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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#211

Post by chillwaves »

RestlessMind wrote: post #202
tmcw wrote: post #191

56% of billionaires build. 44% of billionaires inherit.

This is an amazing nugget which should be the context for any controversial discussion about "Billionaires". I have utmost respect for the former category, but I also believe that the later category should not exist (as in those people should exist but they should not have any unearned billions and all the unearned power and privileges that come with it).

Neither category should exist. The fact billionaires exist is an indictment against our system and how we allocate resources.

Re: Billionaires Build

#212

Post by chillwaves »

austinpena wrote: post #206
RestlessMind wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an amazing nugget which should be the context for any controversial discussion about "Billionaires". I have utmost respect for the former category, but I also believe that the later category should not exist (as in those people should exist but they should not have any unearned billions and all the unearned power and privileges that come with it).

You don’t believe that if someone makes billions they should be able to pass it on to their children?

Do you believe in meritocracy? Because ownership of that amount of wealth is surely going to skew the entire system.

How long before we just have a permanent ruling class, and how does that move humanity forward?

Re: Billionaires Build

#213

Post by BryanBeshore »

phnofive wrote: post #160

‘Make something people want’ is hard for me to understand - is this a fair expansion? Make something people want that can evolve into a commodity, ensure only the inventor can profit (e.g. with IP protections), and architect your business such that returns scale independently of operation costs.

Inverse the phrase to be 'Make something people do not want'.

I doubt people have built successful companies, and become 'billionaires' by building something people do not want.

Re: Billionaires Build

#214

Post by lambda_obrien »

austinpena wrote: post #206
RestlessMind wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an amazing nugget which should be the context for any controversial discussion about "Billionaires". I have utmost respect for the former category, but I also believe that the later category should not exist (as in those people should exist but they should not have any unearned billions and all the unearned power and privileges that come with it).

You don’t believe that if someone makes billions they should be able to pass it on to their children?

If I had a billion pounds of rice, and millions of people were starving, would it be immoral for me to stockpile that so 50 generations of my family would be taken care of before the millions of starving people now?

Edit: because i can't reply right now:

I'm curious if a direct application of your question to something you need to survive would get a different answer.

We think of money as something we can accumulate without limit but if you replace it with other things in a similar context it seems different. Why is it okay for billionaires to exist, but not for someone to stockpile too much food?

I'm curious if anyone has an answer to both.

Re: Billionaires Build

#215

Post by strogonoff »

kgog wrote: post #153

love to see pg get more out of touch with every single passing day.

A piece of writing everyone finds level-headed and making total sense is likely not worth reading as it's merely restating what’s on everyone’s mind. Your comment shows this article at least isn’t that (thus being the cue for me personally). You can’t write something really good without pissing at least some people off.

Re: Billionaires Build

#216

Post by eloff »

daralthus wrote: post #174

Not sure what to make of this. Billionaire companies != seed funded startups. The exploitation really kicks into gear after you have 5000 employees and there are many inflection points of power differentials until then. Each not as a big deal, but slowly eroding some rights the farther and lower you go.

I think the point is that entrepreneurial endeavors are not a zero sum game. Politicians and people sometimes act like billionaires are hoarding a big slice of pie selfishly for themselves, but the reality is they made the pie bigger by adding value to the world. By the definition of how markets work they had to have added more value then they got compensated.

This is how it works with idealized new products. With highly competitive fields it is more zero sum, in that you take some pie from your competitors. But that's still good overall as it's adding value and making the market more efficient.

The only true zero sum game is the market for attention and why I despise social media companies. Everybody has a fixed amount of time, you can only grow that pie by adding more people.

Re: Billionaires Build

#217

Post by julienb_sea »

ardy42 wrote: post #169

> But aptitude for exploiting people is not what Y Combinator looks for at all. In fact, it's the opposite of what they look for. I'll tell you what they do look for, by explaining how to convince Y Combinator to fund you, and you can see for yourself. I mean, of course. Y Combinator is looking first and foremost for people who will make them billions in the aggregate. Most of those people who pass the interview will…

If your startup makes your investors billions, you are probably becoming a billionaire in the process or pretty close.

Re: Billionaires Build

#218

Post by lr »

CalChris wrote: post #187
mbgerring wrote: post #165

Ctrl-F “employees” 0 results It’s crazy that so many of these companies with billionaire founders have thousands of employees who are not billionaires, nor have a meaningful stake in the decisions the company makes. Wonder what that’s about.

Ctrl-F "value" 0 results If billionaires build, they have to build something. That something should have value. Throwing money at creative destruction à la WeWork isn't building value but Adam Neumann sure made out well as did BenchMark.

Thank you so much for bringing up WeWork. I get PG's point, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that all billionaires are good because they simply must have made something that people actually want. Soooooo many people got hurt in the WeWork debacle, and continue to do so. This is an amazing read (and maybe something that PG is trying to counter): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/30/how-venture-ca...

Re: Billionaires Build

#219

Post by ardy42 »

julienb_sea wrote: post #217
ardy42 wrote: post #169

> But aptitude for exploiting people is not what Y Combinator looks for at all. In fact, it's the opposite of what they look for. I'll tell you what they do look for, by explaining how to convince Y Combinator to fund you, and you can see for yourself. I mean, of course. Y Combinator is looking first and foremost for people who will make them billions in the aggregate. Most of those people who pass the interview will…

If your startup makes your investors billions, you are probably becoming a billionaire in the process or pretty close.

> If your startup makes your investors billions, you are probably becoming a billionaire in the process or pretty close.

Most startups fail, though.

Re: Billionaires Build

#220

Post by eej71 »

chillwaves wrote: post #212
austinpena wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t believe that if someone makes billions they should be able to pass it on to their children?

Do you believe in meritocracy? Because ownership of that amount of wealth is surely going to skew the entire system. How long before we just have a permanent ruling class, and how does that move humanity forward?

There is always more wealth to create.
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