Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-school-palo-alto-shut-down/

by randycupertino • 9 months ago

121 60 9 months ago

My 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-a...

pinewurst• 9 months ago

https://archive.ph/LnWTd

lateforwork• 9 months ago

My 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-resistor2• 9 months ago

Billionaire 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.

trhway• 9 months 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.

bonestamp2• 9 months ago

I 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.

googlryas2• 9 months ago

He 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"

takinola• 9 months ago

Lots 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• 9 months ago

If you consider Palo Alto "regular people". I think regular people consider Palo Alto as where centimillionaire CEOs live.

dmix• 9 months 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

samtp• 9 months ago

Do you actually consider this neighborhood in Palo Alto a city?

DANmode2• 9 months ago

Not my city.

jameslk2• 9 months ago

Zuck vs Bay Area NIMBYs… this is going to be a tough one to pick a side on

jeffrallen• 9 months ago

Why not both? ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

em-bee• 9 months ago

neither actually.

happytoexplain• 9 months ago

It'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.

jameslk2• 9 months ago

Are 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• 9 months ago

The horror of having a small school near your house!

akd2• 9 months ago

This is how jealousy and regular ol' misanthropy manifests itself in the suburban biome

enahs-sf• 9 months ago

Given 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• 9 months ago

Or just get a secret tropical island.

shawn_w• 9 months ago

Or not so secret. He has a huge compound on Kauai.

kawfey• 9 months ago

I’m more confused why would he start a school in the first place…

randycupertino3• 9 months ago

So his kids will have the best of the best and won't have to interact with gen pop.

didip• 9 months ago

I 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• 9 months ago

The more I hear about this Zuckerberg character, the less I like him.

bell-cot2• 9 months ago

JIC you've not also heard about...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45839481

siliconc0w• 9 months ago

IMO past like 1k sqft per person living at the address, the property tax should be exponential.

somethingsome• 9 months ago

As 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• 9 months ago

Not 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

potato37328422• 9 months ago

Selection bias. Live and let live people don't wind up living in Palo Alto.

randycupertino3• 9 months ago

It'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• 9 months ago

Doing 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• 9 months ago

The reality is that billionaires can do whatever they want. The negative consequences are minimal or non existent

bradlys• 9 months ago

I’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-cot2• 9 months ago

To paraphrase Leona Helmsley - "We don't obey laws; only the little people obey laws."

Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

Related Stories