9 ms·

You Are Jeff Bezos

62 points by hendi_ 8y ago

moolcool 8y ago
This game implies that Bezos' net worth is all liquid, which it's definitely not. Owning a large portion of a very large company is very different from having a fat checking account
- twblalock 8y ago
  When you have billions of dollars in assets you can get a loan for pretty much any amount. Bezos has no problem with liquidity.
  - moolcool 8y ago
    >Bezos has no problem with liquidity Not for any sensible things he may want, but he certainly would if he were to do everything OP implies he can do with his wealth
- delucain 8y ago
  The game mentions that and says something like, "Deal with it. This is a game."
j-c-hewitt 8y ago
Why are my only options to fulfill the insipid political fantasies of a twitter slacktivist?
crispytx 8y ago
Haters gonna hate.
jkingsbery 8y ago
At least one of the items you can spend Jeff Bezos's money on ("End homelessness in the United States (-$20 billion)") is argumentative, since the government at different levels has arguably spent a much larger amount than that already. The only tally I see attempted is from an admittedly small-government-bias outlet (the Cato Institute, estimating $15 trillion), which many people seem to believe is inflated. Even if it's off by, say 2 orders of magnitude, you're still left with the government having spent much more already. Which shows two things: 1. Throwing money at a problem is not enough. 2. The idea of just taking rich people's money to fix problems is not enough. Also, one of the further items ("Fund NASA for a year (-$20 billion)"): Jeff Bezos is already spending a billion dollars every year to fund a private space company. I don't know why the assumption is that it's a "vanity" project.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  You're not wrong. But it sure doesn't hurt!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ct0 8y ago
I am Elon Musk
- inawarminister 8y ago
  I would absolutely play Elon simulator. All the options though... Like calling out Valve [0] or the whole funding secured saga. Would be too complex? [0] check twitter.com/elonmusk
stuart78 8y ago
There is something odd about the complacency implied by the line of thinking this game seems to represent. Why is it more Jeff Bezos' problem to solve homelessness than it is each of ours? Does he have a greater moral directive to do so than us because he has accumulated a great fortune? At what point do we as a society hold this theoretical Bezos accountable for the choices he makes? My point is not that he shouldn't give charitably, but there is something that seems deeply pessimistic to me about turning to the rich to solve our societal ills. If the implication is that we should have a more 'fair' tax system, I can get on board with some version of that straw man, but would rather we as a society fix our own problems rather than hoping for help from the plutocrats. Why should we assume that Bezos or any other billionaire would solve these problems in a way that is actually in society's best interest? Would we wish that Bezos spend his money differently than the Koch brothers? We have government to help create solutions for this space, and in my opinion we should reject the passive acceptance of mediocrity there and instead hold them accountable for delivering these things. I may not be holding my breath for this, but that is part of the problem.
- angel_j 8y ago
  The game isn't saying we should ask the rich to solve our problems. The game implies a system is fucked that allows one person to own a seemingly infinite sum, and leave others to suffer and die on the street. I think this is a fair assessment. A system that gives any one liberty to seek the greatest riches, should also protect those who's fortunes, being a part of the same system, are much poorer. It is probably a simple exercise to economically model how too much in one hand prevents enough in another's stomach. Better than questioning the morality of looking into rich people's bank accounts, is the question of whether it is ethical for people to accumulate so much in the first place. There must be a sense of commonwealth, because the only thing that exists "in a vacuum of society", is nature itself, and that must in some respect belong to everybody. It would not even amount to "wealth redistribution" to tax the top 0.01% enough to afford decent housing and education; it'd be a soft cap.
  - slowmovintarget 8y ago
    > Better than questioning the morality of looking into rich people's bank accounts, is the question of whether it is ethical for people to accumulate so much in the first place. The economy is not a zero-sum game. Bezos has "accumulated" company stock by building the freaking company. He didn't stockpile food he took from someone's mouth. He created value, and got value in trade for it. That is not unethical. I'm willing to debate whether it is ethical to be uncharitable if you have great means. But can we please dispense with the notion that merely being wealthy is wrong?
John_KZ 8y ago
Entertaining, but I could think of spending sprees with much higher and long-term impact.
negativez 8y ago
Here's a counter-idea for this game: You wake in in 1993 with no memories except perfect insider knowledge of how Amazon was built down to the finest details. You have a full year of lead time to drink Jeff Bezos' milkshake. Do you: 1) Spoil all the resources he used so that an unknown entity becomes the main online merchant instead, with the typical "morals" you'd expect a big company to have? 2) Build Amazon yourself plus "morals" accepting the real possibility that those changes to the formula cede your competitive advantage to a less "moral" unknown entity? 3) Build Amazon exactly as Bezos did, but with the strong belief that after 20+ years of extremely dedicated work on your part you'll still feel like the rest of the world deserves the payoff more than you do? 4) Find out you're mostly interested in video games and can't be bothered to change history. Plus, it's really convenient to get those games from Amazon!
- sokoloff 8y ago
  To be perfectly honest, I'd most likely invest in Amazon at the earliest chance I got and let Bezos build Amazon as he did. I don't worship Amazon (nor currently own any shares other than via index funds), but I'm a very happy customer of many of their businesses and think they've created vastly more good than ill. I'd rather they continue doing what they're doing.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    Invest in Amazon and through Machiavellian schemes become majority shareholder, then force moral imperatives into the corporate culture.
natalyarostova 8y ago
Bezos doesn't have billions of dollars in his bank, in cash, waiting to be spent. He, simply, owns 15% of a company that he started. Now, it turns out that this is worth a lot of money. But should it really be... wrong to want to own part of your own company?
ErockSteady 8y ago
Commies don't understand economics. You can't throw money at a problem to fix it.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Some problems you can throw money at, and actually fix. Others, you cannot. And "commies" makes you sound like you're trolling.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dragontamer 8y ago
> Jeff Bezos is worth $156 billion? You're using the top tax bracket of 37% and paying out $57.72 billion of that. That's... not how taxes work. We have income taxes in the USA, not wealth taxes. I'm not entirely sure what the point of the game is. But after playing through this far, I am not exactly impressed by this kind of error. Clearly, there's a political message the author is pushing here. Which isn't necessarily bad: I liked Capt. Planet damn it. But getting such a trivial fact like taxes wrong makes me distrust the "game" in its entirety. Now maybe the game is saying that he wants to push for wealth taxes in the USA. Maybe we can have that discussion. But... for now... this seems to be pushing assertions that are very far removed from reality.

62 points by hendi_ 8y ago

This game implies that Bezos' net worth is all liquid, which it's definitely not. Owning a large portion of a very large company is very different from having a fat checking account

twblalock 8y ago
When you have billions of dollars in assets you can get a loan for pretty much any amount. Bezos has no problem with liquidity.
- moolcool 8y ago
  >Bezos has no problem with liquidity Not for any sensible things he may want, but he certainly would if he were to do everything OP implies he can do with his wealth
delucain 8y ago
The game mentions that and says something like, "Deal with it. This is a game."

j-c-hewitt 8y ago

Why are my only options to fulfill the insipid political fantasies of a twitter slacktivist?

crispytx 8y ago

Haters gonna hate.

jkingsbery 8y ago

At least one of the items you can spend Jeff Bezos's money on ("End homelessness in the United States (-$20 billion)") is argumentative, since the government at different levels has arguably spent a much larger amount than that already. The only tally I see attempted is from an admittedly small-government-bias outlet (the Cato Institute, estimating $15 trillion), which many people seem to believe is inflated. Even if it's off by, say 2 orders of magnitude, you're still left with the government having spent much more already. Which shows two things: 1. Throwing money at a problem is not enough. 2. The idea of just taking rich people's money to fix problems is not enough. Also, one of the further items ("Fund NASA for a year (-$20 billion)"): Jeff Bezos is already spending a billion dollars every year to fund a private space company. I don't know why the assumption is that it's a "vanity" project.

Apocryphon 8y ago
You're not wrong. But it sure doesn't hurt!

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ct0 8y ago

I am Elon Musk

inawarminister 8y ago
I would absolutely play Elon simulator. All the options though... Like calling out Valve [0] or the whole funding secured saga. Would be too complex? [0] check twitter.com/elonmusk

stuart78 8y ago

There is something odd about the complacency implied by the line of thinking this game seems to represent. Why is it more Jeff Bezos' problem to solve homelessness than it is each of ours? Does he have a greater moral directive to do so than us because he has accumulated a great fortune? At what point do we as a society hold this theoretical Bezos accountable for the choices he makes? My point is not that he shouldn't give charitably, but there is something that seems deeply pessimistic to me about turning to the rich to solve our societal ills. If the implication is that we should have a more 'fair' tax system, I can get on board with some version of that straw man, but would rather we as a society fix our own problems rather than hoping for help from the plutocrats. Why should we assume that Bezos or any other billionaire would solve these problems in a way that is actually in society's best interest? Would we wish that Bezos spend his money differently than the Koch brothers? We have government to help create solutions for this space, and in my opinion we should reject the passive acceptance of mediocrity there and instead hold them accountable for delivering these things. I may not be holding my breath for this, but that is part of the problem.

angel_j 8y ago
The game isn't saying we should ask the rich to solve our problems. The game implies a system is fucked that allows one person to own a seemingly infinite sum, and leave others to suffer and die on the street. I think this is a fair assessment. A system that gives any one liberty to seek the greatest riches, should also protect those who's fortunes, being a part of the same system, are much poorer. It is probably a simple exercise to economically model how too much in one hand prevents enough in another's stomach. Better than questioning the morality of looking into rich people's bank accounts, is the question of whether it is ethical for people to accumulate so much in the first place. There must be a sense of commonwealth, because the only thing that exists "in a vacuum of society", is nature itself, and that must in some respect belong to everybody. It would not even amount to "wealth redistribution" to tax the top 0.01% enough to afford decent housing and education; it'd be a soft cap.
- slowmovintarget 8y ago
  > Better than questioning the morality of looking into rich people's bank accounts, is the question of whether it is ethical for people to accumulate so much in the first place. The economy is not a zero-sum game. Bezos has "accumulated" company stock by building the freaking company. He didn't stockpile food he took from someone's mouth. He created value, and got value in trade for it. That is not unethical. I'm willing to debate whether it is ethical to be uncharitable if you have great means. But can we please dispense with the notion that merely being wealthy is wrong?

John_KZ 8y ago

Entertaining, but I could think of spending sprees with much higher and long-term impact.

negativez 8y ago

Here's a counter-idea for this game: You wake in in 1993 with no memories except perfect insider knowledge of how Amazon was built down to the finest details. You have a full year of lead time to drink Jeff Bezos' milkshake. Do you: 1) Spoil all the resources he used so that an unknown entity becomes the main online merchant instead, with the typical "morals" you'd expect a big company to have? 2) Build Amazon yourself plus "morals" accepting the real possibility that those changes to the formula cede your competitive advantage to a less "moral" unknown entity? 3) Build Amazon exactly as Bezos did, but with the strong belief that after 20+ years of extremely dedicated work on your part you'll still feel like the rest of the world deserves the payoff more than you do? 4) Find out you're mostly interested in video games and can't be bothered to change history. Plus, it's really convenient to get those games from Amazon!

sokoloff 8y ago
To be perfectly honest, I'd most likely invest in Amazon at the earliest chance I got and let Bezos build Amazon as he did. I don't worship Amazon (nor currently own any shares other than via index funds), but I'm a very happy customer of many of their businesses and think they've created vastly more good than ill. I'd rather they continue doing what they're doing.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  Invest in Amazon and through Machiavellian schemes become majority shareholder, then force moral imperatives into the corporate culture.

natalyarostova 8y ago

Bezos doesn't have billions of dollars in his bank, in cash, waiting to be spent. He, simply, owns 15% of a company that he started. Now, it turns out that this is worth a lot of money. But should it really be... wrong to want to own part of your own company?

ErockSteady 8y ago

Commies don't understand economics. You can't throw money at a problem to fix it.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
Some problems you can throw money at, and actually fix. Others, you cannot. And "commies" makes you sound like you're trolling.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dragontamer 8y ago

> Jeff Bezos is worth $156 billion? You're using the top tax bracket of 37% and paying out $57.72 billion of that. That's... not how taxes work. We have income taxes in the USA, not wealth taxes. I'm not entirely sure what the point of the game is. But after playing through this far, I am not exactly impressed by this kind of error. Clearly, there's a political message the author is pushing here. Which isn't necessarily bad: I liked Capt. Planet damn it. But getting such a trivial fact like taxes wrong makes me distrust the "game" in its entirety. Now maybe the game is saying that he wants to push for wealth taxes in the USA. Maybe we can have that discussion. But... for now... this seems to be pushing assertions that are very far removed from reality.