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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#401

Post by Aunche »

Frondo wrote: post #387
Aunche wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people agree that a book author deserves a couple dollars every time someone purchases their media. JK Rowling's stories have been read and watched billions of times? Who deserves to control that capital more than JK Rowling herself?

Let her control it til the end of the tax year, and then let her help fund the system that made her fabulously wealthy.

The government is made up of people who make mistakes even if they have the best of intentions. It doesn't make sense for a bureaucrat to have more control of the wealth than the person who created that wealth purely from her imagination.

Re: Billionaires Build

#402

Post by mistermann »

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.

I disagree.

PG's statement:

> The second is about something politicians sometimes say — that the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people — and why this is mistaken.

He is framing it so he is debunking an absurd claim: that the only way (no other ways are possible) to become a billionaire is by exploiting people.

This is distinctly different from whether "exploiting people" (opinions vary on what this means) is the most common way it is actually done.

It's a shame we don't have a political party that would end this rhetorical he said / she said approach we take to this topic, and instead adapt a thorough data focused approach to this problem, accurately illustrating the situation in a way that the common man could understand. It would be nice to know with some level of accuracy how "bad" the problem really is, as it is we have little to go on other than our intuitions and propaganda from both sides.

Re: Billionaires Build

#403

Post by smhost »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #397
smhost wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ignores the value of capital and organisation it doesn't. that capital was built by labor.

And indeed those workers who get paid, can save and invest that money to enhance the productivity of other workers and get a return. Generally the higher risk of losing the money, the more return you can potentially get. Some of those workers will hit the jackpot and get a great return. Is it morally wrong?

the labor theory of value isn't a theory of morality. if you don't believe that exploitation is wrong, then you're free to use the LTV to maximize exploitation, which is what many ex-communists have done to great success in places like south korea, vietnam, and china.

Re: Billionaires Build

#404

Post by jdkee »

eloff wrote: post #279
IanCal wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those can both be true. If I provide enough value to buy a thousand lifetimes worth of food and sit in my castle with it while people outside my moat starve - am I not selfishly hoarding that food?

Yes. A lot of billionaires do choose to share, currently that's up to them. I think we can should make laws to put higher taxes on the rich, but in practice it's tough to do that well. Often they just move themselves or their money to get around that. One has to balance harvesting eggs com the golden goose with not killing it or driving it away. Taxing just billionaires specifically wouldn't do much as there aren't m…

Not if we eliminate all global tax havens such as Bermuda or Lichtenstein. That combined with serious criminal penalties for tax evasion.

Re: Billionaires Build

#405

Post by breck »

ablekh wrote: post #399
breck wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The world is not black and white. But it is N and N^N

How is this relevant to the subject? Is this your counterargument to the core of what I wrote above?

I would agree with you about the "be careful" part. A wise quote is "If you want to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh or they'll kill you”.

I believe in perspective too, and agree that perspective matters.

But I also believe their is a common perspective (very hard to get at, that is the journey of scientists), and so at some point when you have enough data you can say "well there really is a black and white here".

Re: Billionaires Build

#406

Post by Frondo »

birdsbirdsbirds wrote: post #117
Benjammer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm even less old, my career started in 2009. My personal experience was that people back then were both more nerdy and more ambitious, not a tradeoff. And now people are "ambitious" but it's a personal ambition to play the game and earn more money than their peers. The people I worked with in 2009 were ambitious in the sense of building products and teams and companies to succeed in the marketplace, or creating new…

Where can one find the ambitious people of 2009 to build products and teams and companies? Asking for a friend.

Look for places where laws can be broken with relative impunity for whatever reason -- maybe they're small laws (like hotel regulations), maybe they're laws that address a relatively small and poor group of people (like the taxi medallion service).

Find those laws, and develop a startup that can break them or exploit loopholes, and you've got your next startup of 2009, in 2020.

There's probably room in environmental regulation, maybe there's a minimum amount of toxic waste you have to dump for it to be regulated, and you could create an "uber for toxic waste" where people could pick some up from a pollution-heavy plant on their way home from work and take it home to their toilet to dump in.

Sky's the limit if you want a 2009-style unicorn.

Re: Billionaires Build

#407

Post by IanCal »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #329
canofbars wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think billionaires would just stop and let the system collect their money? My first thought is they would just donate all ownership over the cap to family members. They could probably continue this forever before every family member gains $1B

Couldn’t you just cap non-charitable gifts to something like $1 million lifetime per recipient in that case? I doubt that’d be particularly controversial with anyone who isn’t a multi-millionaire, unless I’m missing something.

Or cap them on the donor.

Re: Billionaires Build

#408

Post by threatofrain »

mightybyte wrote: post #385
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…

> the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people Here's a slightly different take on this idea: The only way to become a billionaire is to use leverage. I think this is a much more defensible argument. You can't become a billionaire by yourself. You have to have some mechanism of leverage to magnify your impact. Hiring employees is a form of leverage. Using a computer is a form of leverage. Putting your…

IMO, for this context, leverage is within the realm of individual incentive vs. pressure, not that you "leveraged" your DB's guarantees for worry-free scaling.

Re: Billionaires Build

#410

Post by criddell »

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…

> It’s my belief that it boils down to a few things: - self learning - dedication

And luck especially with respect to your health and the health of those around you. It's harder to invest in yourself when you are a primary caregiver to a relative.

It's this argument that makes me wonder how anybody can be opposed to some form of universal health care. I heard somebody ask this question once and it's stuck with me: how would you organize society if you knew you would be reborn but have no idea into what situation.

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