebrity gossip. It's exactly like those glossy magazines you see at the supermarket checkout line, except instead of movie stars it's tech stars.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
The proper way is a social contract: you set up a charity, get tax breaks, and in return, you're required to spend a certain percentage on charitable causes. Zuckerburg's pledge aside, if he were to do nothing with his new LLC, he would face no tax penalties and would essentially be moving money from one place to the other with nobody benefiting in any tangible way. The reason people are upset is because the last 30 years have amounted in an enormous transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the very rich. All that wealth - everybody's wealth - was created by the labor of people long dead, all the way down to the first humans to develop agriculture. A staple of any society has been the need to tax wealth creation so public goods can be provided, from national security to a functioning court system. By dodging taxes (which is what happens when you make a "charity" that isn't structurally obliged to make donations) you are circumventing the social contract and depriving the public of a portion of the profits derived from being a part of that society. Creating Facebook or any other large company with a big workforce is no excuse to not pay taxes. Those people use roads, water, courts, and require protection from the police and military. That causes additional strain on the system and has to be paid for somehow. I don't care how he spends his money, but establishing an LLC as a charity is a poor form of philanthropy.
- lgas 11y ago
  The proper way is: However he wants. It's his money.
  - res0nat0r 11y ago
    In addition to that Zuck already dispels the meme that he isn't paying taxes in his post, the LLC will be paying taxes just like everyone else. All of the complaints really are just proxy reasons to complain about Facebook and the guy who founded it. If Warren Buffett did this exact thing last month none of these articles would have been written.
- andzt 11y ago
  First, he's not moving money currently. He's pledged to move a tangible asset to a new entity. Second, if you had read his latest comment or understood how a LLC functions and taxes apply, you would know that the LLC will have to pay taxes on the sale of those assets. Third, any profit the LLC makes from investments in for-profit organizations will also be taxed. In a previous comment I made on charities and trusts, he would be more likely to be avoiding taxes if he did create a charitable remainder trust for his kid. There's an immediate tax benefit, you get to use the yearly distribution any way you see fit, and there's no guarantee the money will ever see a charitable cause.
ritchiea 11y ago
It's not about "the proper way", no one is telling Zuckerberg that he needs to donate the money. People are calling into question whether his claim that he is donating the money is truthful or not. That's not western, that's asking a question and being skeptical about the content of a press release.
- bkmartin 11y ago
  It will take his entire lifetime to bear that out... so why are people trying to claim some sort of fraud before anything has even been done? It is not fair to try and call him a liar or to suspect him of making some false claim when that cannot even be remotely verified until after he is dead... let alone when he is in his early 30's. People just like to blow hard and complain for the sake of complaining. The guy is making a big promise and I'm going to watch what he does and hopefully he will make as big of a positive impact on society as he claims that he wants to... way to early to tell... I applaud him for even stepping out to take on the journey.
  - cerebrum 11y ago
    > to suspect him of making some false claim when that cannot even be remotely verified until after he is dead... That's exactly the point. Why does Zuck make huge claims when not a single cent has changed hands yet. Fuck this PR campaign. Just to make it clear: I wouldn't mind if he kept the money for himself and invested it for profit as any good capitalist would. But if you open your mouth to make a claim then you need to follow trough in a credible way.
    - bkmartin 11y ago
      It is day #1! What the hell are you so upset about? He announced that he has some really big intentions for his massive fortune. Did you blast Bill Gates the day he announced he wanted to do the same thing? What about Warren Buffet? I am still not quite sure what you are so pissed about? Do you harbor some hatred for Zuck?
      - 11y ago
cookiecaper 11y ago
If he didn't want people to nitpick it, he shouldn't have been showboating about how much money he's giving away to charity. I'm a conservative so I'm not much into controlling what people do with their money, but Zuckerburg invited this when he decided he wanted a lot of praise for being charitable and telling the world he was giving away a lot of money. It's not news that he has that money; he could've spent it however he liked without having to toot his own horn and fish for accolades re: his "generosity".
- Albright 11y ago
  Okay, I can see the "it's not that he did it; it's that he did it in such a self-aggrandizing manner" argument. That's a fair argument. Thanks for the response.
cerebrum 11y ago
> his personal wealth the proper way. I'm irate because he didn't donate anything at all and yet still makes a big announcement. Let's talk again once a significant(more than 30% of the pledged) amount of money has actually changed hands.
wfo 11y ago
I think if his foundation wasn't accompanied by a multiple page long self-aggrandizing commitment to charity people would simply appreciate and not scrutinize. But in particular we have a model for what it looks like when a tech billionaire tries to donate his time and money to do something good for the world instead of building widgets and does it very well: the Gates foundation. And his previous "public works" attempt was a lobbying group for "immigration reform" that claimed to try to make life better for vast swaths of people and yet was simply a front to lobby the government to let tech businesses exploit immigrant slave labor more effectively. Accompanied by a similar impassioned speech about doing good works. Most of the lobbying was in the form of pretty despicable character assassination. In particular he takes jabs at the Gates foundation for not lobbying for example. The Gates foundation is enormously successful and Zuckerberg hasn't accomplished anything. Right now all he's done is set up a company that he has control over and promised "guys, I'll give this money to 'charity' however I define it at my discretion whatever that means". I'm hopeful and at its face I think it's a wonderful thing he's pledged to do but I think it's a bit premature to fall all over ourselves thanking him for reorganizing his finances because that's all he's really done so far.
__jal 11y ago
If Zuckerberg wanted people not to comment, perhaps his "letter to his daughter" should have been delivered to his daughter, instead of a "bunch of internet warriors". I mean, come on. Is everyone supposed to reverently worship their betters? Do we thank our $deities (in respectful silence) that we have such nice overlords who promise to someday pursue a structured financial transaction in a tax-preferred manner, along with a promise that it will promote "human advancement", whatever the hell that is? Sounds to me like whatever you have in mind as the opposite of "western culture" is a bit insulting to those cultures.

afdnewlkewwd 11y ago

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks EDIT: It's pretty gracious to assume someone who directly called anyone who trusted him an idiot has somehow reformed himself into a someone deserving optimism, despite no evidence that he's changed.

Xcelerate 11y ago
You are assuming people's personalities remain static over the course of their lives. EDIT: Then again, they might not vary. I'm not a personality expert.
- threatofrain 11y ago
  It irks me that you would rebut this guy with this argument simply because I know that the empiricism strongly leans toward personalities remaining very stable throughout the lifespan, and that changes move together as a population than within-individual. Academics might not have yet built consensus on a general personality theory (Big 5 is more a descriptive research framework than a theory), but there is consensus on personality empiricism. Surely there is another angle of counter. I don't believe in winning argumentation by any means, especially by scientific disinformation without empirical cause.
  - intjk 11y ago
    I think the guy just grew up. People say dumb stuff when they're young. Not much need for empirical backing when the heuristic (in this case: people mature as they grow older) explains it well enough.
    - threatofrain 11y ago
      Your narrowly crafted argument is the proper response, but this guy made an empirically testable statement relevant to the sciences. You might not have clicked his profile, but he's also a PhD student of the sciences, meaning he has institutional access. You won't find adequate empirical backing on personality change over the lifespan, because the ecology of the evidence suggests that personality is stable. Disciplined speech is difficult and worthy.

nugget 11y ago

So it's not actually a charity after all - it's a private LLC that will make ''philanthropic'' investments which, if well run, could snowball the $45b of Facebook stock into hundreds of billions of dollars of privately owned and controlled wealth. Will the LLC take equity in projects like a venture capital firm or will it truly gift money away? (If gifting money, there's no reason not to leverage the charitable structure to manage taxes, which makes me think they will seek equity positions.) This structure might be a more effective way to impact the world but it's definitely a bit of whiplash from the way this whole project was initially reported.

skadamat 11y ago
So maybe the reporting was off :)
- zardo 11y ago
  Well... yeah. His letter said exactly what it was.
ameen 11y ago
It could've been undone by a rush of cold blood to his head on the back of the birth of his offspring. In any case he reserves the right to do whatever he deems appropriate.
- wavefunction 11y ago
  He is, but it's not like he also gets to say he's doing one thing when he's doing another. Or that he is suddenly immune to criticism.
  - ameen 11y ago
    Exactly, but you have to realise being a dad suddenly changes the world for you (I mean if you've had an intention of having a family). The world suddenly seems a cruel place for your child, your current salary as insufficient, current residence as inhospitable for an infant, etc. You always see room & make excuses for improvement. His post could've been nothing more than an emotionally charged outlet yet not stupid enough that he'd lose his station immediately. In any event, him doing one thing or another isn't going to affect most of us in our lifetimes (the fruits of research are usually tasted by further generations than by ours)

SCAQTony 11y ago

There is a 5% rule for non profits that his LLC gets to avoid: "...What is the 5 percent payout requirement? The purpose behind the minimum payout requirement is to prevent foundations from simply receiving gifts, investing the assets and never spending any funds on charitable purposes. The basic rule can be stated simply, but its calculation is complex: Each year every private foundation must make eligible charitable expenditures that equal or exceed approximately 5 percent of the value of its endowment. The word "payout" while convenient is somewhat misleading and is not used in the Tax Code section that creates the rule. The word "payout" suggests grants or contributions paid out to other charities. Although these grants normally make up more than 93 percent of the expenditures of most foundations, many other expenses can also qualify in meeting the minimum payout requirement. In short, the 5 percent payout rule need not be satisfied solely with grants. ..." http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.abagrantmakers.org/resource/resmgr/abag_publications/the_five_percent_minimum_pay.pdf http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.abagrantmakers.org/resource/res...

chollida1 11y ago

I think everyone gets why he chose an LLC - can make political contributions, People complain about it alot, but as Bill Gates said,even his own fortune is a pittance compared to what the government spends each year. Political persuasions moves the needle in the US more than charity ever could hope to. Why give up on that option? - invest in companies, how many people here have said they'd invest in SpaceX because they think its good for the human race. - charities have to give a way a certain percentage every year - charities are subject to alot of rules and oversight. You don't get rich by having other's tell you what to do with your own money. Would you feel a bit pissed if you put the vast majority of your wealth into a charity and then found out that, that meant that you really couldn't do the things that were important to you due to the tax rules imposed upon charities? What he's doing is smart if he wants to have the maximum impact on the world. Consider the alternative. He's doesn't ever need to sell any FB shares in his lifetime, he'll just get loans from the bank against his shares, so this isn't really about dodging taxes.

wavefunction 11y ago
> Consider the alternative. Well, and he won't get plaudits for "donating his fortune" either.
Aleman360 11y ago
But is it right for one person to be in control of that much money? Why do we allow individuals to amass that much power?
- chaz72 11y ago
  Whole separate question. He already has that much money and that much power.
- dnautics 11y ago
  Is it right for one person to be in control of so much political power? Why do we allow individuals to amass that much power? Is it right for a committee to be in control of so much political power? Is it right for people to be obligated to commit their economic output to such a group that has been selected by a process as pedestrian as a popularity contest? Perhaps we should choose experts instead. Then who gets to choose the experts? Quis ipsos custodies custodies

numlocked 11y ago

I really don't think this deserves the level of skepticism it's being met with. What else could this guy possibly do to demonstrate that he is genuinely not interested in material wealth? Look at how he lives, and how he has (not) monetized Facebook along the way. Look at how he turned down a million-dollar-plus acquisition offer for a company he didn't care about in high school. Whatever you think about Facebook, Zuckerberg truly and somewhat uniquely does not appear to be motivated by money. Apparently that's very difficult for most people to understand, and they attribute their own motives to his actions. He's given away gobs of money before; he's still incredibly well off with 'just' 1% of his wealth remaining; why doubt his intentions here?

viscanti 11y ago
> Look at how he lives You mean buying multiple homes around his home for privacy? http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24285169/mark-zuckerberg-buys-four-houses-near-his-palo-alto-home http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24285169/mark-zuckerb... Or you mean driving his neighbors crazy with his over-the-top construction http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Neighbors-feeling-squeezed-by-work-on-Mark-5771069.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Neighbors-...
- numlocked 11y ago
  I live in SF and this is happening everywhere. The house directly next to me has been under construction for more than 18 months, with parking blocked off, huge amounts of noise, etc. And I live on a fairly undistinguished block (though one that is about to have a $5m home hit the market...). This is just par for the course in SF. His home attracted a particular amount of attention because it's his. $10 in SF for a billionaire is really pretty modest. Compare to e.g. Larry Ellison: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2011/05/31/pacific_heights_larry_ellison_buys_house_next_door_for_40m_shrubbery_fracas_settled.php http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2011/05/31/pacific_heights_lar...
- DevX101 11y ago
  So what? If I was a billionaire I'd have multiple homes too!

bherms 11y ago

Donate to a charity and people complain it's not the right one. Donate to several charities and people complain that the charity doesn't spend money the right way. Set up an LLC geared towards allocating $45b to social good, charities, promising startups for the human race and armchair activists use it as a platform to question your true character and call into question the nature of your announcement... I wonder how many of those people have donated or helped someone in need this year.

lintiness 11y ago

the guy created an online yearbook. it would suck if the genius and his wife couldn't tell us how to vote.

notatoad 11y ago

Everybody's getting way too caught up in the structure of this pledge. Yes, he could use an LLC as a way to accrue more wealth. But it's just as possible to use a registered charity as a way to purchase influence and avoid taxes. Whether it's through an LLC or a charity, the amount of good he accomplishes will be entirely down to his intentions and the effort he expends on his philanthropy. It's too early to judge. This could be just pure good, it could be a tax dodge, it could be a PR move, or it could be good intentions that don't get followed through on. We won't know until his foundation actually starts spending this money.

staunch 11y ago

There is no good reason to question Zuckerbergs's motives. He very clearly means to donate his money to good causes over the course of his life. Maybe it's wrong for billionaires to influence the world as if they had billions of votes, but good or bad, anyone who questions his sincerity or general goodness is a bad judge of character. And even if you can't imagine Zuckerberg as a good person. Good luck trying to convince yourself his paediatrician spouse is not genuinely interested in helping people.

jasode 11y ago

There seems to be lot of emotion-laden writing about MZ's pledge but I looked at his letter[1] to his daughter and this is what it actually says: Our hopes for your generation focus on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality. [...] Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities. We will give 99% of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission. He didn't actually use the word "charity". Was the term "charity" something that the media outlet pushed in its stories? Now with the closer inspection of the LLC structure, the media looks to blast MZ for being dishonest about it being a charity? Did MZ get free hero publicity by not explicitly stating it was not a 501c in his letter to the daughter? I didn't follow the story closely enough to judge if there was deception and media manipulation. As for MZ going with the LLC structure, I think it's just a general zeitgeist of tech-billionaires to believe that other institutions besides non-profits can make more progress on improving humanity. A similar sentiment was Larry Page's "I'd rather give my billions to Elon Musk than charity". I don't know if MZ and LP are "right" but I sort of see where they're coming from. I was looking at a startup that matched donors to charities and when I researched charities such as Pink Ribbon and Mother Theresa, etc, it really made me mistrust the whole landscape. Yes, there are sites such as GiveWell but then I'd need to research the integrity of GiveWell itself which I never got around to pursuing. I don't know all the confluence of reasons but it does seem like traditional non-profits are not getting 100% mindshare of philanthropists. [1]https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-our-daughter/10153375081581634?pnref=story https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-letter-to-o...

dkbrk 11y ago

I wonder if forming a Benefit Corporation [0] was considered. This is a type of corporate entity that has only come into being in the past few years. Unlike a traditional corporation which has a mandate to operate in the best interests of its shareholders [1], a Benefit Corporation is formed with a mandate to produce a benefit to a broader class of stakeholders, which could be the general public or all of humanity. As a practical matter, if you have the assent of the shareholders a corporation can act however it likes within the law and doesn't need to try to return a profit, however it seems to me that there is a serious impedance mismatch in using a corporation for philanthropic endeavours and I wonder why, seeing as how a legal tool specifically for this purpose has recently been created, it wasn't used. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

jstalin 11y ago

The fact still remains, more taxes will be collected from this LLC arrangement than if he had donated his shares to charity, a la Bill Gates. Why is everyone having a collective aneurysm over that?