<
https://www.independent.co.uk/us/money/craigslist-multimillionaire-craig-newmark-b2980681.html>
"Craig Newmark, multimillionaire founder of Craigslist, has long had trouble
keeping his mouth shut – leading to some “influential mistakes”, he readily
admits.
But he doesn’t consider it a lapse in judgement that he’s given away half a
billion dollars to charity since founding the classified ads site 30 years ago
– nor voicing his hope that others with vast fortunes will take a similar tack.
There has been a shift away from philanthropy toward hard-edged individualism
and ostentatious displays of wealth in America in recent years, even in the
highest office. President Donald Trump has increased his net worth from $4.3
billion to $7.3 billion during his second term, plans to spend $600 million on
the White House ballroom and is gilding the capital at every turn.
Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel told
The New York Times earlier
this year that he had been encouraging wealthy peers to undo commitments to
The Giving Pledge, a longstanding philanthropic campaign that encourages the
ultra-rich to give away vast sums during their lifetime to causes of their
choosing. Thiel claimed contributions would go to “left-wing” nonprofits,
according to an audio transcript provided to
Reuters, and dubbed it an
“Epstein-adjacent fake Boomer club.”
Newmark signed
The Giving Pledge last year and recently wrote a
New York
Times op-ed on how he was dumbfounded by Thiel and some other billionaires’
positions.
“When I started Craigslist in the mid-1990s, I never thought I’d become rich.
But I did. A lot of people in tech around that time also got lucky. Millions –
even billions – were made simply by being in the right place at the right
time,” he wrote. “That’s too much money for anyone to have, so I’m giving most
of it away to people and causes that need it. It makes no sense to me that
others with this kind of money would criticize anyone doing this.”
Newmark, 74, told
The Independent that he doesn’t judge other wealthy people
who don’t want to give their money away but nevertheless finds their decisions
hard to fathom."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
