Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

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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.

> Consider the alternative.

Well, and he won't get plaudits for "donating his fortune" either.

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?

I don't mind that he's filthy rich. That's how capitalism works. Good for him.

But I don't like dynasties. I don't like that trusts and foundations are being used as a way to bring back dynastic wealth and power.

You see this at play in the most powerful families in America: the Kennedies, Clintons, Bushes, Romneys, Pelosis. They all use trusts and foundations to preserve wealth between generations.

I understand why people are skeptical.

I agree - dynasties are a huge problem. I always find it ironic too how much tax there is on capital gains, but how little there is when estate is transferred after someone passes away. One was earned and the was inherited. If we forced people to give back most of their money on passing it would it work in favor of better wealth distribution.

If my son is lazy and live on my $45B fortune after I pass away, he alone can't effect Joe's living cost. So how would giving my money back to the society end up helping Mr. Joe? If I make $80 per hour today, and my CEO makes $1000 per hour, are you suggesting that putting all that $45B back will eventually turn a similar me salary to $200 per hour, while the CEO continues to stay at $1000, so closing the wealth gap, 60 years from now.

> If my son is lazy and live on my $45B fortune after I pass away, he alone can't effect Joe's living cost.

Yes, he can. For a fairly extreme case, he could expend a substantial fraction of the recurring proceeds generated by the investment of that fortune buying up some good or combination of goods which whose production competes with that of basic necessities that Joe needs in terms of some of the needed production inputs, by so doing he drives up the manufacturing costs of those necessities (and, thus, their market clearing price, by affecting the supply curve for those goods), and increases Joe's living costs.

Well it might change the way taxation and government spending work if there was a steadier flow from people after they died. If the government has more money to put towards everyone's ability to live a healthy and happy life then I call that improving wealth.

EDIT: Not to mention the jobs that government can directly create with more money to spend. That's an even more direct example of wealth distribution, really.

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

Private people having money: bad.

Politicians and bureaucrats having unlimited power: good.

We allow individuals to amass that much power because people look to the folks around them to see what products they should use.

Concentration of power is an emergent property of network effects. As long as "being popular" is positively correlated with your decision to use a product, then the products that are already popular will get more popular, and their owners will get rich. It's largely (but not entirely) random who the owners are, but their existence is guaranteed.

If everybody thought for themselves and made their decisions independently of what everyone else does, you'd see a much more egalitarian distribution of wealth. But unfortunately most people lack the courage (or maybe just time & energy) to make up their own minds, and outsource their opinions to others. Ironically, many of the very rich are the biggest critics of this phenomena - indeed, the reason they got rich was because they had the ability to think for themselves and see what other people didn't see.

The same applies to political power (people would rather vote for a Clinton or Bush than an unknown candidate just because they have the brand name recognition) and to fame (Paris Hilton got to be famous because people talk about her. Why do they talk about her? Because their friends talk about her.)

Easy. We don't "allow" things to happen. Things happen. Nobody went around the room and asked everyone if they could give money to facebook.

I think you should provide arguments as to why shouldn't we. If you are really serious about changing the current status quote you are the one that needs to convince me to join your side. I do no need to justify why things are the way they are.

Whole separate question. He already has that much money and that much power.

The legal system exists to temper the interplay between wealth and power -- instead of a completely unregulated environment where someone can buy up mercenaries and become their own state, we have reasonable market regulations that keep the playing field fair for all comers and prevent the super-rich from affecting unfair distortions of either the market or society at large.

If seriously corrupting effects can occur from one person's use of money, we have a larger issue and need to address the cause (someone can use money to cause a big, society-wide problem), not the symptom (someone has a lot of money and is using it in a socially-disastrous way). If we're nitpicking at individual's monetary use, the system is broken.

Individuals should be able to amass any amount of money and not cause large-scale social damage. Looking at a set of fortunes above a certain size and confiscating them because we can't build a resilient system is totally bad. In effect, we're already doing it with income tax.

If you don't contend that Zuck will cause large-scale social damage, what's wrong with him having that much money and using it as he sees fit? After all, he "earned" it.

Because it's worked better than any other system that humanity has tried?

If you're so willing for him not to amass this much fortune and wield that amount of power, simply boycott his companies and stop supporting him with your devices. After all, Zuckerberg doesn't run or own any monopoly natural or not to find it difficult or practically impossible not to give him your money or time currency.

In short yes. When there is competition, there are survivors and deceases. If you believe in democratic republic, then you can look at his accomplishment as a co-founder of Facebook as one of the few successful social network products surviving a heated market election.

You have a choice to not use Facebook, and if everyone refuses to use Facebook, he will lose his wealth and his influence. When was the last time you heard about Tom from MySpace on TV? He and his team have done a great job promoting the product, despite issues like privacy.

If you are looking from an ideal socialism, then I am sad to inform you that socialism does not work at all because most human I know have opinions, and when there's opinion people take side, and when people take side people turn into control. When people have professional skill, they become experts, and when they are experts, they are assigned roles. You wouldn't listen to me for medical advice. Between a nobody physicist and a Nobel laureate in Physics, the Nobel laureate's opinions obviously carry more weight in a conference talk.

And btw, he doesn't have $45B in his bank account. Most of his money are still virtual, in bytes (argue about silver vs greenback, in the 1800s).

Of course there is danger in accumulating power. For a nation, being the most powerful doesn't mean you have to stick your head in everyone's else affairs. There is always some gains and some losses when a giant arises. Giants with the right vision can create quality products (i.e. Apple), but giants dictating vision (i.e. Microsoft) can cause life fortune to turn around (although Microsoft is doing much better in the last few years).

You can be the forerunner in your competition, but if you want to maintain your influence, you must allow some competitions. Only way to innovate is to accept challenges. You don't write better code unless someone critique you. That's the difference between a thinker and a narrator.

I thought that was capitalism and I thought we all agreed that that was good.

To be fair, it's his money. It's not that he bought a lottery ticket and won the jackpot. He build a company and made loads of money. It's up to him what to do with it, I guess.

> I thought that was capitalism and I thought we all agreed that that was good.

It might be a remnant of capitalism, but capitalism was relatively controversial when it was the dominant economic system of the developed world (it was named as a system by those critical of it!), was displaced everywhere in the developed world by modern mixed economies, and even the degree of capitalism present in those economies remains controversial.

So, no, I don't think "we all agreed" that capitalism was good.

> I thought that was capitalism and I thought we all agreed that that was good.

Hacker != capitalist !

Because "communism" is a four-letter-word in most of America.

This is such a weird question.

> What he's doing is smart if he wants to have the maximum impart on the world.

I like how he's found a way to give his money away while keeping it.

He uses an LLC instead of a charity. This is some smart stuff. It's also nasty.

He skirts oversight that is typically rendered on actual charities precisely so that they don't allow their backers to dip twice into the social pie. He gets to keep his money, and he gets to be a philanthropist.

Consider two situations: 1) Zuckerberg wants to preserve his fortune whilst gaining good PR for donating money to charity. 2) Zuckerberg genuinely wants to change the world.

In (1), it clearly hasn't worked then given all of the comments around here. Is it not highly likely that he would have considered this backlash that he received? If I was in his position and wanted to achieve (1), I would make a high profile donation of ~$1 billion (~2% of his worth) to a respectable charity.

The global distribution of anti-malarial bed nets would never have as great an impact on health and poverty as something like the invention of the electric light bulb. Sometimes what is best for increasing quality of life around the world isn't the redistribution of wealth and cannot be achieved in a charitable structure. In scenario (2), it is completely reasonable to set up an LLC for this purpose. Instead of thinking 'what's the worst he can do?' think 'what's the best he can do?'

> In (1), it clearly hasn't worked then given all of the comments around here. Is it not highly likely that he would have considered this backlash that he received? If I was in his position and wanted to achieve (1), I would make a high profile donation of ~$1 billion (~2% of his worth) to a respectable charity.

Most people think he gave the money to charity. They will notice this isn't the case when the "charity" has amassed 5x its current value and he's donating 10B to someone's political campaign.

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