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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#91

Post by jackpirate »

dkyc wrote: post #27
glaive123 wrote: post #18

> that the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people Any statement that has the word "only" in it is guaranteed to be wrong. I wonder if PG worded it this way intentionally (straw man fallacy). Most people agree early employees should get more equity. This doesn't address whether startup founders are hoarding equity for themselves and their investors instead of fairly rewarding early employees.

I wouldn't say this is a straw man. Every billionaire being exploitative/criminal is a real political position among the American Left, see e.g. this tweet [0] by Robert Reich. He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, so not some extremist weirdo. [0] https://twitter.com/rbreich/status/1193526297647108097

This is a needlessly divisive interpretation of that tweet. The tweet lists 5 concrete ways of becoming a billionaire, and you're putting words in the author's mouth by labeling them all "exploitative/criminal", which were not used at all.

Re: Billionaires Build

#92

Post by MattGaiser »

jstummbillig wrote: post #84
ghufran_syed wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you also argue that these small bookstores “delight their users”? If so, why aren’t they making money? If not, do you think that maybe that might be the problem?

The way that amazon has delighted their users, for a long time, was to heavily grow by reinvesting all their money into both expansion and subsidizing their infrastructure. That is simply not a path a small shop can take because they don't have investors. Nor do they it want to. Nor should they have to.

> Nor do they it want to. Nor should they have to.

Then they need to do something that cannot be scaled. Being a general bookseller can easily be scaled.

Re: Billionaires Build

#93

Post by jlarocco »

"Steve Wozniak wanted a computer. Mark Zuckerberg wanted to engage online with his college friends. Larry and Sergey wanted to find things on the web."

These are terrible examples in the context of the article.

Apple's computers, originally, led them to the brink of bankruptcy, and it wasn't until 20 years later when they started selling consumer electronics that they blew up, and Wozniak had little to do with it at that point.

The other two don't actually make money from the products mentioned, but by flat out exploiting people's ignorance regarding online tracking and advertising.

Re: Billionaires Build

#94

Post by monocasa »

jlarocco wrote: post #93

"Steve Wozniak wanted a computer. Mark Zuckerberg wanted to engage online with his college friends. Larry and Sergey wanted to find things on the web." These are terrible examples in the context of the article. Apple's computers, originally, led them to the brink of bankruptcy, and it wasn't until 20 years later when they started selling consumer electronics that they blew up, and Wozniak had little to do with it at…

Apple blew up far before they fell in the late 80s/early 90s.

Woz's designs were very much a huge part of that.

Re: Billionaires Build

#95

Post by majormajor »

waterhouse wrote: post #65
CPLX wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just a bizarre primary school understanding or morality where there's a group of "Good" people and "Bad" people. I think it's even more simple than that. It's a failure to realize that everyone is the plucky hero doing things with good intentions in their story about themselves, and that others don't see him as he sees himself. So despite there being a world where the society is becoming increasingly unequal,…

> His only fault, perhaps, is being a massive beneficiary of a system that is profoundly and deeply unfair and getting more that way every day, and he's not able to see that as something he's at fault for. If some unfair system exists, and you didn't do anything to create it (it existed before you were born), and you don't do anything to make it worse (and maybe occasionally try to make it a little better)... and the…

You either contribute to improving it, worsening it, or keeping it the same.

In two of those three cases, you are at fault (or continually become more at fault, more precisely, as the ratio of "how much it existed before you" shifts).

Re: Billionaires Build

#96

Post by season2episode3 »

staunch wrote: post #78
bob33212 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, Bezos didn't set out to bankrupt as many small businesses as he could. He started with providing a wider range of books to people over the internet. For the person who wanted a specific book and was only able to get it on Amazon this is a "good" thing. For the local bookstore who is now bankrupt that is a "bad" thing. I've come to the conclusion that to be a CEO you have to wear these blinders and have faith t…

Amazon didn't kill small businesses. We killed them by using Amazon. And I'm glad to have participated. I much prefer Amazon passing the savings of time and money to me rather than some small business owner. The small businesses I was forced to use previously were inefficient, slow, overcharging, had terrible customer service, exploited employees, etc. As an example: we killed tons of movie rental businesses by switc…

Small businesses are important for a whole host of intangible reasons.

They provide dignified employment (as opposed to invisible work in a warehouse), they encourage entrepreneurship, they increase the tax base of a locality (by ensuring money stays within a local economy), and they contribute to local culture, community and character.

Amazon killing small businesses has sucked even more of the life force out of small towns, and that’s sad because said towns were already shellacked by the death of manufacturing.

It’s hard to argue with Amazon’s excellent customer experience, but the externalities involved are nontrivial and IMO outweigh the benefits.

Re: Billionaires Build

#97

Post by cactus2093 »

Traster wrote: post #28

For a clearly smart guy it's so frustrating to see PG bring in a topic like the Billionaires being exploitative, and then taking such a thoroughly blinkered view. It's a massive blind spot that PG fails to address is that it's the exact same sense of mission that he sees in start ups that creates the permission structure to exploit people. It's not that people set out to exploit people and as a result they become bil…

Based on what I see in mainstream discourse from politicians and public figures that are pushing the "billionaires are bad" idea, I think you're making a much weaker form of the argument than many are. Most of the people who make this argument really do seem to see it as a group of Good and Bad people, and are arguing that all billionaires are in the Bad group. People like Bernie Sanders and AOC have said that repeatedly in no uncertain terms. And I think this PG essay addresses that form of the argument pretty directly.

What you're talking is a much more interesting conversation to be having. How can we tweak the rules to avoid misaligned incentives? And would it actually be better to end the so-called "exploitation" if it would mean killing most of these jobs altogether, when the allegedly exploited people actually have an ok quality of life and are doing this work because they like it better than their alternatives?

Re: Billionaires Build

#98

Post by bob33212 »

thorough wrote: post #72
bob33212 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, Bezos didn't set out to bankrupt as many small businesses as he could. He started with providing a wider range of books to people over the internet. For the person who wanted a specific book and was only able to get it on Amazon this is a "good" thing. For the local bookstore who is now bankrupt that is a "bad" thing. I've come to the conclusion that to be a CEO you have to wear these blinders and have faith t…

I’m working at my job doing just fine. My employer is pretty happy and so am I. Then a new guy comes along and says, “I can do thorough’s job better than he can.” My boss hires him and she agrees. At length, she decides to keep the new guy and fire me because he’s meeting her needs better than I am. She doesn’t need to pay me anymore. There are two happy people in this story and one unhappy one. But the fact that the…

Exactly, you have to tell yourself that it is a net positive situation and move on.

Re: Billionaires Build

#99

Post by detaro »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #73
detaro wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very simplified, many small book stores take online or email orders. That doesn't magically put them in the same position as Amazon & co.

Would you also argue that these small bookstores “delight their users”? If so, why aren’t they making money? If not, do you think that maybe that might be the problem?

No, I don't think that's the problem, at least not for all. From the limited insight into the publishing industry I have it seems fairly obvious that the fact that Amazon can demand massively lower prices from the publishing houses, while at the same time being able to have more optimized logistics, access to better shipping conditions, ... thanks to scale, plays a large role.

Re: Billionaires Build

#100

Post by waterhouse »

majormajor wrote: post #95
waterhouse wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His only fault, perhaps, is being a massive beneficiary of a system that is profoundly and deeply unfair and getting more that way every day, and he's not able to see that as something he's at fault for. If some unfair system exists, and you didn't do anything to create it (it existed before you were born), and you don't do anything to make it worse (and maybe occasionally try to make it a little better)... and the…

You either contribute to improving it, worsening it, or keeping it the same. In two of those three cases, you are at fault (or continually become more at fault, more precisely, as the ratio of "how much it existed before you" shifts).

Contribute to keeping it the same? What does that mean? If the system has unfair policies, and you never personally enforce them or advocate for them and occasionally advocate against them, have you contributed to keeping it the same, and are you at fault?
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