
Silicon Valley's Humble Billionaire - MarlonPro
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-01/silicon-valleys-humble-billionaire
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bcantrill
Something everyone should know about Silicon Valley's "humble" billionaire: he
was involved in a very high-profile and nasty divorce case[1] in which he
(infamously) tried to screw not just his (ex-)wife but also his children out
of the windfall from his Granite options. (This was essentially overturned on
appeal[2], and set the precedent for how options are valued on divorce.)
Suffice it to say that "humble" is not generally the word used to describe
such behavior...

[1]
[http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.07.99/cover/divor...](http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/10.07.99/cover/divorce-9940.html)

[2] <http://www.law.com/regionals/ca/opinions/sep/h019424.shtml>

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tomjen3
So, how on earth is that relevant? In a divorce it is standard practice to
screw over the other.

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DarkShikari
Just because other people have been jackasses does not give you an excuse to
be a jackass. I've seen plenty of divorces that ended quite happily because
both people were _civil_ to each other. You just don't hear about those
because they don't usually make much noise.

But even if you believe that it does justify it, however misguided that is,
since when does a divorce _ever_ justify _screwing over your children_ in
addition to your spouse? At that point, it's just pure greed.

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maratd
> screwing over your children

Let me get this straight, Warren Buffet won't fork over his $$$ to his kids
because he wants them to learn the value of a dollar and that makes him a
hero. But this guy is screwing them over and is greedy? Are you his divorced
ex-wife? How do you know what his motivations are for withholding the moola?

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DarkShikari
_His children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. This is
consistent with statements he has made in the past indicating his opposition
to the transfer of great fortunes from one generation to the next. Buffett
once commented, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel
that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing
nothing"._

Since when is Warren Buffet "screwing over his kids"? He wants to give them
_enough that they can do ANYTHING_. That doesn't sound like "screwing over".
If that's "screwing over", I'd love to be screwed over!

And if this billionaire had good reason, perhaps, like Warren Buffet, he would
have _explained it_?

 _Are you his divorced ex-wife?_

Don't you love the smell of ad hominem attacks in the morning?

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Jach
> Don't you love the smell of ad hominem attacks in the morning?

The "ad hominem fallacy" fallacy is my favorite. Why don't you learn what it
means? <http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html>

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locacorten
David Cheriton and humble in the same sentence? What a joke!

You realize that the Waterloo CS school is called the "David Cheriton CS
School", yeah? Take that for "humble" :-)

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pook1e
How does that make him less humble? He donated ~25 million to the University,
the University decided to name their school of Computer Science after him.

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tlrobinson
Or did he donate 25 million to have the CS school named after him?

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pork
Yes, we don't know, so lets pick the one that is expedient to our biases.

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cog314
1\. It costs a _lot_ of money to rename something like a school: new signage,
new namecards, new letterheads, etc. etc. Money that could instead be used on
education.

2\. Once a school is named after a person, that significantly reduces the
likelihood of a future donor who would only donate if their name were adopted.

Given the above actual cost and opportunity cost, some might find it
reasonable to guess that schools only ever rename themselves after rich but
less-well-known (i.e. not Nobel-prize-winning) people if the donation is
contingent on it.

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pclark
> When asked to opine on the timeless Silicon Valley issues—a lack of visas
> for foreigners, meddling venture capitalists, and government regulations—
> David Cheriton balks. “I hate to sound like Pollyanna,” he says. “But if
> those are the biggest problems, we should be getting up in the morning and
> giving thanks. If you look at what other generations had to deal with, we
> live in a nirvana right now.”

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georgieporgie
This 'article' was little more than a bunch of description of how the author
felt about various things. No insight, no information relevant to us.

As for living in a nirvana, I think Louis C.K. said it in a far more
insightful and entertaining way.

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jilebedev
I agree. In merely linking, bcantrill's post above is more insightful and
contains more content than the entire OP. Frankly, this article isn't HN
material.

