Why do Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg support left-wing parties? Isn't that against their own interests?

Conservatives have done a number on you it seems.

In any case for Tech billionaires and I stress the Tech part supporting progressives parties is actaully in their interest.

Being able to draw from the best of the world which generally means diversity and multiculturalism is in the best interest of FB or MS.

Being able to become a Multinational which keys into different/diverse global market is in the best interest of companies like FB or MS

Being able to have a more fair/equatable, more educated, more healthier population is in the best interest of people like Mark and Bill.

In anycase. When you are a billionaire like them. A few billions that go to taxes for them is not going to make them go homeless or stop them from being able to afford 20 more houses around the world if they so wish so to buy them.

Mark and Bill and Warren are self made. They don’t come from old money. They are not like conservatives from old money that see their wealth as an inheritance that needs to be protected and enhanced and then passed on to the next generation within their family.

Its a liberal way of understanding old wealth. Old wealth inheritance can destroy people and families. We have seen this multiple times with kids from wealthy family getting into trouble and that. Huge fights over inheritance destroying family bonds etc

It can make people depressed because they are expected to be a certain way and not really be something they might really want to be ro marry whomever they want. Warren touched upon this for example why he does not give immense sums of money to his kids. They understand how wealth and expectations can be a burden on their kids. Why we never hear much about their kids or know much about them. They really are free in this regard and not expected to be like their fathers like with other dynastic families that put so much pressure on their kids to be like their parents and or do better than they have regardless of what these kids really want to do.

For these guys they see their wealth as being more useful in making the world a better place which includes the people they love.

Not really. In fact quite the opposite.

Well educated, physically and mentally healthy people buy more technology, they can afford to. Therefore Bill Gates is being entirely rational supporting the left-wing parties because that's the demographic Microsoft sells to and therefore are his primary source of income.

He's not interested in less tax, he could afford five times the tax bill and not notice. That, to him, is insignificant. He's interested in more customers. An insignificant increase in tax would result in a massive increase in customers, the increase in income then dwarfs what is taken out. That is being rational.

Zuckerberg will be a similar case. Left-wing people talk to more people and expand their circles. The right are much more insular. Therefore it is with the left he has more customers. So of course he's going to want more. There's no value in stagnating.

They look beyond a single figure at a broader picture. Healthier, brainier, wiser, richer customers are profitable customers.

There's another side. To be in IT to begin with, you have to be smart, healthy, well-read and willing to take on new information. In other words, left-wing.

I think the chief problem is that people don't quite understand what being left-wing means.

Why would anyone vote only in their own self-interest? That’s not really what voting is for. I personally have sometimes voted to raise my own taxes, not because it has any immediate or even non-immediate benefits to me, but because I believe I can afford to pay a little bit more, while there are people who are dependent on tax money to make it through the month.

Similarly, but even more so, Bill Gates would still be incredibly rich even if he gave half of his money away. There is no sensible reason for him to want more money. As Swedish airline owner Jan Carlzon once said, “you can’t eat until you’re more than full anyway”.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are centrists.

Obama was left of center, but not very much so.

How about some actual political studies rather than the tea party alternative facts political education ?

I really don’t know much about Zuckerberg. But you can easily watch several of Bill Gates interviews on you tube and he will explain to you in detail why his policies are in his best interests.

• Developing all of Africa into a Brazil or better (Brazil=economically middle of the way from a total basket case to a fully developed country, off course with huge regional contrasts), that would hugely increase Microsoft product sales.
• Bill Gates has declared his children will only inherit a 10 million bucks each, just enough that they don’t strictly need to work for the rest of their lives, but not enough to live lavishly and leave anything to their kids. The overwhelming majority of Gates’s fortunes goes to his charities ! I would of course imagine they could each get a good job at the foundation or take the hard way and try to follow his dad’s footsteps on Microsoft, starting from the bottom off course.
• So you can either call Gates a crazy commie or realize that he’s really changed from the Borg style Gates (resistance is futile, your company will be assimilated by Microsoft) into the peace, love and profit Gates that owns one of the (or perhaps THE) largest philanthropy organizations in the world ! But the Gates foundation is well known for being quite cost conscious, instead of giving things for free, they invest on some solution, build them at a low cost and sell them at just enough a price to pay for production+distribution+development costs, so they can keep investing on more cheap solutions to help the world’s poor out of poverty, without actually making Gates poorer. So the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is sort of a small government actually effective foundation, that true libertarians would cheer for !
• Bill Gates is also investing on new nuclear power. More of an angel investing kind of deal rather than throwing away money. His initiative might fail, but I’m pretty certain he won’t commit billions before he’s quite certain it will succeed. A new reactor type can be designed and go all the way before actually being built (the private sector way) for under US$ 50 million USD, if one control costs well and keep the project from dreaming too big.

Of course if you really cared to know, you would use youtube first and learn a little more rather than shooting a biased question. But that would burst your bubble way too quickly !

Re: Why does Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg support left-wing parties? Isn't that against their own interests?

Perhaps. But then again perhaps not.

I invite you to consider what I call “The Gated Community” analogy.

If you want to live in a safe neighborhood, one way to do this is to create a “safe” neighbourhood and then keep all of the “unsafe” people out. This approach is so common and popular in the USA that you even have a name for it: the Gated Community.

But there is another approach, and that is to try and build a country where there are a lot of “safe” neighbourhoods and as few “unsafe” people as possible. Doing this means that you can be safe anywhere in the country, not just your own Gated Community. This means that you have improved not only your life, but the lives of your fellow citizens as well.

For some people, being part of a safe, educated, inclusive nation is in their own self-interest. The fact that it might have a small negative impact on their personal finances is secondary.

It’s not against their interests, because of basic capitalism.

Republican leadership is bad at capitalism and terrible for the economy.

When the economy crashes, people don’t spend money on companies like Microsoft or Facebook.

Now, there are a lot of other really good answers here that detail other quality possibilities, but I figured I’d stick to a simple point to illustrate just one reason.

To quote Carville, it’s “the economy, stupid.”

Consumer spending goes up in good economies. Since 1980, both the Democrats have grown the economy exponentially while all of the Republicans have tanked it. If you run a successful company, how much money your customers have is more important than your tax rate, because profits go up with increased spending.

Marko's Take From my experience, the ultra rich are sent messages every day that their wealth is somehow ill gotten. You hear every day and every way, the class warfare that is constantly raging. How many times have you ever heard these two words: “Tax Cuts” without being followed by these three: “For the Rich”? Sure, it must get to them, knowing that the left is jealous as hell.

If you felt that way, and you just wanted to fit in, which of course they can’t, you’d be politically correct and support left wing causes, since left is “good, and humane and nice” while the right is “mean, unfair….”. They read newspapers and they watch TV just like you and I do.

If its all I hear, that’s all they hear too. Look at how they act, rather than what they say if you want to know their true feelings. A few years ago, I got so sick of the hypocrisy of Warren Buffet, than I wrote an Open letter to him as a blog. It’s attached.

Any rich guy that does one thing to appease the left like support tax hikes, while then turning around and fights tooth and nail with Uncle Sam over every penny of taxes is a HYPOCRITE. Gates I don’t know much about, but Buffett is constantly trying to tell the world what a “good” person he is, through his support of the left. It makes me want to puke. If you want me to stop pussy footing around and tell you what I really think, see the attached.