5 ms·

Not to be critical, but I pose this question in response: Why do billionaires so often love to muse about interesting things outside of their field, get attent

by _wzsf 8y ago

Not to be critical, but I pose this question in response: Why do billionaires so often love to muse about interesting things outside of their field, get attention and praise for their thoughts, and then publicly allocate only tiny portions of their wealth and time to these projects so ineffectually while passing down the majority of their wealth to disinterested heirs? e.g. Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Edgar Prince, Steve Jobs, Richard DeVos, Bill Ackman, Mark Zuckerberg, Ken Griffin.

sumedh 8y ago
billionaires can afford to muse about interesting things outside of their field, they get attention because they are billionaires. Just because they are asking questions does not automatically mean they have the passion to solve the other problems. I dont know about others but isnt Zuckerberg donating majority of the wealth?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I dont know about others but isnt Zuckerberg donating majority of the wealth? As an "I control everything anyway", tax evasion scheme. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mar... https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/12/03/is-the-new-zuckerberg-fake-charity-an-estate-tax-avoidance-scheme/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/12/03/is-the-new-zucker...
  - adventured 8y ago
    You're flat out wrong in your premise that it's a tax dodge, and it's very easy to demonstrate. Neither of those links support a claim about tax evasion in any regard. There's no special tax benefit to what they set up. There are only structural benefits, in that the LLC can give to political campaigns and make private investments (neither of which are tax deductible). It also enables Zuckerberg to continue to directly control the Facebook stock while it's held by the LLC. Any shares sold by the LLC generates a tax event as it would with an individual. You know the best way to avoid taxes like that? To keep the stock to yourself and not sell it at all. The only tax deductions the LLC can take are identical to what an individual can take, the money must have gone to a 501c charity to generate a tax deduction. Nothing is gained in regards to avoiding taxes. The first link openly admits it doesn't benefit Zuckerberg to use it as a means of tax avoidance (much less tax evasion, which is a crime that you're claiming is being committed). He'd be just as well off to directly donate the stock to a charity instead, as the ideal example given lists the LLC doing exactly that instead. Any potential tax deductions accrued are saturated instantly, as they're limited to a fraction of the LLC's income in a given year and the total value of the deductions expire after five years (ie any charitable tax deduction carries forward for a maximum of five years and may only deduct against a maximum of 50% of your income in a year). There's nothing special about this deduction with the LLC, an individual gets the same arrangement. Again, there's no special angle. Gates for example once gave a very large single year donation to his foundation, back in 2000. He saw very little tax benefit, because it saturated his ability to deduct a hundred times over. The second link - an angry personal blog post - has the title calling it a fake charity. The first paragraph opens by insulting Zuckerberg's marriage. The second paragraph opens by insulting the Zuckerbergs love of their daughter. You can throw that one out as being biased immediately.
    - eigenloss 8y ago
      This absolutely has to be Mark Zuckerberg. Nobody else could get this mad. The dishonesty is in the description of the event by Zuckerberg and the media. It was covered as "Zuckerberg donates $45 billion to charity," but he effectively donated it to himself.
dasmoth 8y ago
It’s a good question, but there are counter-examples too (Bill Gates, arguably Elon Musk) and I’d argue that these get more attention and praise — so on the whole things may not be too badly out of kilter.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
How did Jobs do this? He dedicated his life to Apple until the day he died.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Meekro 8y ago
Isn't that kind of unfair? Lots of us non-billionaires love to muse about interesting questions outside of our narrow specialties -- we do it every day here on HN. But when it's time to get some work done, we return to our specialties where our time and effort can make the most impact.
tomhoward 8y ago
You list examples but don’t cite any references to prove that these people didn’t make substantial philanthropic contributions. Nor do you cite counter-examples like those other commenters have mentioned. Andrew Carnegie, the richest person of his era, donated 90% of his wealth to philanthropic causes, most notably to local libraries, universities and scientific reasearch. He implored his fellow wealthy people to to the same, believing the only worthwhile purpose for accumulating wealth was to reinvest it in improving society. The Rockefellers seemed to do the same, as have many others since. In Patrick’s case, his company is still in growth phase and his wealth is mostly on paper, so he’s not able to give much time or money. I’m sure he will when his company’s success becomes more assured and he can spare the time and money. His friend, YC President Sam Altman, has donated $10M of his own money to YC Research to help find answers to hard questions he cares about, which I think is a lot for him (I was surprised to learn he even had that amount to spare as his own company wasn’t a huge success).
- eigenloss 8y ago
  The list is far from exhaustive and far from perfect, but there's a reason Carnegie isn't on it.

by _wzsf 8y ago

sumedh 8y ago

billionaires can afford to muse about interesting things outside of their field, they get attention because they are billionaires. Just because they are asking questions does not automatically mean they have the passion to solve the other problems. I dont know about others but isnt Zuckerberg donating majority of the wealth?

coldtea 8y ago
>I dont know about others but isnt Zuckerberg donating majority of the wealth? As an "I control everything anyway", tax evasion scheme. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mar... https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/12/03/is-the-new-zuckerberg-fake-charity-an-estate-tax-avoidance-scheme/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/12/03/is-the-new-zucker...
- adventured 8y ago
  You're flat out wrong in your premise that it's a tax dodge, and it's very easy to demonstrate. Neither of those links support a claim about tax evasion in any regard. There's no special tax benefit to what they set up. There are only structural benefits, in that the LLC can give to political campaigns and make private investments (neither of which are tax deductible). It also enables Zuckerberg to continue to directly control the Facebook stock while it's held by the LLC. Any shares sold by the LLC generates a tax event as it would with an individual. You know the best way to avoid taxes like that? To keep the stock to yourself and not sell it at all. The only tax deductions the LLC can take are identical to what an individual can take, the money must have gone to a 501c charity to generate a tax deduction. Nothing is gained in regards to avoiding taxes. The first link openly admits it doesn't benefit Zuckerberg to use it as a means of tax avoidance (much less tax evasion, which is a crime that you're claiming is being committed). He'd be just as well off to directly donate the stock to a charity instead, as the ideal example given lists the LLC doing exactly that instead. Any potential tax deductions accrued are saturated instantly, as they're limited to a fraction of the LLC's income in a given year and the total value of the deductions expire after five years (ie any charitable tax deduction carries forward for a maximum of five years and may only deduct against a maximum of 50% of your income in a year). There's nothing special about this deduction with the LLC, an individual gets the same arrangement. Again, there's no special angle. Gates for example once gave a very large single year donation to his foundation, back in 2000. He saw very little tax benefit, because it saturated his ability to deduct a hundred times over. The second link - an angry personal blog post - has the title calling it a fake charity. The first paragraph opens by insulting Zuckerberg's marriage. The second paragraph opens by insulting the Zuckerbergs love of their daughter. You can throw that one out as being biased immediately.
  - eigenloss 8y ago
    This absolutely has to be Mark Zuckerberg. Nobody else could get this mad. The dishonesty is in the description of the event by Zuckerberg and the media. It was covered as "Zuckerberg donates $45 billion to charity," but he effectively donated it to himself.

dasmoth 8y ago

It’s a good question, but there are counter-examples too (Bill Gates, arguably Elon Musk) and I’d argue that these get more attention and praise — so on the whole things may not be too badly out of kilter.

fjsolwmv 8y ago

How did Jobs do this? He dedicated his life to Apple until the day he died.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Meekro 8y ago

Isn't that kind of unfair? Lots of us non-billionaires love to muse about interesting questions outside of our narrow specialties -- we do it every day here on HN. But when it's time to get some work done, we return to our specialties where our time and effort can make the most impact.

tomhoward 8y ago

You list examples but don’t cite any references to prove that these people didn’t make substantial philanthropic contributions. Nor do you cite counter-examples like those other commenters have mentioned. Andrew Carnegie, the richest person of his era, donated 90% of his wealth to philanthropic causes, most notably to local libraries, universities and scientific reasearch. He implored his fellow wealthy people to to the same, believing the only worthwhile purpose for accumulating wealth was to reinvest it in improving society. The Rockefellers seemed to do the same, as have many others since. In Patrick’s case, his company is still in growth phase and his wealth is mostly on paper, so he’s not able to give much time or money. I’m sure he will when his company’s success becomes more assured and he can spare the time and money. His friend, YC President Sam Altman, has donated $10M of his own money to YC Research to help find answers to hard questions he cares about, which I think is a lot for him (I was surprised to learn he even had that amount to spare as his own company wasn’t a huge success).

eigenloss 8y ago
The list is far from exhaustive and far from perfect, but there's a reason Carnegie isn't on it.