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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#361

Post by shawndrost »

This essay shows a contradiction in PG's own beliefs, which I also grapple with.

He doesn't believe "the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people", and his argument is persuasive. I tend to agree! All those characteristics he's interviewing for are positive, and I think he's a great billionaire scout. Most of the rich people I know got there in ways that don't seem exploitative.

But, he does believe "people who make a lot of money have a moral obligation to use it for the common good", and... isn't that a contradiction? If someone makes their first ten million, and keeps earning more with no clear plans to allocate it to the public good -- are they ignoring their moral obligation? Maybe not yet. What about a multi-billionaire who, years down the road, still hasn't signed on to something like the Giving Pledge? How can we defend the morality of that person?

Re: Billionaires Build

#362

Post by winston_smith »

curun1r wrote: post #330
throwaway09223 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a straw man, it is an extremely common belief and it deserves to be addressed and debunked. My social media is stuffed to the brim with people posting exactly this sentiment. It is true that there are other, more reasonable beliefs.

I think Paul is fundamentally not understanding the argument behind “billionaires exploit workers.” It isn’t that billionaires are fundamentally bad people or that they’ve accumulated their wealth through misdeeds. But what it is is that it’s basically impossible to accumulate that amount of wealth through work. Instead, you have to be able to capture the difference between the value of someone else’s work and what y…

> you have to be able to capture the difference between the value of someone else’s work and what you pay them to do it

This is the textbook definition for how wealth is created, and it's exactly what's supposed to happen in every transaction in the marketplace.

You buy an apple for $1 and it brings you $1.10 in value. You have captured the difference between its value to you and its value to the seller, and the ten cents is wealth that didn't exist before.

This also works for the seller, who sold her apple for $1 even though it only cost her $0.95. She captures five cents of the wealth created by the transaction.

Wealth is created because things have contextual value. It's the same when we exchange our labor for money. They wanted our labor more than the money. We wanted the money more than the time. Win/win for both of us.

Re: Billionaires Build

#363

Post by RIMR »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #259
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…

This isn't a straw man, it is an extremely common belief and it deserves to be addressed and debunked. My social media is stuffed to the brim with people posting exactly this sentiment. It is true that there are other, more reasonable beliefs.

No, it's absolutely a strawman. The exploitation billionaires create isn't direct. The problem is that Billionaires amass this wealth while people beneath them struggle.

Jeff Bezos shouldn't be making 12-figure gains while his warehouse workers are on welfare. Those warehouse workers shouldn't be paying a higher tax rate than he does on their income.

That IS an unquestionably exploitive relationship between a CEO and his employees, even if he isn't personally being an exploitive monster he isn't doing anything about the systemic exploitation he lead the way in creating.

This is pretty much true of any billionaire, regardless of their personality or views.

The existence of billionaires is a economic luxury that should only be afforded once society as a whole has taken care of its people. The co-existence of billionaires and homelessness is an economic failure, especially when some billionaires possess more capital individually than the entire homeless population of this country.

Re: Billionaires Build

#364

Post by tartoran »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #228
chillwaves wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So what should happen to your assets when the total of their market capitalization crosses the $1B line?

> So what should happen to your assets when the total of their market capitalization crosses the $1B line?

People who created enormous value in the past were rich but not filthy rich and that was not their goal in the first place. Most of them were happy enough to be paid back in respect, recognition, credit, fanfare, veneration etc..

Re: Billionaires Build

#365

Post by wmeredith »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #338
canofbars wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knew about this decades ago. It was even taught in schools as just basic facts and science before it became political.

Could I get your source for this? I've never heard that climate change was taught in public school decades ago.

I was taught about greenhouse gasses in 6th grade science. (In the 1980's)

Re: Billionaires Build

#366

Post by zd123 »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #259
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…

This isn't a straw man, it is an extremely common belief and it deserves to be addressed and debunked. My social media is stuffed to the brim with people posting exactly this sentiment. It is true that there are other, more reasonable beliefs.

Lets assume it is not a strawman, what empirical evidence suggests that this is not the case?

I mean, as an example, billionaires have access to top notch lawyers that lower their tax bill, look at Trump’s recent tax filings for example. Can you reasonably argue that they are not unfairly taking advantage of society, and by extension its people?

What about government lobbying etc. I mean the list goes on.

Personally I think PG just attacks the weakest form of the argument against his view. He obviously benefits from billionaires being created as he is an investor. Getting a large payout is literally the purpose of his job.

Re: Billionaires Build

#367

Post by tartoran »

api wrote: post #314
claudeganon wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese government is a horrible, authoritarian nightmare, but still somehow does better at managing the country's resources than the American ruling class. The pandemic, now over in China, while our nurses tape garbage bags to themselves as thousands die daily, has proven that definitively.

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…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25304738

This might be a relevant story I read today on China.

Re: Billionaires Build

#368

Post by vondur »

anoncow wrote: post #307
dang wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but can you please not create accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a differen…

How did you know? From the username?

Probably via the IP address used.

Re: Billionaires Build

#369

Post by imgabe »

danans wrote: post #356
imgabe wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a strawman insofar as there are people who literally say exactly that, and those are the people he's addressing. I agree there are more reasonable discussions to be had about how to distribute wealth for the greatest benefit to society but there are people who believe that if we just tax Jeff Bezos more then the Water Authority in Flint, MI will somehow become more competent.

> It's not a strawman insofar as there are people who literally say exactly that People oppose billionaires paying low taxes, and the related lack of public investment in bedrock services and infrastructure they need. When a rural area has no hospital, or a city has crumbling roads and transit, yes, people resent enormously wealthy people for whom those are not concerns. People do not, however, oppose their success a…

> That, however, is a strawman. Nobody suggests that at all. People who support more progressive taxation point to things like the New Deal and the strong progressive taxation coupled with public investment in infrastructure and education that propelled the United States forward.

You're making that exact argument in fancier words. "strong progressive taxation coupled with public investment in infrastructure" implies that the problem is not enough money. So take more money from people who have lots of money and let the government spend it.

The US spends more per-pupil on education than almost every other country [1], with worse outcomes in most cases. The corrosion inhibitors that would have prevented the Flint water crisis cost $140 per day. That's not a misplaced decimal point. That's One Hundred and Forty dollars. Do we need to revamp the entire US tax system to come up with a 140 bucks? No. The money is there, what's needed is some competence in how it's applied.

[1] https://www.manhattan-institute.org/issues-2020-us-public-sc...

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