The billionaire Facebook founder and chief executive and his physician wife pledged to give away 99% of Facebook shares in their lifetime, currently worth about $45 billion, in a letter to their newborn daughter Max posted on Facebook on Tuesday, the national day of giving known as #GivingTuesday.

SOURCE: Mark Zuckerberg has baby girl, pledges to give away 99% of Facebook shares.

I know you are probably struggling to see the connection between the title of this post and the quote above.  If you hang on here I will show it to you. It is nice to see another billionaire who is giving back most of his wealth in his lifetime. Especially someone so young and just having his first child.  Mark Zukerberg’s meteoric rise in the corporate world is impressive and his wisdom at such an early age is too.

Since he is one of them I’m sure he sees what unearned wealth does to succeeding generations. He sees a wasted life of privilege and decadence. I don’t know his or his wife’s bio so I am not sure of how that affected their decision to give away 99% of his wealth instead of passing it on to his daughter.

Now let’s link the title to the quote, adversity makes you more broad-minded in life. It shows you that you are not the only person that breaths air. There are always others who have it harder than you do. Adversity gives your life perspective. Living with a silver spoon in your mouth often leads to being self-centered sometimes to the extreme. It can lead to a strong case of me-itis.

But Gates, Buffett, and now Zukerberg are the exception. It seems most in that stratosphere just want more and more and to keep it to themselves as long as possible and then pass it on to their heirs. They just seem to have little interest in the “common good” of humanity. The 1% now control the purse strings  and just about everything else in our society.  Somehow they have convinced so many low-info voters that the “death tax” is a bad thing.  They show them a family farm that was taken away due to inheritance taxes. What they don’t show is that less than 1% of farms ever see that condition. The vast majority of unearned wealth now moves almost totally  from one generation to another. This leads to a life without adversity or challenge.

Thanks Mark for joining such an elite group of billionaires who recognize that those who are given much owe much.