Liking the gift from Zuckerberg
The decision by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to gradually give away 99% of their vast Facebook wealth has generated a number of wisecracks about them having to get by on the 1% they would retain, currently valued at $450 million.
But when people pledge to give away the vast majority of their wealth, it should be recognized and “liked.” Believe it or not, there are people for whom a nest egg of $450 million would be a hardship.
Take, for example, hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin. In the past two years, he has dropped $290 million on real estate alone, according to The New York Times, including a purchase of three floors of a luxury high-rise under construction in New York. Fellow hedge fund manager Steve Cohen reportedly has dropped $482.5 million on four paintings by wellknown artists. And industrial tycoon Ira Rennert lives in a $248 million, 110,000 square-foot palace on 63 acres of beachfront property in the Hamptons. His neighbors derisively call it “Versailles on the Atlantic.”
These are just three examples of fabulously wealthy individuals flaunting their wealth. So when someone like Zuckerberg, 31, creates a widely popular medium of expression and communication, and then promises to donate most of the fruits of his highly inspired labor to charity, he creates something of a teachable moment.
He follows in the footsteps of Bill Gates, who has spent much of his post-Microsoft time giving his money and encouraging others to follow suit (though, to be sure, he does live in a rather swell house on Lake Washington near Seattle). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has made great progress in eradicating polio and in combating diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, Guinea worm and AIDS.
Zuckerberg also is of the ilk of Warren Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO who became one of the world’s wealthiest people through shrewd investing and frugal living. Buffett has initiated a plan to give most of his wealth to the Gates’ foundation. And, when his kids were still young, Buffett made clear that he would give them “enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.”
The actions of Gates, Buffett and now Zuckerberg are what society should expect of its fabulously wealthy business executives, as opposed to sprees of conspicuous consumption.