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He took them from the employees of Microsoft who's work helped make those shares valuable. Edit: Apparently this statement needs further clarification. What d

He took them from the employees of Microsoft who's work helped make those shares valuable. Edit: Apparently this statement needs further clarification. What do those shares represent? A share of the profits. And what are the profits? Literally the difference between the company's revenues and expenses. It's literally the difference between the value created by workers and the salary the company paid them in return for that value. So _of course_ Bill Gates took that wealth from the company's workers. That's what profit is! ---------- Now to expand on the broader idea, in a Democratic Socialist economy where the stock corporation is replaced by the worker cooperative, he would not have had the right to claim 500 million shares. Those shares would have been distributed to the employees of Microsoft based on some metric of contribution to the company. Or would never have existed in the first place, and each worker would have had a vote in how the company was run and the profits distributed. In either method, Bill Gates would have gotten some still significant portion of the value the company created, but no where near the amount he walked away with in our current economy. The rest of that value would have been distributed to the company's workers in one way or another - profit distributions, shares, dividends, what have you. In the minds of many - myself included - that is a much more equitable system. Bill Gates took the money from the people who helped create it in the first place. And he took a share that far out paced his contribution to the creation of that value. He was able to do that because our economic system is set up around authoritarian companies, where the founders and CEOs have near dictatorial power (or oligarchical power with the board). And dictatorships are rarely equitable.

marcinzm 7y ago
Salary is how companies distribute value to employees and Microsoft paid it's employees. Many people would prefer cold hard cash over stock that may be nothing but fireplace lighting material in five years. Likewise making 30% less this year because the company did badly for reasons in no way related to you doesn't sit well with many people either.
- dbingham 7y ago
  And the difference between that salary and the company's revenues (the value the workers created) is the profits. Which the shares represent a right to. Can we at least agree that - whether voluntary or not - the share literally represent the excess value taken from workers? Cause that's what I was saying in response to the question. Those shares represent the value taken from workers. As to it being voluntary, it's not. There's a massive power differential in the negotiations. That's what unions were meant to help solve, but unions can't really solve that power differential (they were never strong enough) and they've got their own problems of corruption and power. The idea behind a worker cooperative based system isn't that workers take stock as payment instead of cash. They still get a cash salary. They also get ownership of company and a right to decide what happens to the profits. There are several approaches to how you design that system. In one you do away with the concept of stock (ownership shares) altogether - it's a one person one vote system. In another you keep the concept of ownership shares and workers earn shares in proportion to their time at the company. Maybe you keep an aspect of negotiation and the shares they earn are tied to their negotiated salary. But you no longer allow outside investors to purchase ownership of the company. Or founders to maintain a controlling share long past the point where their contributions have been matched or outweighed by the rest of the company's employees. In this system we recognize that companies, like countries, are communities that should be run democratically by the people involved in them for the people involved in them.
imgabe 7y ago
> Bill Gates took the money from the people who helped create it in the first place. This doesn't make sense. This would imply that a Microsoft employee had more money before working at Microsoft than they did after working at Microsoft. That is objectively not the case. That's what it means to take something. Someone else has something. You take it. They don't have it anymore.
- dbingham 7y ago
  No, it doesn't imply that. When an employee works at Microsoft he creates value. He didn't have that value before he did the work, he created it through the work done there. Microsoft pays him a salary in return for his value. However, the salary Microsoft pays does not match the full value he created. The difference is Microsoft's profits. The company is taking those profits from the workers who created the value in the first place. They didn't have that value when they joined, they created it there, but it's still taken from them at time of creation. Those shares represent a right to a share of those profits. Stock shares literally represent a right to the excess value taken from the workers who created it. So who did Bill Gates take that money from? The workers who created the value the money represents. And this is how you wind up with massive wealth inequality and all the problems that creates. People recognize the problems with wealth inequality. The recognize the problems with unions (which have their own power problems and corruption problems). They recognize the problem with having the government redistribute the wealth (which is still better than allowing the inequality to continue to grow). But we're so ingrained with the idea that the way things are is the way they should be that we rarely talk about a pretty obvious solution - let those who generate the wealth have democratic control over what happens to it at the time of generation.
  - rukittenme 7y ago
    > However, the salary Microsoft pays does not match the full value he created. The difference is Microsoft's profits. Will I be liable for a company's losses under your system?
    - seanc 7y ago
foogazi 7y ago
>To expand, in a Democratic Socialist economy where the stock corporation is replaced by the worker cooperative, he would not have had the right to claim 500 million shares. I’ve seen this idea thrown around before, but it sounds like an after-the-fact BS socialist utopia once Microsoft emerges from the capitalist system Gates was not the Microsoft sole proprietor - he had investors and other workers who got shares in a free contract with the company Is the worker cooperative more like an agency partnership model ? Even then only the partners get voting rights

marcinzm 7y ago

Salary is how companies distribute value to employees and Microsoft paid it's employees. Many people would prefer cold hard cash over stock that may be nothing but fireplace lighting material in five years. Likewise making 30% less this year because the company did badly for reasons in no way related to you doesn't sit well with many people either.

dbingham 7y ago
And the difference between that salary and the company's revenues (the value the workers created) is the profits. Which the shares represent a right to. Can we at least agree that - whether voluntary or not - the share literally represent the excess value taken from workers? Cause that's what I was saying in response to the question. Those shares represent the value taken from workers. As to it being voluntary, it's not. There's a massive power differential in the negotiations. That's what unions were meant to help solve, but unions can't really solve that power differential (they were never strong enough) and they've got their own problems of corruption and power. The idea behind a worker cooperative based system isn't that workers take stock as payment instead of cash. They still get a cash salary. They also get ownership of company and a right to decide what happens to the profits. There are several approaches to how you design that system. In one you do away with the concept of stock (ownership shares) altogether - it's a one person one vote system. In another you keep the concept of ownership shares and workers earn shares in proportion to their time at the company. Maybe you keep an aspect of negotiation and the shares they earn are tied to their negotiated salary. But you no longer allow outside investors to purchase ownership of the company. Or founders to maintain a controlling share long past the point where their contributions have been matched or outweighed by the rest of the company's employees. In this system we recognize that companies, like countries, are communities that should be run democratically by the people involved in them for the people involved in them.

imgabe 7y ago

> Bill Gates took the money from the people who helped create it in the first place. This doesn't make sense. This would imply that a Microsoft employee had more money before working at Microsoft than they did after working at Microsoft. That is objectively not the case. That's what it means to take something. Someone else has something. You take it. They don't have it anymore.

dbingham 7y ago
No, it doesn't imply that. When an employee works at Microsoft he creates value. He didn't have that value before he did the work, he created it through the work done there. Microsoft pays him a salary in return for his value. However, the salary Microsoft pays does not match the full value he created. The difference is Microsoft's profits. The company is taking those profits from the workers who created the value in the first place. They didn't have that value when they joined, they created it there, but it's still taken from them at time of creation. Those shares represent a right to a share of those profits. Stock shares literally represent a right to the excess value taken from the workers who created it. So who did Bill Gates take that money from? The workers who created the value the money represents. And this is how you wind up with massive wealth inequality and all the problems that creates. People recognize the problems with wealth inequality. The recognize the problems with unions (which have their own power problems and corruption problems). They recognize the problem with having the government redistribute the wealth (which is still better than allowing the inequality to continue to grow). But we're so ingrained with the idea that the way things are is the way they should be that we rarely talk about a pretty obvious solution - let those who generate the wealth have democratic control over what happens to it at the time of generation.
- rukittenme 7y ago
  > However, the salary Microsoft pays does not match the full value he created. The difference is Microsoft's profits. Will I be liable for a company's losses under your system?
  - seanc 7y ago

foogazi 7y ago

>To expand, in a Democratic Socialist economy where the stock corporation is replaced by the worker cooperative, he would not have had the right to claim 500 million shares. I’ve seen this idea thrown around before, but it sounds like an after-the-fact BS socialist utopia once Microsoft emerges from the capitalist system Gates was not the Microsoft sole proprietor - he had investors and other workers who got shares in a free contract with the company Is the worker cooperative more like an agency partnership model ? Even then only the partners get voting rights