Says the guy trying to earn a trillion. Fuck him government should break up his company and hold him to his words.
Flashback - Mark Zuckerberg on billionaires: 'No one deserves to have that much money'
Submitted 1 year ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to workreform@lemmy.world
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/tech/mark-zuckerberg-bernie-sanders-billionaires/index.html
Comments
Fredselfish@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Maeve@kbin.social 1 year ago
“They trust me, dumb fucks,” was uttered by him years before that and his non-’answers to Congress.
misterundercoat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t know if I’d say “earn” so much as “amass”
rivr@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Years ago Microsoft was about to be broken into separate entities and that didn’t happen - corporations went too deep into politicians pockets
dangblingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
He said he “doesn’t deserve it” he didn’t say he wasn’t gonna get that bag lol
killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Most 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$oft was always written with the dollar sign. There was a time a young smug grinning Gates was posted everywhere as the poster child for rich assholes. The Microsoft board of directors did the smart move and removed Gates from management and then he quietly retired. He’s had an Ebenezer Scrooge moment and has spent the last decade trying to buy his way into people’s good graces.
It’s great that Gates is helping people, but I don’t think we should all have to suffer under a power hungry cut throat CEO and hope one day they have a change of heart.
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Fortunately greater numbers are coming to realized that the Gates Foundation’s function was never much more than reputation laundering.
Donkter@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Same as any robber baron.
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
He forced the covid vaccine to go private with Moderna. Micro$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.
Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
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.
Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
Bill 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.
Kalkaline@leminal.space 1 year ago
Mackenzie Scott seems to be making it her mission to no longer be a billionaire by giving money to charity.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Last reports indicate that she can’t give it away fast enough, but I’m not sure she’s really trying
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
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.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Well 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.
AdamantRatPuncher@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What are you solving with money alone? We need intent before money. Globally we lack intent, even if some rich guy spends some money, we need to locate human resources. That doesn’t mean I can disregard philanthropy. That alone doesn’t solve things
ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
…except me"
roguetrick@kbin.social 1 year ago
I'm sure he's self aware enough to know he doesn't deserve it. I think there's very few people that believe that there exists a meritocratic place in this earth.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I get the impression plenty of these ultra-rich techbros come to believe that they’re there by merit. They don’t see all the luck that went into their riches, and they habitually take credit for the work done by those beneath them. People like Bezos and Musk may genuinely believe they’re better (smarter, more insightful, more capable) than others. I expect many ultra-rich CEOs get like that, not just in tech companies.
tdawg@lemmy.world 1 year ago
As someone who works in tech any co-founder who gets anywhere abso-fucking-lutely believes their shit smells different. They wrap it up in all of this colorful language about making a difference and helping people and “impact,” but at the end of the day they’re there to exploit you and your coworkers to make millions
jcit878@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I tend to agree, but then again this is the guy that intentionally has a shit haircut so he can look like some Roman dude
Hazdaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Love 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.
dangblingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Okay, but Zuck doesn’t make 50K a year. He makes billions a year. AND he has a net worth of over $100B.
meekah@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Meta makes billions a year. Zuck “just” makes millions.
He’s definitely filthy rich, but it’s not like he makes billions for his personal spending.
UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sounds 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.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
From www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/business/…/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 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 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 lifetime of doing the opposite.
Changetheview@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, 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:
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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.
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unfreeradical@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
Steeve@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I mean, hate on him if you want, but this isn’t really hypocritical. He doesn’t take a salary, his entire fortune is from Facebook 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.
AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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 the sweat of their brow. It must be exploited out of others. It must be stolen.
Kalkaline@leminal.space 1 year ago
I 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.
pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
🤔 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.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
You’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…
Prethoryn@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“stolen”
Buddy it ain’t stealing if we keep using the product and indirectly (directly) supporting the billionaires exploiting others.
AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I 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.
venorathebarbarian@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I 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?
Nobody@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They’ve been getting away with it for centuries. Would you like to know more?
June@lemm.ee 1 year ago
100k 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.
KevonLooney@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You forget the impact of compound interest. If you invested 1 dollar at 1% interest, you would have a billion dollars in just over 2000 years. So these comparisons based on income are not useful.
dangblingus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you invested money at 1% interest, you would lose money due to inflation.