As with any ecology, the blog system must serve all participants to remain healthy. Traditional press serves the readers and authors, if that is your preference.

The Valley elite will start shunning Zuckerberg when the rest of the world recognizes Facebook for the narcissistic time sink that it is, and moves on to the next cool thing. The valley only likes people and companies on the way up.

When one examines Z’berg’s record, starting back in school, at the time FB was merely the germ of an idea, and continuing to today, one constant stands out – with grim predictability he fu…-over any and every muppet who gives him the opportunity to do so; while being careful not to inflict damage on certain major-league shylocks, who are tougher and more unprincipled than he is. His presence pollutes The Valley – he’s NY/NJ all the way, FB having nothing whatsoever to do with ‘tech’. Really should do something about that. The Valley elite can start by shunning him, his wife and his company – and WTH, his dog too.

And MS – turns out he made muppets of them as well. IMO they are fortunate to be free of the malign soul; he can’t hurt them any more now. (Not like they didn’t have it coming, being what they are – so at least there’s that ‘silver lining’.)

The us vs them 99% vs .0001% is something that he will deal with the rest of his life. Details about his personal finances being needlessly made public are nothing short of foolish.

Ken has the same memory I do, Sugarmountain sold about £50m worth of shares through a private deal with Goldman Sachs a while back. How much of that was his personally, how much stayed in the biz, and how much went to VCs I don’t recall, but there was definitely enough to make me surprised he has a mortgage at all.

One of the best things about a great liquidity event like that is that you get to pay off your mortgage.

If, on the other hand, I saw someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, who own far more liquid assets, taking a mortgage in this amount I’d agree that it doesn’t make much sense because the dollars involved are such a small fraction of net worth.

In any case, my point is why do incredibly wealthy people need to maximize their income from passive activities? Do they really need to make another few bucks?

That “personal banker” won’t be working with the full $30B, just with the liquid assets, and may feel it is worth a few hours of his time to save $140K/year.