发布时间:2024-12-08 15:16:02 作者:开云(中国)Kaiyun 点击量: 740
Every parent knows the biological intoxication — at least for a few weeks — of having your first child. That, plus living in California and being a technology idealist, may account for the somewhat sappy tone of Mark Zuckerberg’s letter this week to his new daughter Max, in which he announced that he will devote 99 per cent of his $45bn wealth to good works.父母在步入第一个宝宝时都会感受到一种生物性的激动——最少头几个星期如此。这种初为人父的喜乐,再加住在加利福尼亚州,再行再加身兼一个科技理想主义者,也许能说明为什么马克丠克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)不会在本周给他才出生于的女儿麦克斯(Max)写那封充满著温情的信,在信中他宣告将把自己450亿美元的财富捐献99%给慈善事业。The Facebook founder’s pledge, with his wife Priscilla Chan, of “a moral responsibility to all children in the next generation” is no doubt deeply felt and genuine. It also has a coolly rational outcome — that he can demerge two things that have been mixed up in a single corporate structure: Facebook and philanthropy. The “social mission” he declared at Facebook when it went public in 2012 now has another outlet.这位Facebook创始人与他的妻子普莉希拉陈(Priscilla Chan)许诺要“对下一代所有孩子肩负起道义上的责任”,夫妻二人这份允诺毫无疑问是衷心和真情实意的。他们的允诺还不会带给一个理性的结果,扎克伯格可以将仍然混合在一个企业架构里的两件事——Facebook和慈善事业分离出来出去。
2012年Facebook上市时,扎克伯格在Facebook上声称的“社会愿景”现在有了另一个构建途径。Warren Buffett has no higher social purpose for Berkshire Hathaway than achieving strong returns for shareholders; nor did Bill Gates for Microsoft when he was running it. The $41bn Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Mr Buffett has promised to donate much of his wealth, is their main vehicle for venture philanthropy, impact investing, or call it what you will. Like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google’s founders, Mr Zuckerberg has until now combined running a corporation, investing in offbeat ideas and making the world a better place. His letter to investors in Facebook’s initial public offering was more sober than this week’s missive but shared some of the same idealism, with its talk of creating “more direct empowerment of people”.沃伦巴菲特(Warren Buffett)对伯克希尔哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)抱着有反感的社会目的,但他某种程度反感地想为股东构建可观报酬。
比尔盖茨(Bill Gates)在接掌微软公司(Microsoft)期间也是如此。他们展开公益创投或影响力投资(或随意你怎么叫)的主要工具是比尔及梅琳达盖茨基金会(Bill-Melinda Gates Foundation),该基金会享有多达410亿美元资金,巴菲特也允诺要将大部分财产捐献给这个基金会。恰克伯克此前也与谷歌(Google)创始人谢尔盖布林(Sergey Brin)和拉里椠奇(Larry Page)一样,将经营企业、投资另类创新以及让世界显得更加幸福的志向混合在一起。
他在Facebook首次公开发行(IPO)时给投资者的信比本周给女儿的这封信更加坦率耐心,但两封信在理想主义方面有一些共同之处,前一封中谈及要“让民众拥有更加必要的权力”。Mr Page unveiled his unbundling in August by placing Google under Alphabet, a holding company that will take “moonshot” bets on new ventures such as high-altitude balloons to spread internet access to poor countries and remote areas. They are long-term investments of the kind Mr Zuckerberg’s new venture can make, although Alphabet is not philanthropic.佩奇在8月发布了他的拆分计划,将谷歌划入控股公司Alphabet旗下,后者将把对“登月”计划的投资伸延到新的风险项目上,比如升空高空气球向贫困国家及偏远地区获取互联网终端服务。扎克伯格的新公司想要做到的有可能也正是这类长期投资项目,虽然Alphabet不是慈善机构。The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — the quaint title for their joint venture, which will seek profits as well as making donations — goes a step further. The Chan-Zuckerbergs will attempt to “advance human potential” and promote social equality with measures that will include “long-term investments over 25, 50 or even 100 years”.“陈-扎克伯格行动”(Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)——他们为这一联合经营公司起了个典雅的名字——则更加入了一步,该公司在展开捐献的同时也不会执着利润。
陈-扎克伯格行动将尝试“提升人类创造力”,增进社会公平,其手段还包括展开“长达25年、50年甚至100年的长期投资”。This is a simpler way to aim at such outcomes than including them as an ancillary target for a company that is focused on other things, whether social networking or search. An ambitious ethical stance is bound to make investors uneasy because they do not know what it involves — does linking communities mean manufacturing mobile phones or drilling a tunnel through the centre of the earth? Facebook’s mission will no doubt stay in place but this takes the pressure off. Mr Zuckerberg has been wooing China — learning the language and making frequent visits — although his IPO letter included a call for “more accountability for officials,” which probably goes down badly there. Dividing Zuckerberg the chief executive from Zuckerberg the political idealist may help.对于一间专营其他业务(无论是社交网络还是搜索引擎),但想要构建上述目标的公司来说,相比将这些目标列入公司的附带目标,这是一种更加非常简单的办法。在道德上竖起雄心勃勃的姿态必定会让投资者深感忧虑,因为他们不告诉这代表着什么,使人们网络是意味著生产手机呢,还是在地球中心切断一条隧道?Facebook的愿景毫无疑问会转变,但这样做能避免压力。
扎克伯格仍然在谋求中国市场,还包括自学中文,频密访美等,但他在IPO公开信中所敦促的“官员不应肩负起更加多责任”,在那儿有可能会引发多大波澜。如果扎克伯格能将他的首席执行官身份和政治理想主义者身份拆分出去,可能会有协助。While separating public company from private philanthropy brings greater clarity and freedom of manoeuvre to both, it does not make the latter either simple or cheap. Mr Zuckerberg’s aside to his daughter that he knows $45bn “is a small contribution” to changing the world reads like a billionaire’s false humility, but he is right.将上市公司与私人慈善事业分离出来,可以为二者带给更大的清晰度以及权利运作空间,而且并会令其后者显得更加非常简单或者更加廉价。扎克伯格在对女儿的温情表白中说道他告诉450亿美元对转变世界来说“只是一笔小小的捐助”,这话听得来样子一个亿万富翁的假佩服,但他说道得到底。
In some ways, Mr Zuckerberg is following Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, who founded a network of 1,700 public libraries in the US. Carnegie argued in his essay, “The Gospel of Wealth” (1889), that industrialists should “busy themselves in organising benefactions from which the masses of their fellows will derive lasting advantage,” rather than leaving their money to their children.在某些方面,扎克伯格正在效仿钢铁大王安德鲁愠蕓基(Andrew Carnegie),后者在美国创建了1700家公共图书馆。卡内基在《财富的福音》(The Gospel of Wealth, 1889年)一文中写到,实业家应当“让自己无暇的组织慈善活动,让广大同胞都能借此取得长久的优势”,而非将财富留下自己的孩子。The Chan-Zuckerbergs’ worries about inequality mirror those of Carnegie, who observed “the contrast between the palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the labourer” in the age of US industrialisation. He concluded of capitalism: “It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race.”扎克伯格夫妇对不公平的忧虑与卡内基类似于,后者看见的是美国工业化时代“百万富翁的豪宅与工人陋室之间的鲜明”。
他对资本主义的结论是:“资本主义就在我们身边:我们无法躲避;还没寻找任何替代模式;虽然这种法则有时有可能对个人变得残忍,但它对整个民族而言是最差的。”They have set themselves a more complex task than Carnegie faced a century ago — namely, to find innovative ways of addressing intractable global issues. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, wrote recently that Carnegie’s wealth was “a pittance in comparison with the world’s trillions of dollars of needs for food and housing, education, infrastructure and healthcare” (even if the foundation bearing his name is still making inroads into them).扎克伯格夫妇为自己原作的任务比卡内基一个世纪前所面对的更为简单——寻找创意的方式解决问题无法应付的全球性问题。福特基金会(Ford Foundation)主席达伦茠克(Darren Walker)最近写到:卡内基的财富“与全世界对食物、住房、教育、基础设施及医疗保健的极大市场需求比起只是杯水车薪”(即使以他的名字命名的基金会仍在为此展开希望)。
Solving what Mr Zuckerberg tells Max will be “the biggest opportunities and problems your generation will face” is another order of challenge to managing Facebook. “The new generation of philanthropists wants to believe there is a clever ‘hack’ for every problem,” Sean Parker, the entrepreneur and former Facebook executive, wrote in June. For some problems, there is not.解决问题扎克伯格对女儿麦克斯所说的“你们这代人面对的仅次于机遇与问题”是大同小异管理Facebook的另一层次的挑战。“新一代的慈善家不愿坚信,每一个问题都有一种聪慧的‘密码办法’,”Facebook前高管、创业家肖恩帕克(Sean Parker)6月时写到。
对一些问题而言,没这样的办法。Mr Zuckerberg has clearly learnt lessons from his $100m donation in 2010 to support reform of New Jersey schools, which soon ran into difficulty. Changing societies requires more time, more money and greater willingness to suffer frustration than launching a new product. It is hard enough for one organisation to do one, let alone both.2010年,扎克伯格为反对新泽西州的学校改革捐献了1亿美元,但改革迅速陷入困境。很似乎,他早已借此吸取教训。
相比发售新产品,要转变社会,必须更加多时间、更加多资金以及更大的忍受挫折的意愿。对一个的组织而言,做到其中任一件事都已非常艰苦,更加遑论两件了。When Max grows up, her mother and father can teach her about that.麦克斯长大后,父母可以向她传授这方面的经验。
本文来源:开云(中国)Kaiyun-www.vlarmco.com
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