Mark Zuckerberg Just Gave $990 Million To Charity

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-just-gave-990-million-to-charity-2013-12

by chaz • 13 years ago

23 3 13 years ago

jumbled• 13 years ago

More accurate title: "Mark Zuckerberg Just Gave 18 Million Facebook Shares to Charities, One of Which is His Own Charity"

Is there precedence for giving stocks to charities? To me that doesn't seem quite the same as donating to charity. More of a PR move than an act of good will.

eigenvalue• 13 years ago

This is absurd. The charity can immediately sell the stock if it wants to. There are large tax advantages to the donor for donating highly appreciate shares of stock (see https://www.google.com/search?q=donating+highly+appreciated+... ).

If someone were planning on giving to charity anyway, it would be crazy to pay the taxes on the appreciated shares and give what is left over after taxes to the charity, when you could instead just give the shares (the charity would still get the full value even if the shares were immediately sold, because most charities are tax exempt).

forgottenpass• 13 years ago

Good on him, I say that because the rest of my post isn't about him, but culture in general.

But when Mark Zuckerberg follows the lead of other tech giants, like Bill Gates, and makes massive charitable donations, it restores your faith in the industry's humans.

Zuckerberg dumped some stock onto his own charity before going back to his day job of eroding privacy and creeping on social relationships for profit. I always assumed that if you could look at him divorced from the opinions he holds to rationalize his business model, that Zuckerberg would be a decent person. Most people are.

If the Business Insider writer's faith in valley tech dudes is restored by this, he is way more jaded than I ever expected. The "Arrogance Bubble" article the author links suggest my cynicism might even need to be turned up a few clicks.

Mark Zuckerberg Just Gave $990 Million To Charity

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