might cost him $200M but will cost his neighbors more :)

Yup. Everyone wants to move out of the poor areas for a better life/education. Even the poor people. Not unique to the super rich.

Show me a mostly black/minority school that is academically superior to the mostly white schools and I'd take that any day for my kids...but they don't exist...at least in my city.

It's not just rich people. It's anyone who has the means. No way is educated daddy and best intentions mommy letting their kids go to school with hood kids and come home to unsafe neighborhoods. You judge and stereotype too harshly.

Seriously. And 224 homes on 52 acres? Sounds like luxury villas.

Seems like if it was really about low income families, he would have built many more homes for that price with that amount of land to help the most people.

possibility that someone will argue over X types
x
possibility that someone will get drunk and fight after arguing over X
x
7 billion
x
eternity
=
yes yes yes

In many states, the state tax would be much higher...around $8K-$11K, and some cities like Philly/NYC add a 4.5% city tax on top of the state tax which would be around $5K.

But I'd bet he's including an 8%+ contribution to his 401K along with life/disability/etc premiums, and what he really means is that he only gets 51% take home pay from his gross.

I only take home about 50% of my gross when I consider the above.

My sister just bought a decked out Odyssey for $35K.

haha PRMan. If this was the case, every CEO would take a salary of $70K, and get a wife.

I worked for two companies where the CEOs drove a Honda Minivan and a Toyota Camry despite having millions in the bank. They were focused on the business. Not personal wealth. It made a difference in the way the employees saw them as people. This move works similarly.

He seems like one of the rare people/leaders who can say, I have enough, I want others to have enough as well. bravo.

my mom doesn't know what a web browser is.

i have to refer to it by the color of it's icon...
or i can just say something non-sensical like log into AOL...

and she will invariable open a web browser

I agree that these guys are like indentured servants, but $60K/yr is pretty solid salary. Better than most US college grads...and a good number of CS grads.

there's a whole bunch of people i've encountered who

1) have never heard of open source
2) have never heard of specific programs they could use (i.e. firefox, open office)
3) are suspicious of using it
4) can't understand why anyone would write software for free (i.e. donate their time)
5) somehow equate it to socialism/communism

my experience with H1-B hired engineers is that they are making $65K/yr to $75K/yr straight out of school with no experience in the North Eastern USA (Not NYC). don't know if this is representative but seems reasonable.

it's resolving some market inefficiencies. you can buy a new sim card and pay local rates which will be low...but it's a hassle and people don't want to have a different number. if google solves that inefficiency there will be some money to gain.