“Startup: Education”, Mark Zuckerberg's $100 Million Foundation

 Regardless of what you might think of Zuckerberg, this foundation is excellent for the kids who will benefit. According to the following article, Zuckerberg is launching Startup: Education, a $100 million foundation dedicated to improving education in Newark, New Jersey and the rest of the U.S. The ultimate aim is to create a model for rewarding excellence in education on a national level. Great Job!
    . . . June


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Mark Zuckerberg Announces $100 Million Foundation: “Startup: Education”:
Mashable -Jennifer Van Grove

Punk, traitor, genius or philanthropic entrepreneur? Mark Zuckerberg can be described by many a colorful adjective, and on Friday, October 1, the world will watch Hollywood both celebrate and vilify Facebook’s founder in The Social Network.

Just one week in advance of the movie’s debut, Zuckerberg is launching Startup: Education, a $100 million foundation dedicated to improving education in Newark, New Jersey and the rest of the U.S. The ultimate aim is to create a model for rewarding excellence in education on a national level.

The fund, which was first revealed on Wednesday but formally announced today, will work with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s and Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s new bipartisan initiative, the Partnership for Education in Newark, which was also officially unveiled today. Zuckerberg and Christie will discuss the news in a media conference call this afternoon at 1:00 p.m. ET. Later, Christie and Booker will discuss the partnership on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to working with Zuckerberg’s new foundation, the Partnership for Education in Newark will also work with the Newark Education and Youth Development Fund, a non-profit organization that aims to raise an additional $150 million for Newark’s youth. Currently, only 40% of Newark children can read and write at grade level by the end of third grade.

In a blog on the Startup: Education Facebook Page, Zuckerberg writes, “I believe in the Mayor and his vision, and that’s why I want to help them succeed. Using my own Facebook stock, I’m creating the Startup: Education foundation with over $100 million to invest in educating and improving the lives of young people. I’m also challenging others who want to improve education in America to match my contributions.”

Read More . . .

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Donates $100 Million In Facebook Shares

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO

According to the following article from Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg will make a $100 million pledge to the Newark School system. At only 26-years-old, he’s following in the charitable footsteps of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. Regardless of how you might feel about these people personally, there's no question that their generosity is making a huge difference to many people's lives.
    .. June


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How Will Newark Turn Zuckerberg’s $100 Million Worth Of Facebook Shares Into Cash?
Steven Bertoni - Money Talks - Forbes:

This Friday, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will reportedly appear on Oprah to announce his $100 million pledge to the Newark School system. At only 26-years-old, he’s following in the charitable footsteps of Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

The pledge is the easy part. The difficult question is how will Newark turn the privately owned, illiquid shares of Facebook into usable cash for their troubled school system

Zuckerberg is worth $6.9 billion, but that is mostly paper wealth based on his ownership of Facebook. Zuck likely has very little cash on hand–he lives in a humble rented house in Silicon valley. So it’s natural that he’d pledge his Facebook shares instead of cash-money.

The trouble is that these shares are not listed on a registered exchange. Past Facebook transactions have occurred through private equity deals or have traded on exchanges like SecondMarket, which specialize in unregistered, hard-to-trade securities. People at SecondMarket declined to comment on the story.

These markets for unregistered shares are opaque and thinly traded. The current SecondMarket bid for shares of Facebook is $65–that puts a $28.6 billion valuation on Facebook; much richer than recent estimates of around $23 billion. The market price seems inflated.

Read on . . .

Is The Facebook Movie An Act Of Cold-Blooded Revenge?

The movie 'The Social Network' is due to be released and purports to be the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. It's based on Ben Mezrich's book 'The Accidental Billionaires'. According to the following article, The Accidental Billionaires exists because one of Mark's Facebook cofounders pitched the book to Mezrich in an attempt to permanently damage Mark's reputation. Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg claim that it's all a lie. How can we tell?
   . . . June


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The Facebook Movie Is An Act Of Cold-Blooded Revenge - New, Unpublished IMs Tell The Real Story:

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 Nicholas Carlson, provided by Business Insider

On October 1, Columbia Pictures will release The Social Network, a film that portrays Facebook's CEO and cofounder, Mark Zuckerberg, as an arrogant nerd-punk who betrays friends and classmates in order to get what he wants – sex, money, and power.

The movie is fiction. So is the book it's based on – Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires.

Facebook hates the movie. Zuckerberg says he will not watch it.

Based on the early reviews of the movie, this makes sense.

According to sources – sources who despise Mark Zuckerberg and sources who admire him – the only reason The Accidental Billionaires exists is because one of Mark's Facebook cofounders pitched the book to Mezrich in an attempt to permanently damage Mark's reputation.

According to those sources, that cofounder and Harvard student is Eduardo Saverin.

This is the story of how Eduardo got so angry at Mark -- how, from Eduardo's perspective, Mark screwed him out of a huge chunk of Facebook stock. It's also the story of how Mark solved an early problem at Facebook, one that could potentially have prevented the company from becoming the global behemoth it is today.

The story is sourced from people involved in the founding year of Facebook, sources close to Facebook, and documents viewed by Business Insider. It includes previously unpublished emails and instant messages between Mark Zuckerberg and early Facebook colleagues and confidants.

Read more: