Flashback - Mark Zuckerberg on billionaires: 'No one deserves to have that much money'
Flashback - Mark Zuckerberg on billionaires: 'No one deserves to have that much money'
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he ‘understands’ where Bernie Sanders is coming from, when the presidential candidate says billionaires shouldn’t exist.
Just for context, if you made 100k a year, an extremely enviable salary, and saved every penny somehow, you'd be a billionaire in exactly TEN THOUSAND YEARS.
No one can earn a billion dollars through honest labor and the sweat of their brow. It must be exploited out of others. It must be stolen. You cannot possess a billion dollars and be a decent human being. For any good you do, you can't approach the harm you've already inflicted upon others in the name of insatiable greed.
Oh I'm sorry, they've used their wealth to warp the culture and language to their benefit, so greed doesn't exist anymore. I meant "rational self-interest." also we have always been at war with Eurasia.
141I work 7 days a week and my wife works full time to get that $100k/year and it took us years to get where we are in our careers. $1million in assets is still so far away. It's such an incredible amount of money and Zuckerberg and friends have thousands of times that much money. It's just so crazy to think about.
36They've been getting away with it for centuries. Would you like to know more?
6100k isn’t that much in many regions these days. Its enough to get by but hardly enough to save to buy a house in the Seattle region.
6🤔 I don't necessarily believe that. An independent creator of a blockbuster franchise could in principle become a billionaire ethically. Like J.K. Rowling; she's estimated to have upwards of a $1.2 billion net worth. (say what you will about her) (I don't like her either but facts are facts)
3You're forgetting that it's not like we go to Rowling's house to get her books, or even download the manuscript P2P from her personal server.
Someone's exploited labor printed the folio, bound it, packed it, shipped it, stocked it, advertised it, sold it to you and put it into a bag...
And more, cut down the trees to make the paper, mixed the ink, delivered the reams and the vats to the factory...
10
"stolen"
Buddy it ain't stealing if we keep using the product and indirectly (directly) supporting the billionaires exploiting others.
EDIT: this comment was only directed at people who will see this kind of thing and not care. To those who don't believe you have a choice in dropping Facebook because of life events. I get it. Most people do business through Facebook even.
The problem is that Facebook has a hold on the market. I do understand this but the truth of the matter is if we could get people to stop supporting Facebook then they wouldn't make the money users keep fueling them with. It isn't your fault Facebook is a power house of social media. I don't blame consumers but was stating Facebook will continue to hold this market until consumers care.
I also do personally believe you can let go of Facebook or mitigate its use and I know this is possible because I do this myself. Yes, the guy who made the comment about supporting Facebook is using Facebook but only when necessary.
If you would like some tips and person tricks on how to mitigate your use then message me. I have just custom tailored my experience to use Facebook less and only for essential need, what little it provides.
My problem with using the word, "stolen." Is that stealing is usually being done without our notice. It isn't stealing if you have been caught multiple times and no one cares. At that point it's just using.
-28I think you underestimate the propaganda influence they have. I don't consider it voluntary by most, any more than I blame a North Korean citizen for hating the west as they've been indoctrinated to do, it's the fault of the power above them.
The power above us isn't our purchased government, it's capital. And it propagandizes us to defend this system from Kindergarten to colleges of economics to the for profit news they own. And if that doesn't work, they control the means of state violence through the government and both major parties they fully own and control to defend their profits and interests against the peasants. We aren't approaching Orwellian society, we've surpassed it. Legions of peasants advocate directly against their own interests because thats what all of us are taught to do, you have to buck that pressure to even truly open your eyes and know whats going on.
19I was off Facebook for years, and was never a heavy user, but I had to get back on because the school my daughter goes to sends out so many notifications that way.
Facebook is very ingrained in how business and groups interact these days, what's an individual to do? Disconnect from the world and miss important school notifications, among other things?
Plus the "stealing" isn't just from people using the platform, it's also in wages and benefits for employees. Why aren't they getting a bigger share of those profits they worked to produce?
8
Says the guy trying to earn a trillion. Fuck him government should break up his company and hold him to his words.
92I don't know if I'd say "earn" so much as "amass"
24And tar and feather him in town square
8Before or after the French Royalty treatment?
3
Years ago Microsoft was about to be broken into separate entities and that didn't happen - corporations went too deep into politicians pockets
4He said he "doesn't deserve it" he didn't say he wasn't gonna get that bag lol
3
Is there a single impressive philanthropic feat that has been achieved by any of these billionaires?
If I had access to hundreds of billions and I wasn't able to solve a single meaningful welfare issue for even a single country in the world in my own lifetime, I would consider that abject failure.
51Most people say Bill Gates but it reminds me of the classic joke:
The woman you know as your grandmother is not my mother. That's an elderly woman now trying to get into heaven
Bill Gates acted identically to Zuckerberg and Musk and every other hated billionare back in the 90s. There was a time Micro$oft was always written with the dollar sign. There was a time a young smug grinning Gates was posted everywhere as the poster child for rich assholes. The Microsoft board of directors did the smart move and removed Gates from management and then he quietly retired. He's had an Ebenezer Scrooge moment and has spent the last decade trying to buy his way into people's good graces.
It's great that Gates is helping people, but I don't think we should all have to suffer under a power hungry cut throat CEO and hope one day they have a change of heart.
52Same as any robber baron.
5He forced the covid vaccine to go private with Moderna. Micro$oft was cute and all but these pharmaceutical companies have killed and are killing hundreds of thousands simply by charging so much for the cure.
2
Bill Gates has done significant good fighting disease. Still something that should've been decided by society, not a single person, but credit where credit is due.
Unfortunately anti vaxxers have destroyed a lot of that legacy anyway.
23Bill Gates has done significant good fighting disease.
No, he got in the way of progress for the sake of his own profit. The scientists that made the covid vaccine wanted it to be open source so any country could make their own, but he forced the company to patent it instead.
He's also been funding anti-scientific propaganda to convince people that his anti-solutions will solve the climate crisis. His foundation also regularly invests in ventures that pollute the Global South.
29
Mackenzie Scott seems to be making it her mission to no longer be a billionaire by giving money to charity.
5Last reports indicate that she can't give it away fast enough, but I'm not sure she's really trying
3
Capitalists actually keep the developing world from fully developing. On purpose. And NGO Aid has been proven to stagnage rather than assist countries that are constantly receiving it, such as Haiti. Yeah I would consider that failure, too. But they certainly wouldn't. And perhaps, with that many eyes in you, it might actually be harder to get things done that go against the interests of other rich and powerful people.
2Permanently Deleted
0Well there have been some...
Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, Vanderbilt University and Duke University. John D. Rockefeller funded the University of Chicago
Denny Sanford, of Sanford Health, has donated about $1.5 billion to healthcare.
-1
...except me"
41Billionaires bad
- A billionaire
29Love how people are confusing salaries or yearly income to net worth.
Net worth is the total accumulated value of all the stuff you own (value of assets minus the liabilities) - houses, cars, investments, etc. That is massively different than what you are getting paid each year which is what a lot of people here are using as a metric.
It isn't out of the question for someone to make "only" $100 or 200k/year and be considered a "millionaire" by most people's definition. They might be older and have paid off their house. That house might be worth $500k and all the other stuff they own is a few hundred thousand more. Plus maybe $100k in some investment portfolio. Thus making them technically a millionaire. There are a lot more millionaires out there than people realize, including some people here or their parents or maybe grand parents.
That's not to take away from the argument that billionaires have too much money, but at least phrase the movement correctly. Stop equating someone making $50k/year with someone's who's assets are worth $1B. That's comparing apples to oranges and not just by the sheer difference in the numbers either.
10Sounds like he's been humbled by the Metaverse's failure. Big money also means big losses one day.
Jeff Bezos recently pledged to donate about $124b for charity and fighting climate change. It really seems like these billionaires have been hit by 3 ghosts.
Still eat the rich, but I guess there's been some good news from them.
8From https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/business/jeff-bezos-charity/index.html:
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to give away the majority of his $124 billion net worth during his lifetime, telling CNN in an exclusive interview he will devote the bulk of his wealth to fighting climate change and supporting people who can unify humanity in the face of deep social and political divisions.
Though Bezos’ vow was light on specifics, this marks the first time he has announced that he plans to give away most of his money. Critics have chided Bezos for not signing the Giving Pledge, a promise by hundreds of the world’s richest people to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes.
So he made a vague promise, "light on specifics", that he would give away "most" of his money to fighting the climate change that is exacerbated by his lifetime's work and the social divisions that he has worked relentlessly to entrench? He could fight social divisions by treating his employees well and allowing them to unionize, but Amazon is notorious for mistreating its workers, it profits off forced labour in China, and he has fought dirty against unionization at every opportunity.
Forgive me for suspecting he's full of shit with his vague and noncommittal promise, after a self-serving lifetime of aggressively doing the opposite.
25Yeah, the wealthy “giving it all away” is always a bullshit scheme in some way. If they really felt that way, they would have shared the profits with those who helped create them. This sort of wealth only happens in literally one situation: greed overcomes compassion for others.
These schemes usually fall into one of three categories:
-
I fucking hate my kids and don’t have anyone I think actually deserves this money, so I’m giving it to some random charities of my choosing when I die because I know damn well I can’t spend it all and I have to do something with it
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I’m just putting it all into a charitable trust that I still have full control over and likely won’t spend much out of it, unless it benefits me personally
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Straight up bullshit PR campaign about a future promise that is not binding
Quite often, it’s a combination of 1 and 2, locking up the money for a loooong time and only to be used for a specific purpose.
8-
These tactics are precisely intended to placate critics.
It is not good news when Bezos commits funds to charity and fighting climate change.
Good news would be the mass of society rising to end the conditions that cause climate change and that make charity necessary.
4
Mark Zuckerberg now: must... get... more... money!
2I mean, hate on him if you want, but this isn't really hypocritical. He doesn't take a salary, his entire fortune is from Meta stock he owns, and he has a sort of Bill Gates thing going on where he plans to donate the majority of his Meta stock wealth through his own foundation. From what I've heard they've funded some serious medical advancements and have plans to bring more AI to the space.
I don't think billionaires should exist either, but it's not like he can just give it all away without losing control of his company.
2