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Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted
- randycupertino 1y agoMy favorite Mark Zuckerberg neighbor anecdote is the guy who is surrounded on 3 sides by all properties Zuckerberg snatched up however has refused multiple offers by Zuckerberg's "people:" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/mark-zuckerberg-palo-alto.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/mark-zuckerberg-palo-a...
- pinewurst 1y agohttps://archive.ph/LnWTd https://archive.ph/LnWTd
- lateforwork 1y agoMy favorite part of that story: He said a security guard approached him and asked what he was doing. “I said, ‘I’m standing on the sidewalk looking at this project for review.’ He said, ‘Well, we’d appreciate it if you could move on,’” Mr. Baltay recalled. “I was pretty shocked by that. It’s a public sidewalk!” Zuckerberg could have built a fancy house in Woodside or Atherton which is where billionaire CEOs live. Instead he bought property in the middle of regular people and disrupted their lives.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoBillionaire entitlement is just one of the problems afflicting the morbid wealthy. Most of them demonstrate a total lack of empathy and utter contempt for the rest of humanity.
- goatlover 1y agoWe see that with Trump's second presidency. The WH ballroom, Gatsby party during shutdown, while withholding SNAP emergency funds, gifts from foreign governments, all the deals for corporations and billionaires, tariffs, pardons, etc.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoThis is how crazy shit like accelerationism, communism, or French Revolution take hold: wider factional extreme consolidations of power and swings between them rather than stable groups of sane, restrained people with a sense of shame and reasonableness set in roughly-balanced, countervailing opposition. (Status quo statism is not necessarily sustainable if it's been terrible for too many for too long either.) The richest country in history of the world cannot afford healthcare or food banks, and has millions of homeless people living rough are absurd embarrassments, but can afford to bail out the austerity economic terrorist in Argentina, give bombs and missiles to a genocidal regime to flatten an indigenous population of millions into the Stone Age and man-made famine, bomb random boats claiming they're "narco-traffickers" without evidence, and maintain higher military expenditures than the next nine (9) countries combined.
- red-iron-pine 1y agoaccelerationism is literally Russian propaganda aimed at turning left-wingers into right-wing anti-government types. a legacy of Soviet agit-prop used in a multi-pronged strategy, albeit one that has little traction compared to MAGA and the trad-right stuff.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- trhway 1y ago>Zuckerberg could have built a fancy house in Woodside or Atherton which is where billionaire CEOs live. Instead he bought property in the middle of regular people and disrupted their lives. it is easier and safer to have illegal school and other unpermitted things and all the noise and street blocking and all the other disruptions where regular people live than to piss off a billionaire neighbor.
- akd 1y agoROFL. The neighbors are not "regular people" for any reasonable definition of that term.
- varenc 1y agoThis is Palo Alto and his neighbors for the most part aren't "regular people". They all own $5M+ homes.
- tomwheeler 1y agoA $5M home in Palo Alto is hardly a mansion.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoI have close relatives in that same neighborhood. They are regular people. Yes their house is now worth millions but it wasn’t when they bought it and they are not wealthy (unless they sell and move).
- bonestamp2 1y agoI assume he's planning to build a super mansion once he gets enough acreage. Reminds me of a guy near me who bought three already massive adjacent properties. Tore down two of them. One become a pond. The other one was rebuilt into a massive $30M mansion. The third was already a $15M mansion so he kept that as his guest house. The funny thing is that his guest house... has a guest house.
- kcplate 1y agoIf I am visiting with my mother in law, I would consider the host very gracious and attentive to all the needs of his guests.
- jb1991 1y agoIs this also in California? Can’t imagine they’re very many places in the world where people behave this way. That is, people with enough wealth and interest in doing this in particular location.
- reaperducer 1y agoCan’t imagine they’re very many places in the world where people behave this way. Really? Because it happens everywhere. I've seen it from Chicago to Seattle to South Carolina. Start going to the zoning board meetings of any town with enough people, and you'll run into it. In London, they tend to expand down, rather than out, but it happens so often there's a term for it there: Iceberg homes.
- googlryas 1y agoHe purchased each plot for between $5 and $15M. The article describes the residents as "Doctors, lawyers, business executives and Stanford University professors". I would not call these "regular people"
- afavour 1y agoOP didn't say "working class people". Doctors and lawyers are plenty regular people.
- 16bytes 1y agoDoctors, lawyers, business executives are closer to "regular people" than those people are to billionaires.
- googlryas 1y agoOkay, but it doesn't mean they're regular people. Owning a single one of those plots out them in the 1% of household net worth, even if they had 0 other assets.
- xmprt 1y agoOk but what does that contribute to the conversation? I think a good enough definition for regular people is if the average person can achieve that title with talent and hard work more than luck (not that luck doesn't also play a major factor). Whereas becoming a billionaire has a lot more to do with luck than hard work (even though hard work still plays a factor).
- foxyv 1y agoBillionaires are so rich that dermatologists and plastic surgeons look like old man Carl from "Up." Welcome to the oligarchy!
- potato3732842 1y agoThe gulf between well paid white collar workers and regular people is so massive which is "closer" depends mostly on which billionaire you're measuring.
- takinola 1y agoLots of billionaires live in Palo Alto. You pretty much can't walk down University Avenue or grab a coffee at Town and Country without bumping into one. Plus most of Zuckerberg's neighbors are not "regular people", at least not from a wealth standpoint. This brings to mind the famous quote from a Palo Alto city meeting where one of the residents complained about "billionaires running roughshod over us regular millionaires!"
- quantified 1y agoIf you consider Palo Alto "regular people". I think regular people consider Palo Alto as where centimillionaire CEOs live.
- red-iron-pine 1y agoit's fuck-you money, but only with a lower-case 'f'
- renewiltord 1y ago[flagged]
- avidiax 1y agoPresumably, when these people bought their homes, they felt they'd be able to live with a relatively continuous sense of community, not feel forced to sell as a billionaire's compound encroached on them. There's an assumption that these homeowners are getting bought out above market, but what's the market rate for a multi-million dollar home next to the perpetual construction and noise of a billionaire's fife, on a street where an increasing number of homes are being bought out and lay vacant? And why would the property team not negotiate any sale somewhat aggressively?
- renewiltord 1y ago[flagged]
- lukan 1y ago"but what's the market rate for a multi-million dollar home next to the perpetual construction and noise of a billionaire's fife" I assume still pretty good, as the expectation is the billionair will rather pay a bit more, than be annoyed by the delay of his plans of grandeur.
- carodgers 1y ago[flagged]
- riskable 1y agoImagine being so sure you can do whatever TF you want that you ignore the law and build a school where one is not allowed to be built.
- wmichelin 1y agoHow does this hurt you if your kids don't go there?
- fecal_henge 1y agoSome people have the capacity to think something is wrong even if they are not affected.
- somanyphotons 1y agoKids will slam car doors at dropoff/pickup. It's pretty annoying. I used to live around the corner from a school and parents would use our street for it. They can also cause unexpected heavy traffic if they have some special event.
- bartvk 1y agoIt doesn't hurt me personally but the article opens with the sentence "Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic. An unlicensed school named after the Zuckerbergs’ pet chicken tipped them over the edge."
- CalRobert 1y agoSounds like a lot of the problem was caused by cars, which shouldn't be necessary for a school, ideally.
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- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dmix 1y ago> For almost a decade, the Zuckerbergs’ neighbors have been complaining to the city about noisy construction work, the intrusive presence of private security, and the hordes of staffers and business associates causing traffic and taking up street parking. Sounds like a normal day in the city
- renewiltord 1y ago[flagged]
- jjulius 1y agoThis isn't an accurate picture of the Bay Area I just left after residing in for five years. It's almost like you're only familiar with one corner of it.
- panzagl 1y agoIt is an accurate picture of Boulder though...
- jjulius 1y ago"They're all 80 year old ancients" is an "accurate picture" of a place where the median age is 28 and only 3% are actually that old?[1] [1]https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0807850-boulder-co/ https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0807850-boulder-c...
- Balgair 1y agoBoulder homeowners are not representative of the population of the city. Like, a lot of the town is just kids at CU. Also, a lot of the younger families are in what little apartments or condos there are in the city and aren't homeowners. Also, like, you probably should only look at adults anyways as under 18s are very unlikely to have their own houses. Granted a lot of 80+ year olds are in care facilities. And like, maybe we can relax this to 60+ years olds, in which case based on the raw data there, that's about 18% of the population. I mean, just looking around Boulder, the homeowners are old people, that's pretty clear.
- potato3732842 1y agoIt's literally any rich neighborhood.
- renewiltord 1y ago
- jameslk 1y agoZuck vs Bay Area NIMBYs… this is going to be a tough one to pick a side on
- jeffrallen 1y agoWhy not both? ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯
- em-bee 1y agoneither actually.
- happytoexplain 1y agoIt's OK to care about what's going on around your home and in your community. "NIMBY" is usually meant to imply that they are being unreasonable in their complaints.
- jameslk 1y agoAre you Zuck's neighbor? (...just kidding) At the individual level, I agree. Generally unfair to have some unzoned private school next to your house shuffling in people constantly. Though I doubt this would get much press if it weren't Zuck or the NIMBYs who can probably pull strings to get a story in the press about their harrowing plight and tormented lives (not saying that's what happened of course, and perhaps the neighbors aren't NIMBYs--who knows) As a group though, I think Zuck and any NIMBYs deserve each other
- tim333 1y agoThe horror of having a small school near your house!
- akd 1y agoThis is how jealousy and regular ol' misanthropy manifests itself in the suburban biome
- enahs-sf 1y agoGiven his wealth, this just feels lazy and unimaginative. Running a secret illegal school, okay, I get that. But getting caught up on the drop off and pick up? How does he not just build a secret tunnel entrance?
- astroflection 1y agoOr just get a secret tropical island.
- shawn_w 1y agoOr not so secret. He has a huge compound on Kauai.
- kawfey 1y agoI’m more confused why would he start a school in the first place…
- randycupertino 1y agoSo his kids will have the best of the best and won't have to interact with gen pop.
- didip 1y agoI don't get why he insist on doing what he want there. He could have way more land and privacy by living deeper inland, like Portola Valley or west of Saratoga. But still within spitting distance to civilization.
- stevoski 1y agoThe more I hear about this Zuckerberg character, the less I like him.
- bell-cot 1y agoJIC you've not also heard about... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45839481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45839481
- siliconc0w 1y agoIMO past like 1k sqft per person living at the address, the property tax should be exponential.
- somethingsome 1y agoAs a non US resident, I don't really get it. Can someone explain why is it such a crime to run a school? (illegal maybe, but I guess the purpose is still to teach to young people). Shouldn't we promote the creation of schools?
- a2128 1y agoNot a US resident either but there are zoning laws to ensure comfort for everyone. The article mentions the sorts of discomfort suddenly opening a school in a quiet neighborhood can cause. It causes upset especially when it's an elite private school that the neighborhood can't even benefit from at all. > Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic > For almost a decade, the Zuckerbergs’ neighbors have been complaining to the city about noisy construction work, the intrusive presence of private security, and the hordes of staffers and business associates causing traffic and taking up street parking
- potato3732842 1y agoSelection bias. Live and let live people don't wind up living in Palo Alto.
- randycupertino 1y agoIt's more that he moved into a dense residential neighborhood of single family homes and started buying up all the neighboring houses (11 so far, and he's offered on even more!) to create a massive walled off compound for himself, on which he then opened a private school for his family and his friend's kids. If he wanted to build some billionaire private compound why not go do that somewhere more remote where he could just have a ton of land enjoy doing whatever he wants with privacy and not bothering everyone instead of greedily hoovering up all family homes in a dense metro neighborhood. Not only is he decreasing housing in an area where it is desperately needed but he's bothering his neighbors with construction and noise with neverending renovations, increased traffic for all his staff, and his security team now harasses the neighbors when they're walking around on public sidewalks in front of their own houses.
- giardini 1y agoDoing so in a residential neighborhood is fraught with possible legal problems: The city, the neighborhood association(s), the county and the state likely have questions about the school, whether it is legal, licensed, and inspected as specified by all jurisdictions. What about any traffic impediments it causes? Fire hazards, who certified the school, the teachers, the equipment, is food served, is it a commercial or nonprofit concern, on and on. You get my drift.
- akagusu 1y agoThe reality is that billionaires can do whatever they want. The negative consequences are minimal or non existent
- bradlys 1y agoI’m late to this but just know the complaints about having a school in your neighborhood don’t fall on just Zuckerberg. Neighborhoods will literally do their hardest to shut down newly formed schools on old school campuses. Yes, if a place had a school on it before but went out of business or was formerly a government one or whatever - it doesn’t matter - if it comes back then the neighbors will protest and try to shut it down. This is how the Bay Area operates. People on HN (who are not from Silicon Valley and not involved in children’s upbringing) do not understand the level of NIMBYism that exists here. There is a reason why these homes are all so fucking expensive. Every neighborhood absolutely refuses to build due to NIMBYism.
- bell-cot 1y agoTo paraphrase Leona Helmsley - "We don't obey laws; only the little people obey laws."