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The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

forbes.com

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Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#161

Post by seoaeu »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #136
lmm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Stop giving discounted tax rates for capital gains, make people pay the full income tax rate for any kind of income - Abolish step-up basis, which allows dynasties to build tax-free wealth via "invest, borrow, die"-type strategies. Also other tax avoidance strategies used by the rich e.g. 503cs. - Stop giving corporations special treatment under anti-trust law compared to other ways of organising. Give unions, work…

Unlike wages, capital gains can be negative. And generally IRS doesn't compensate for losses, except for minuscule amount. Otherwise imagine Treasury having to refund trillions to Bitcoin bag holders. So lower rate reflects higher risk.

The stock market grows by an average of something like 10% per year. Mutual funds charge a couple percent fees but usually still make a profit. If you are losing money long term as an investor then you’re a bad one

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#163

Post by mym1990 »

triceratops wrote: post #138
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike wages, capital gains can be negative. And generally IRS doesn't compensate for losses, except for minuscule amount. Otherwise imagine Treasury having to refund trillions to Bitcoin bag holders. So lower rate reflects higher risk.

A lower rate for the same amount of income in capital gains compared to salary makes sense. But why is the top rate for capital gains only 20% when it's 38% for income? (plus whatever the state adds on top). Why aren't there more brackets that go higher for capital gains as well?

The controversial answer might be that the wealthier brackets are more likely to be holders of financial investments, and the tax code seems to clearly benefit wealthier groups because the tax code is influenced BY the wealthier class through lobbying and the sorts.

If I had no context of the situation, I would see the lower % as a way to incentivize people to invest their money in things that would fall under capital gains.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#164

Post by bagacrap »

paulpauper wrote: post #66
m00dy wrote: post #20

Let's see what will happen for them in this bear market.

The Nasdaq fell as much as it did during Covid, but without any obvious cause or catalyst for the selling. the bear market is probably over now. More likely this is the bottom.

inflation? qe? rate hikes?

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#166

Post by Cederfjard »

polote wrote: post #104
kareemsabri wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not difficult to hear, it's just not true. I don't know what sort of companies you've worked at where employees are completely fungible, but I've had the opposite experience, working with many talented and hard working people who make major contributions that help deliver hundreds of millions in revenue. Perhaps you joined them when they were already unicorns and the playbook / moat was already developed, but at…

You can be very talented and do a ton of work without having a bigger business impact than another person doing 50% less than you. At the end whether you have a design system, if you have infinite scalability, if you use node or Ruby, having that feature or that other feature it doesn't matter. The only thing that matter is the revenue the company make. If what matters was the people then ngo would be unicorns

Do those things have no impact on revenue (or costs)?

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#168

Post by jdavis703 »

jonplackett wrote: post #94
jdavis703 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon’s board decided to reallocate the CEO’s compensation package and grant it to employees, it would increase the entry level salaries of warehouse workers from $18/hour to $18.45/hour. Not a bad bump, but also historically low by Amazon pay bumps. But it’s also not going to solve income inequality… And very likely there are few people qualified to be CEO of Amazon who’d do the job for $18.45/hour.

Don’t confuse compensation with his wealth. CEOs often have hardly any salary. But his shares nearly doubled in value over the pandemic - increasing by $84 billion. Divide those billions per employee instead and they get $84,000 each. And Bezos is still as rich as he was before the pandemic.

The CEO of Amazon has a $212mm compensation package. That’s what I based my estimate off. And I’m sure we can all agree that $212mm is more than “hardly any salary.” I could retire on that amount, have my alma matter name a building after me and still have more money than I know what to do with.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#169

Post by wbsss4412 »

beaned wrote: post #137
wbsss4412 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thesis is hard to square with the fact that it’s not that these unicorns are started in the US, it’s that they are almost all started in one metropolitan area . The distinguishing factors here aren’t simply European regulations and taxes.

There might be a bit of observational bias here (better technical term?). HN is overwhelmingly about the tech industry, but most US companies are started outside of SF/California.

Most are started outside of California, yes, but there are plenty of large scale companies in the EU too. So unless we are limiting the discussion to large scale tech companies of the sort that are predominately in the Bay Area, the discussion just isn’t congruent.

Re: The Collison Brothers Built Stripe into a $95B Unicorn

#170

Post by sdf131 »

lmm wrote: post #140
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike wages, capital gains can be negative. And generally IRS doesn't compensate for losses, except for minuscule amount. Otherwise imagine Treasury having to refund trillions to Bitcoin bag holders. So lower rate reflects higher risk.

Isn't the risk of losses supposedly why capital holders make a profit at all? So they shouldn't be paid twice for it.

The capital being invested has already been taxed at the source.

Capital gains shouldn’t even be taxed. I earned it, paid taxes on it; what I do with it beyond that is no one’s business. I’m the one taking the risk yet the government benefits if that risk pays off but doesn’t compensate me if it doesn’t.

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