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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#441

Post by monknomo »

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…

I've heard it phrased that no one every sees a Ferrari drive by and wonders how many dishes they had to wash to get the cool car.

Re: Billionaires Build

#442

Post by somethoughts »

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…

Yes - perhaps PG should have added qualifiers along the lines of "YC originated billionaires" versus attempting to cover all billionaires that have ever existed. It seems somewhat naive to say that every person with a billion in their bank account has built something and always is the best allocator of capital.

Oil and Gas billionaires leverage the fact that society hasn't figured out how to factor in negative environmental externalities. Consumer Staples billionaires leverage their supply chain monopolies and labor monopolies.

The original tech billionaires leveraged their early knowledge of computers/internet. Web 2.0/3.0 billionaires leverage the fact that society hasn't figured out how to appropriately regulate stuff that's similar but slightly different from their old school regulated counterparts (i.e. Uber, Airbnb).

In general, leveraging technology capabilities seems less exploitive than leveraging human/environmental resources/lack of regulation.

Re: Billionaires Build

#443

Post by andrekandre »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #419
eschaton wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if, say, Jeff Bezos hired his warehouse workers as employees, paid them an inflation-adjusted minimum wage (eg about $25/hr), and offered real benefits, he and his company would still be making massive profits. That’s what makes it unethical and exploitative: They don’t actually need to be paid so little or treated so harshly for the company’s economics to work!

Henry Ford paid his workers shockingly high wages for the time, which enabled them to purchase the cars they built. A mass consumer economy ensued. Given the state of consumer indebtedness now, I think our economy is actually underperforming because there is not enough demand due to low wages. The problem with Fordism is that if you are a manager, there are strong incentives for your firm to defect from paying high w…

> But he chooses not to.

i think, this is a key point

we are beholden to someone with great power and wealth to be more fair; those who are under them dont have any kind of vote in the matter and therefore have little power to ask for more (whatever that may be)...

Re: Billionaires Build

#444

Post by rufus_foreman »

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…

>> However he does pay less taxes than his secretary

No, he does not. He claims he paid $1,850,000 in federal taxes in 2015, do you think his secretary earned that much, let alone paid that much in taxes?

In addition:

“In 2019, Berkshire sent $3.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury to pay its current income tax,” Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders. “The U.S. government collected $243 billion from corporate income tax payments during the same period. From these statistics, you can take pride that your company delivered 1.5% of the federal income taxes paid by all of corporate America.”

>> What's the point of being the wealthiest nation ever on paper, if there's terrible schools, high infant mortality, and lead in the drinking pipes?

A higher percentage of people graduate from college today than graduated from high school a hundred years ago, infant mortality is 6 per 1000 today vs. 100 per 1000 a hundred years ago, and blood lead levels in children have been reduced so much that it is claimed to be largely responsible for the drop in crime rates since the 1980s.

The point of getting wealthy is that it gives you resources to deal with your problems.

Re: Billionaires Build

#445

Post by imgabe »

tartoran wrote: post #364
lotsofpulp wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

I'm sorry, what?

What people are you referring to? I've read a fair amount about the gilded age robber barons and such. They were definitely not content to be paid back in "respect, recognition, fanfare". In fact that is more of a distraction and nuisance, and occasionally a liability or danger. The sorts of business practices used in the past to amass and keep wealth make anything today look like kiddie stuff.

Re: Billionaires Build

#446

Post by mempko »

curun1r wrote: post #416
rahimnathwani wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 implicitly assumes that "the value of someone else's work" is independent of the context in which that work is done. The reason Jeff can pay someone less than the value (to Jeff) of that person's work is that, somewhere other than Amazon, that person's work would be less valuable. The reason is…

> This implicitly assumes that "the value of someone else's work" is independent of the context in which that work is done. Not really, since no one is arguing that this worker-capital relationship should change. That the synergy exists is a good thing. But the tax burden of the two groups is what’s at issue. On the one side, you have the “they built it, they should keep it” folks. On the other side are those that be…

The vast majority of capital is owned by very few people. What makes you think it's an efficient allocation ?

Re: Billionaires Build

#447

Post by criddell »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #444
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…

>> However he does pay less taxes than his secretary No, he does not. He claims he paid $1,850,000 in federal taxes in 2015, do you think his secretary earned that much, let alone paid that much in taxes? In addition: “In 2019, Berkshire sent $3.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury to pay its current income tax,” Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders. “The U.S. government collected $243 billion from corporate i…

> No, he does not.

A quick googling suggest that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Re: Billionaires Build

#448

Post by quietbritishjim »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #444
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…

>> However he does pay less taxes than his secretary No, he does not. He claims he paid $1,850,000 in federal taxes in 2015, do you think his secretary earned that much, let alone paid that much in taxes? In addition: “In 2019, Berkshire sent $3.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury to pay its current income tax,” Buffett said in his annual letter to shareholders. “The U.S. government collected $243 billion from corporate i…

>> However he does pay less taxes than his secretary

> No, he does not. He claims he paid $1,850,000 in federal taxes in 2015, do you think his secretary earned that much, let alone paid that much in taxes?

I think it was clear that they meant as a fraction of income, not as an absolute value.

Re: Billionaires Build

#449

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #381
postingpals wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of people who invoke the labour theory of value misunderstand it. Welcome to the 99%.

Please don't post snarky dismissals to HN. If you know more than others, the best way to respond is to share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, that's fine, but in that case please don't post. Letting the internet be wrong about everything is the primary survival skill we all have to work on anyhow. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=t…

[deleted]

Re: Billionaires Build

#450

Post by moduspol »

tartoran wrote: post #435
moduspol wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure the value lost by the jobs of stablehands, cobblers, milkmen, and movie projectionists?

I see what you’re trying to do there but that’s not what i was talking about. Some jobs become obsolete but we still need phisical stores. My neighborhood has very few stores open and that’s because of Amazon and friends. The value and the vitality of my neighborhood was largely destroyed

Those jobs are only seen as obsolete in hindsight, because we can all acknowledge that society would not be made better by bringing them back. This wasn't the case at the time when they were being forced out of business.

Certainly not all physical stores are unnecessary, but it may not be the case that society is better served by brick and mortar stores than Amazon (and similar), despite lost jobs and (temporarily) abandoned commercial space. It may just be progress moving forward.

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