Billionaires Build • Hacker News Board

Re: Billionaires Build

#691

Post by lukejduncan » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

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…

Having a lower tax rate is different than paying less tax. Not saying there isn’t something wrong with a lower tax rate, but it’s disingenuous to frame it this way.

Re: Billionaires Build

#692

Post by 0xy » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

anon9001 wrote: post #360

Barrin92 wrote: post #328

Two things that are very obviously wrong with the take, both I think having the same reason: Not all billionaires are self-made, and a majority of them aren't tech entrepreneurs of the sort PG talks about in this piece. Seems like a very obvious fact but somehow doesn't really come up. Secondly, in the same vein, the kind of (aspiring) billionaires YC meets are, by definition, builders, because they're self-sorted fl…

> Nobody called Zuckerberg or Bezos exploitative when they were coding in dorm rooms and folding boxes on Ikea tables Actually lots of us called them exploitive. It might not change anything, but it's worth noting that a lot of us knew that facebook would grow into the great evil that it is today. It was also obvious that Amazon would eat all retail stores, and it pretty much has.

Amazon's margins: 0-5%

Retail margins: 20-80%

Amazon is directly helping poor people by cutting out the greedy middlemen between them and essentials.

Re: Billionaires Build

#693

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

Somewhat of a meta point - but it seems like AirBnB the go-to example that PG uses in his essays (even if he mentions others - like Boom in this case).

AirBnB is of course a total homerun, but surely there are other companies like Stripe, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Gitlab etc... that have equivalently good reference points for how founders should think. I'm curious if there is something that sets the ABNB folks that much apart in that sense.

Re: Billionaires Build

#694

Post by kevas » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:14 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #380

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…

I generally agree with this, but I think there's also a real issue of what to do about people that just can't do this. This requires some threshold level of intelligence. It requires knowing that it's possible and not making stupid decisions along the way that inhibit it. You're less likely to be exposed to knowledge of how or where to start when no one inside your network is successful. There are some issues with le…

Love the response. Will respond later

Re: Billionaires Build

#695

Post by thurn » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #346

(I originally posted this as a reply to a different comment but detached it because I don't want to pick on anyone personally, or appear to.) I think what underlies the outrage in this and similar threads is simple: people expect everything anybody says about "billionaires" to be bad. If someone breaks the rule, it doesn't matter what they say; the response will be just this outrage. And if they're a billionaire them…

If you legitimately agree with Bernie Sanders that "billionaires should not exist" (an increasingly mainstream idea), it seems unsurprising that you would get this outcome. If someone thinks smoking is killing people and you say "but actually it's good!", it's hard to see what kind of intellectually stimulating and complex conversation could be had from there.

Re: Billionaires Build

#696

Post by kevas » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

3131s wrote: post #679

kevas wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to write the following sentence, but you don’t know me and the experiences I’ve had throughout my life. The stabbed, jail, etc... you mentioned... yeah, I’ve seen that first hand a few times, know many people who have gone to jail and are still in it for a myriad of reasons. Seeing & having that stuff around you doesn’t mean you grow poor. I did the 6 year community college plan; I failed out of college and by…

Sounds like someone was bankrolling you through this period of failure? And from you're own admission you "had to scrounge for change" a few times... I know people who nearly starved to death as little children. In fact there are starving, begging kids out on the streets all over the city I live in. It doesn't sound like you have any familiarity with the type of extreme poverty that hundreds of millions of people on…

I didn’t have a bankroll during this time, but have a job that i found through a guy i knew who knew another guy at the gym, which kept me afloat.

I can say that I have been fortunate enough to not have ever been at that level of poverty and should probably adjust my statements accordingly. Looking back, as i wrote that, I most likely had just the States in mind and other Western countries, not societies that are considered 3rd world.

For those, I cannot fathom the issues they face nor will i even attempt to speculate as that would be just foolish of me.

Re: Billionaires Build

#697

Post by bccdee » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

centimeter wrote: post #659

samcal wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this holds up to scrutiny. My limited understanding of epigenetics means that social factors and genetic factors are not so easily separated, we'd need significantly more generations of data to show that.

Non-heritable effects (including epigenetic) are estimated to contribute to less than 30% of population intelligence variance.

If you were familiar with the data, you wouldn't make statements like that, because heritability is a population statistic, not a constant. It varies significantly between populations, to the point where you can't make claims about it without controlling for the population you're studying.

For instance, we could say that the heritability of intelligence among the children of suburban Chicago families in a particular income bracket is 70%, but not that the heritability of intelligence in general is 70%.

Re: Billionaires Build

#698

Post by gred » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

chillwaves wrote: post #212

austinpena wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t believe that if someone makes billions they should be able to pass it on to their children?

Do you believe in meritocracy? Because ownership of that amount of wealth is surely going to skew the entire system. How long before we just have a permanent ruling class, and how does that move humanity forward?

> Do you believe in meritocracy? Because ownership of that amount of wealth is surely going to skew the entire system.

Your focus is too narrow. Broaden the timeline -- the meritocratic spoils cascade across the generations, as they ever have. It's part of the motivation to achieve.

Re: Billionaires Build

#699

Post by CalChris » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

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…

To be more accurate, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secret...

Re: Billionaires Build

#700

Post by jrsala » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

themacguffinman wrote: post #639

chillwaves wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government, controlled by the people.

If the government or any similar bureaucracy could actually allocate resources better, we wouldn't have so many failed planned economies and not a single successful example compared to capitalist economies.

This is a false dichotomy. GP did not suggest a planned economy as a solution, and more generally a planned economy is not the only alternative to wanton capitalism where government rather has more control over resources.