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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#291

Post by camgunz »

diurnalist wrote: post #81
Meekro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California legislators made this kind of argument earlier this year as they tried to force Uber to reclassify their drivers as employees. California voters rejected that. Uber drivers themselves overwhelmingly wanted to keep their contractor status. Maybe they don't consider themselves exploited?

There is some speculation (I haven't seen where the data for this preference for contractor status comes from other than "drivers surveyed") that the high preference is influenced by dark patterns in the ride-sharing apps, where the drivers are presented with in-app notifications very frequently until they indicate support. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/22/uber-pr... I'm sure many would not consid…

Incredible that anyone reports this stat as useful. It's blatantly coercive. What driver wouldn't fear algorithmic reprisal from not indicating support?

Re: Billionaires Build

#292

Post by ppod »

"Make something people want" is ambiguous in an interesting way. It could mean "Find out what people want, and make that" (Ford's faster horse), or it can mean "make something that people will want when they understand it".

Re: Billionaires Build

#293

Post by danbolt »

googlryas wrote: post #205
mbgerring wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I would argue that most employees never get a meaningful offer to accept more risk if they so choose. I think it would be better if employees could choose to accept more risk in the form of profit sharing in place of salary, but it’s not typically on the table, even at a startup. Second, the point here is that PG is misapprehending (or deliberately obfuscating) what people mean by “exploitation.” When Marxists…

Employees have the choice in that they are free agents and can choose to accept or reject any contract. And they themselves can go and found a company just like the founders on the other side of the table. Would it be nice if employees were given options to wiggle fixed comp to adjust to their own risk profiles - so they could choose more guaranteed pay with less risk, or more possible upside with more risk? Sure, ab…

I think the commenter is using a paradigm where value is a function of labour. There are other viewpoints that disagree with that paradigm, like what you're suggesting.

Re: Billionaires Build

#294

Post by joe463369 »

generalizations wrote: post #271
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…

> It doesn't have to be this way, it's a product of our laws and can be changed I don't think any of your three statements are true, based on my (limited) knowledge of history. Far as I know, the only way to break the feedback loop is to restart it - a revolution or the like - and build something in its place that maximizes the time until the loop has to be broken again. If anything, I'd guess that it's human nature…

Capitalism unchecked tends towards monopolies and subsistence wage for those lucky enough to have a job. I agree this is a product of our human instincts, but the only thing stopping it - short of a revolution - are thoughtful laws designed to balance the entrepreneurial spirit with the need to treat everybody equitably.

Re: Billionaires Build

#295

Post by JangoSteve »

It seems weird to view it as an either/or. "Billionaires exploit people." -- "No, they build things people want."

I think that you may be able to become a billionaire without exploiting people, but it's like playing on the high-difficulty mode. In other words, it's easier to be "successful" (from a monetary point of view) when you don't care about others. It's also easier to be successful coming from a privileged background. What's more, there can be a correlation between only knowing privilege and not caring about others, which perhaps leads to the number of billionaires who exploit people (double-advantage).

But it's all very complicated. Sometimes a modest background is an advantage in that you have less to lose, and can provide unique insight in connecting with people. Or a modest background can lead to a survival-of-the-fittest or harsh-world mentality, which leads to the exact opposite, which can also be an advantage.

At any rate, I've chosen to play on high-difficulty mode, for better or worse.

Re: Billionaires Build

#296

Post by throwaway09223 »

dang wrote: post #276
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 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…

Yes, sorry. I started browsing HN on a new device a few weeks ago and I made a new account because I didn't have access to my other system at the time.

Re: Billionaires Build

#297

Post by pgayed »

dang wrote: post #276
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 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…

Implement the email spam solution that never was: set a nontrivial fee to create a (posting) account on hn. 10 bucks oughtta do the trick.

Re: Billionaires Build

#298

Post by camgunz »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #130
Traster wrote: post #28

For a clearly smart guy it's so frustrating to see PG bring in a topic like the Billionaires being exploitative, and then taking such a thoroughly blinkered view. It's a massive blind spot that PG fails to address is that it's the exact same sense of mission that he sees in start ups that creates the permission structure to exploit people. It's not that people set out to exploit people and as a result they become bil…

A more or less capitalist system is more or less self correcting. Yes, billionaires gain their wealth, and yes, workers, businesses and even governments can have a poor experience with it in the process of the billionaire's company succeeding. The exploitation is real and should be discussed and appropriately addressed. A couple of thoughts... New, billion-dollar business are, many times, transformational. Amazon, Ub…

They're not, really. They lend themselves to monopolies and oligopolies, and lead to high levels of capital concentration and thus income inequality. Government intervention is required to correct this, but hasn't in over 40 years. I'm more or less making an appeal to authority to Piketty here but, people generally agree with him.

Re: Billionaires Build

#299

Post by Barrin92 »

dang wrote: post #176
kgog wrote: post #153

love to see pg get more out of touch with every single passing day.

pg hasn't changed a bit, as far as I can tell. Surrounding conditions (e.g. the political and media climate) have changed a lot, plus there are the expectations people have from anyone they perceive as rich and famous. He ignores that kind of expectation, which pisses a lot of people off—but this is nothing new. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25233038

Not changing when your environment changes is how everyone who is out of touch ends up well, out of touch. If Genghis Khan was still around roaming the steppes pillaging I'd hardly excuse it with "he's independently minded and ignores people's expectations, it just pisses a lot of people off"

This is btw another theme of the later batch of his pieces, implying what he's saying is valuable because he's such a maverick, has strong "wake up sheeple" vibes

Re: Billionaires Build

#300

Post by camgunz »

marcinzm wrote: post #175
mbgerring wrote: post #165

Ctrl-F “employees” 0 results It’s crazy that so many of these companies with billionaire founders have thousands of employees who are not billionaires, nor have a meaningful stake in the decisions the company makes. Wonder what that’s about.

Nothing is stopping those employees from taking all the risks and starting their own businesses. Of course they'll give up their stable consistent paychecks and benefits for possibly years with only a small chance of high returns. Lower risk, lower reward.

Not everyone has the resources to be a founder. Even just starting a very basic business takes resources, but if we're talking YC tech startups, that's stuff like Ivy League schools, tech chops, good network connections, the ability to potentially not build wealth for years. It takes a ton of privilege, on average, and that just magnifies.
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