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MolierthanthouSam Biddle
12/01/15 6:15pm
So basically Max will now grow up to be the head of said Foundation and for years to come all the little Zuckerbrats will have jobs in their very own foundation. I see you, Zuckerberg. But yeah, why not help existing charities. Like wouldn’t more get done if there were say... ten giant charities that tackled the great issues (cancer, poverty, etc.) and then tiny ones on a local level that help specific communities. It seems like all the middle ones are just taking money from one or the other. But, then again, the giant ones spend way too much on marketing & PR. Oh well, maybe there isn't a good answer.
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  ListerineyMolierthanthou
  12/01/15 6:19pm
  I’m not a fan of Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg in particular, but even if he did nothing more than donate that money to the CDC and the hospitals it’s a hell of a lot more money than Steve Jobs 0r Apple ever did. They’re worth faaaaaaar more and yet have practically zero giving programs.
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  Smokin JayMolierthanthou
  12/01/15 6:23pm
  Sounds exactly like Chelsea Clinton getting two million a year for “working” for the Clinton Foundation, eh?
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JohninLASam Biddle
12/01/15 6:15pm
I didn’t think Sam would be able to poo-poo (the commitment to) a $45 billion giveaway but lo and behold.
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  Bronze Sebs FeverJohninLA
  12/01/15 6:26pm
  Yeeeah...there’s jaded and then there’s jaded. This is too jaded even for me.
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  floribundasBronze Sebs Fever
  12/01/15 7:21pm
  It’s beyond jaded, there’s a point where you’re just an asshole.
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Chuck E.Sam Biddle
12/01/15 6:17pm
Nothing is good enough, right? I mean, Bill Gates is also giving away 99% of his wealth, but mostly to his own charity! And what has that charity ever done for us? Nothing!

(Except, fight AIDS in Africa, help end world hunger, illiteracy, etc. etc. etc.)
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  TeenaBurnerChuck E.
  12/01/15 6:23pm
  While it’s likely that Zuckerberg has been inspired by Gates, you can’t expect people to let him ride on someone else’s more positive track record of philanthropy, can you?
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  ReburnsABurningReturnsTeenaBurner
  12/01/15 6:31pm
  No, but I do think taking this step shows that Zuckerberg cares about how he is remembered. To me the takeaway from that is that even if his previous efforts at philanthropy have sucked, public ridicule and outcry could get him to change that.
  
  If Zuckerberg wants to be remembered as Gates, that’s a much better outcome for us collectively than other probable (e.g. not considering impossible ones like a 99% estate tax) outcomes.
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ReburnsABurningReturnsSam Biddle
12/01/15 6:19pm
With a 99% estate tax, would our public schools need saving from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg?

No, but with sane, federalized education policy that took the power of curriculum determination out the hands of elected creationist dingbats with no qualifications, it also wouldn’t need that saving. However, seeing as neither of those things is a possibility, why bother contemplating them?

I feel like the length of this piece is due in large part to the fact that you realize on a sub-conscious level you’re letting bitterness get in the way of what should at least be a mild sense of relief.

It may not be perfect, and for fuck’s sake I’m not even saying he deserves any award for donating wealth he could never have put to better use than the rest of the globe, but this represents an actual opportunity, as compared to your fantasy of a 99% estate tax, for people to find ways to allocate this money more effectively than he would.

He’s like, 3-4 decades younger than Bill Gates. It is entirely possible that he will, you know, get better at philanthropy as he ages and actually does it more. Gates certainly has.
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  festivusaziliReburnsABurningReturns
  12/01/15 6:57pm
  It’s definitely way too early to say his attempt to run a charity will be a bust. Maybe it will; maybe it will fail spectacularly! But we just don’t know at this point.
  
  Also, reading some of the articles about the failure of the Newark donation is just jarring. There is definitely a hint of “Look at this fool, thinking he can come and fix our permanently broken system with money. He should leave it to the real experts; the ones that broke it in the first place.”
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  benjaminalloverfestivusazili
  12/01/15 9:40pm
  It’s not his first attempt, and this isn’t actually a charity though.
  
  I completely disagree with you about Newark; he spent all the money on high priced consultants who didn’t have a clue what the conditions and history and specific challenges were, and all of them from outside the community. It was doomed from the start.
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zingSam Biddle
12/01/15 6:15pm
advancing human potential = getting more people on Facebook

and promoting equality = getting more cheap programmers into the U.S on H1B visas.
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  eman6198zing
  12/01/15 7:39pm
  People on H1Bs get paid a shit ton.
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  Obrunizing
  12/01/15 9:48pm
  H1B holders are paid higher wages than American citizens except in Life Sciences.”cheap” to whom exactly?
  
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flamingolingoSam Biddle
12/01/15 6:41pm
This really is the new Gilded Age. We have to rely on benevolent (though sometimes befuddled) billionaires to fund public services like education. Meanwhile, they can afford all that largesse in the first place because legal chicanery lets them avoid paying their fair share of taxes or (in the case of Apple, for example) paying workers fairly.
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  Iványi Mártonflamingolingo
  12/02/15 12:01pm
  Additionally since charity is tax deductible (in the US, unlike most countries) this essentially means that instead of the government spending their tax dollars (on schools, etc.) it’s up to billionaires what that money is spent on. Some billionaires can have some strange world views and fund some strange charities/projects.
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  flamingolingoIványi Márton
  12/02/15 2:06pm
  Yes, the provision of public goods should not be left up to the whims of billionaires. Tax the fuck out of them and let the people decide how to spend it.
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mmsfcSam Biddle
12/01/15 7:23pm
How much more could be accomplished by taxing that 45 billion and putting it in public coffers that fund public schools, not private dreamscapes and public hospitals, not private pharmaceutical companies?

There’s something profoundly wrong with a system that automatically that amount of money toward any one individual. A PBS report on global warming and poverty said outright, “Bill Gates has more money than several countries in Africa.” So does Zuckerberg.

“A study in the Lancet in 2009 showed only 1.4 per cent of the (Gates) Foundation’s grants between 1998 and 2007 went to public-sector organizations, while of the 659 NGOs receiving grants, only 37 were headquartered in low- or middle-income countries.”

“(F)ive per cent of the (Gates) Foundation’s annual global health funding goes directly to lobbying and advocacy, this money (over $100 million) talks loudly. Gates funds institutions ranging from US university departments to major international development NGOs. The Foundation is the main player in several global health partnerships and one of the single largest donors to the WHO. This gives it considerable leverage in shaping health policy priorities and intellectual norms.” http://newint.org/features/2012/…
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  Jiggs72mmsfc
  12/02/15 12:45pm
  Ummm you are aware that he does pay tax on that money right? Any time he cashes out any of his stock in Facebook he pays tax. As for your other statements, you are trying very hard to find fault. The reason Gates primarily funds NGOs in developed countries is because they are functional and honest. Try to find an NGO headquartered in a low income country that is not a kleptocracy.
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  mmsfcJiggs72
  12/02/15 2:22pm
  Not so much tax - 15% versus 35% if it were considered income. Also, if it’s transferred to a foundation, there is no tax.
  
  As to the corruption issues, regardless of where the NGO is located, it still has to deal with government corruption. An NGO that’s working from a distance cannot possibly know what is happening in the locations they are to assist. That’s why organizations like Doctors Without Borders sets up local offices.
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TheDamnPaterfamiliasSam Biddle
12/01/15 6:22pm
Hm. Using the perjorative “blinkered worldview” toward someone who just gave 99% of their fortune away. That’s some solid gold irony right there.
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  threskosTheDamnPaterfamilias
  12/01/15 8:01pm
  I don’t feel that Gates, Zuckerberg, et al, should be reviled or spat upon for donating 99% of their money...but I agree with the other posters who say if they paid their fair share of taxes (39.6% of all the money Zuckerberg has ever earned is a quite lot of money that he is essentially stealing from America) that would go much further.
  
  The other thing to consider is that 1% of his billions is still more money than his family could ever spend in their lifetimes. It is easy to be charitable when you have appropriated many millions of times the amount of money as your contribution to society could possibly be worth.
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  1935 Mercedes-Benz 150H, King of Ass-Engined CarsTheDamnPaterfamilias
  12/01/15 8:57pm
  He didn’t “just give 99% of his fortune away”. All he will be doing is slowly funding his own charity over the next several decades. You have to twist it pretty far to say that he’s “giving his fortune away”.
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dothedewSam Biddle
12/01/15 6:17pm
Too bad by the time he gets around to making most of the donations, his FB stock will be worth nowhere near $45B. But good for him. If his daughter cannot get a job at FB, she can always run his foundation. It’s all about giving back to the next generation.
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  nabokovcocktaildothedew
  12/01/15 6:26pm
  Try to be less sexist.
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  dothedewnabokovcocktail
  12/01/15 6:59pm
  ?
  
  Should I have not mentioned the gender of his newborn, the person who led to this whole announcement?
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TheEmBeeSam Biddle
12/01/15 7:35pm
Yeah. Fuck this guy who is putting his money where his mouth is and taking the big money gambles to improve the world. Fuck this stupid pithy little man who’s done nothing to change the way we interact with almost everyone . What a dummy.

He’s a programmer with billions and isn’t afraid to spend them on his passion projects. The Newark investment was a failure? So easy to tell after bit a few years. He started the ball rolling in an area which was largely ignored. He gives a shit and it shows.

You're right. Fuck this guy to hell
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  sxp153TheEmBee
  12/01/15 8:06pm
  Anyone who actually cared about schools (e.g., teachers) knew that the Newark project was going to be a failure. It was easy to criticize even when it was happening, since the point of it was to spend a ton of money on consultants to UNDERMINE the public schools, not to improve them.
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  Whalphy7TheEmBee
  12/01/15 10:17pm
  He’s actually a mediocre programmer with an unfounded god-complex, that helped write an app that makes people spend more time communicating with each other online than in real life.
  
  Then he promised his fortune “at some future date” with stock in a company that’s destined to devaluate. Then he’ll manage that into a tail-spin just like Newark, while wealthy middle managers get richer. He’s a fucking hero.
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