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What Paul Graham Is Missing About Inequality – Tim O'Reilly

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Re: What Paul Graham Is Missing About Inequality – Tim O'Reilly

#51

Very curious to see what people think about O'Reilly's supposition that many, if not most, startups are just another financial instrument that don't actually create wealth: "When a startup doesn’t have an underlying business model that will eventually produce real revenues and profits, and the only way for its founders to get rich is to sell to another company or to investors, you have to ask yourself whether that st…

The acquihire maybe...

Re: What Paul Graham Is Missing About Inequality – Tim O'Reilly

#52
> PG: Traditional economists seem strangely averse to studying individual humans.

Because that's not what economics is? Economics is a social science. Or, as far as I can see, psychology for the society. If you study the individuals, you are a psychologist, not an economist.

Re: What Paul Graham Is Missing About Inequality – Tim O'Reilly

#53
post #13

"I agree with him that technology can make us all richer, but I disagree that it necessarily creates greater inequality, even if some startup founders become very rich. It only does that if companies don’t create real value in return for that wealth." Tim provides no justification or evidence for this argument. This makes no sense to me. While there is certainly a difference between making money from rent-seeking vs…

One thing missing from the 'startups create value' argument is that some startups don't create much new value but simply absorb value from elsewhere by providing a more efficient lower friction way of doing something that was done in a different way before. Before I'm misunderstood, I'm not arguing that it's a negative result in the grand scheme, but it helps to be aware that this can actually lead to greater inequality if many people lose their jobs to a startup that only requires a handful of people to run it, where previously thousands were required.

Re: What Paul Graham Is Missing About Inequality – Tim O'Reilly

#54
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Paul Graham's essays on income inequality expressed my views on income inequality more clearly than even I was thinking them. I appreciate this, but now I need to hear a critique by someone who understands the issue how I understand it and disagrees with me. I've been looking, but I've found ad hominem attacks.

@delish: have you seen this? http://praxtime.com/2016/01/12/paul-graham-inequality-cowens...

That was worth my time. Thank you. I wrote down Cowen's laws for future reference.

Re: What Paul Graham Is Missing About Inequality – Tim O'Reilly

#55
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Paul Graham's essays on income inequality expressed my views on income inequality more clearly than even I was thinking them. I appreciate this, but now I need to hear a critique by someone who understands the issue how I understand it and disagrees with me. I've been looking, but I've found ad hominem attacks.

@delish: have you seen this? http://praxtime.com/2016/01/12/paul-graham-inequality-cowens...

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