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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#341

Post by tartoran »

analognoise wrote: post #327
kevas wrote: post #312

About to write some possibly controversial stuff... My early life, I grew up and had middle to upper middle class all around me. In my late teens and early twenties, there were times I had to scrounge my cushions and rummage through my car to find enough change to eat a meal. We live in a society where everyone has access to a computer—personal or local library. We have all the information we need to bring (the major…

You're essentially saying "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". This is very easy to do if you've experienced a middle or upper middle class upbringing. This is almost impossible to do if you were raised in a household of abuse or food scarcity, or where your network doesn't contain any well educated individuals. Basically it works for...middle class people. In short: trickle down economics is being pissed on and ca…

I want to add that even the economics of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" with middle class upbringing is shrinking and that is happening fast. Case in point for HN older devs who no longer find work and yet are very knowledgeable and have lots of experience but wouldn't pass a leet code interview.

Re: Billionaires Build

#342

Post by api »

claudeganon wrote: post #325
api wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pandemic happened to hit while we had a particularly idiotic populist demagogue in the White House, but even if we'd had someone more competent I still agree that China would have done better. Assuming you believe their numbers, China seems to be doing better than most of the world. I chalk up China's governmental competence to the number of scientists and engineers involved in their government. It may be authori…

Right, I was just responding to the question, whose posing is often used to suggest that the US is the best of all possible resource allocation worlds. I don't want to live under a regime like the CCP, but we did just run this experiment and the U.S. system of resource allocation failed miserably.

I don't think it's the best of all possible worlds, but it is better than some.

Only a small percentage of billionaires do incredibly valuable things, but those who do are doing things that I can't imagine the US government of today ever doing. The US government would be having meetings to schedule the meeting to discuss the meeting schedule, or fighting over culture war issues.

Re: Billionaires Build

#343

Post by paradox242 »

Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the history of the universe (in absolute number) by founding a company that made life a lot more convenient for a lot of people and there is value in that. We have also all read the stories about how Amazon relates to their labor force, in particular their blue collar workers, upon whom they depend for their business to succeed. Everyone has different attitudes about wealth and poverty largely relating to the class they grew up in and the one they now find themselves in (historically almost always one and the same) but the question that pg sidesteps here entirely is whether it is moral for a single individual to accumulate this kind of wealth. It's clear one can, but should they ought to? Should it be something to be ashamed of, not lauded and aspired to?

I would say yes, and I think many (perhaps not here, given the type of person who frequents this board) would agree. They would observe that while Jeff had some ideas and provided some direction, that the vast majority of the work was done by others far more talented than he in their specific role. That he happens to live in a society that routinely grants the spoils disproportionately to the organizers and not those performing the actual labor is the central critique of capitalism highlighted by Marx and to which I think pg is actually alluding, even if he doesn't realize it. This "profit" is not a surplus, and the difference between the price charged for a commodity or service and that paid in labor (less any costs in materials) is seen as inherently exploitative. I think people can reasonably disagree about the degree, there is of course value in the organization of labor and materials to provide a product or service, but wage disparities of 100 times? 1000 times? I find this to be indefensible.

Re: Billionaires Build

#344

Post by jacksnipe »

kevas wrote: post #312

About to write some possibly controversial stuff... My early life, I grew up and had middle to upper middle class all around me. In my late teens and early twenties, there were times I had to scrounge my cushions and rummage through my car to find enough change to eat a meal. We live in a society where everyone has access to a computer—personal or local library. We have all the information we need to bring (the major…

I'm pretty sure you've only explained why an upper-middle class upbringing makes you much more suited to success than a lower class one. If you have that upbringing, then you're right, nothing is stopping you from doing all of this.

But if you don't, well, what are you supposed to do? Your relationship to work is what it is because you can't afford to lose your job, and you were raised in an environment where others feel that way. Your ability to come home and learn things, rather than "sit down and watch tv or do something that's not going to progress you" is severely impacted if your mental health is already suffering. Your ability to even imagine what you can accomplish is affected by having no examples that you've witnessed in real life.

You can, of course, chalk all of this up to personal responsibility. But the alternative view, backed by science, is that being raised poor impacts all of these things and more, and that's a matter of how the human brain works. In the aggregate, it's not a matter of personal responsibility.

Re: Billionaires Build

#345

Post by [deleted] »

Privacy846 wrote: post #308
drewrv wrote: post #235

This essay uses a weak straw-man: the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people I think the "principle of charity" or "steel-man" criticism of billionaires isn't that every single billionaire is directly exploiting people. It would be closer to something like this: The problem is that our society has feedback loops that make it hard to escape poverty, and feedback loops that let the wealthy amass more…

I don’t know who Graham is talking about—“politicians”?—but this is a very famous claim, or corollary, from Marx: capitalists exploit workers. Why? Because of the labor theory of value. (1) All value is created from labor. (2) Capitalists employ workers in order to extract surplus value from them (what’s the point of employing them if you don’t get more out of your “investment” than you pay it?). (3) Ergo capitalists…

[deleted]

Re: Billionaires Build

#346

Post by dang »

(I originally posted this as a reply to a different comment but detached it because I don't want to pick on anyone personally, or appear to.)

I think what underlies the outrage in this and similar threads is simple: people expect everything anybody says about "billionaires" to be bad. If someone breaks the rule, it doesn't matter what they say; the response will be just this outrage. And if they're a billionaire themselves (or classified by the audience thereas), woe betide. This is not complex conversation—it's ritual behavior.

I'm not arguing against wealth redistribution, siding with billionaires, lacking empathy for what people are living through, or anything of the sort—quite the contrary. I'm just observing that the conversation manifesting in threads like this has a distinctive quality: it is basically our version of feces-hurling in primates, and I'm curious about how weird that is and how weird it is that its weirdness goes unnoticed.

Re: Billionaires Build

#347

Post by stopachka »

yellowapple wrote: post #185
stopachka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are all more similar than you think: Consider - the children of musical prodigies are likely to be more musical then average. The children of billionaires are likely to be more entrepreneurial than average - both are likely to be wealthy - neither are likely to be as prolific — I.e a child making an even more successful business, or being a better musician - over a few generations, both are likely to re…

I mean, just because someone squanders an advantage doesn't mean that one didn't have an advantage to begin with. And that's the fundamental difference between the child of a musician v. the child of a billionaire. In order for the musicians' child to be a prodigy like one's parent, there's still considerable training and practice required. In order for the billionaire's child to be a billionaire like one's parent, t…

> That is: the passing down of musical aptitude through multiple generations requires each generation to put in approximately the same labor as the previous.

Let’s think on that a bit. Consider, if a parent is a musical prodigy, it’s akin to having a fantastic coach at an early age. They can teach you hard-earned insights, help you make the right choices, introduce you to the right people. This makes achievement considerably easier. It’s not as different from financial transfer as we think.

> In a century or two (barring intervention to return wealth to the proletariat) I'd expect the American upper class to get into that groove of wealth consolidation, like how things evolved in Europe

As long we live in a free-market society, I think this will be hard to do. Main reason: it is extremely difficult to invest well in the long-term. You can see this by how prized top investors are. Unless one invests well, in a free market society their wealth gets eaten up.

Europe avoids this through a highly regulated society — social mobility in and out of the upper class is extremely difficult there.

It’s certainly possible that the u.s will lose their position as the bastion of free markets — but whoever picks it up will become as powerful, and most people will start to immigrate there.

Re: Billionaires Build

#348

Post by jacksnipe »

sgt wrote: post #335
analognoise wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're essentially saying "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". This is very easy to do if you've experienced a middle or upper middle class upbringing. This is almost impossible to do if you were raised in a household of abuse or food scarcity, or where your network doesn't contain any well educated individuals. Basically it works for...middle class people. In short: trickle down economics is being pissed on and ca…

But his point is valid to millions of middle class people who still struggle to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps". I think that demographic is so large (most of the people you know, if not all, are in that group, and HUGE potential is lost), that it is worth focusing on.

This rhetoric is almost universally applied to the lower class as well, at least in the US.

Re: Billionaires Build

#349

Post by kiba »

kevas wrote: post #312

About to write some possibly controversial stuff... My early life, I grew up and had middle to upper middle class all around me. In my late teens and early twenties, there were times I had to scrounge my cushions and rummage through my car to find enough change to eat a meal. We live in a society where everyone has access to a computer—personal or local library. We have all the information we need to bring (the major…

90% of problems we have as human beings are emotional regulations. Maybe 5% is strategic decision making.

There's 'ugh' field, procrastination, fear, mental health problems, and so forth that impedes folks.

Growing, however, is all about academics, with a side dish PE. Nobody taught anybody how to deal with procrastination, how to deal with emotional problems, and so on. Or how to ask for help. Or how to deal with paying bills and taking responsibility.

Once we are in the real world, you either learn the rules of society or you don't. You sink and swim on your own 'merit', and that's not including the general lack of support society has for you.

Really, how do society expects people to function with no instruction manual? Or worse, that we are all making up shit as we went along with our lives?

Re: Billionaires Build

#350

Post by stopachka »

NathanWilliams wrote: post #173
stopachka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are all more similar than you think: Consider - the children of musical prodigies are likely to be more musical then average. The children of billionaires are likely to be more entrepreneurial than average - both are likely to be wealthy - neither are likely to be as prolific — I.e a child making an even more successful business, or being a better musician - over a few generations, both are likely to re…

> Consider - the children of musical prodigies are likely to be more musical then average Is that true though? You made a big claim, without backing, to support your other claim.

I didn’t support the claim, as it seems very apparent to me. Do you think it’s not the case?
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