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The two richest people on the planet right now are both known for being almost entirely void of morals when it comes to their business dealings.

by kick 7y ago

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
They're known for this because both activists and entrenched business interests benefit from promoting that narrative. Gates and Bezos both regularly talk about the impact they have on the world and why that matters more than just money - there are reasonable arguments that they've done bad things, but the idea that they're completely amoral voids is just silly.
- kick 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/4/1/21201162/amazon-delivery-delays-coronavirus-worker-strikes https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/4/1/21201162/amazon-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-an-amazon-warehouse-treating-human-beings-as-robots/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-an-amazon-warehouse-trea... "The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it." - Bezos Gates's philanthropy is fine, but my comment was on his business dealings. He has a long history of anti-competitive behavior, completely void of morals.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    Nestle poisons entire cities and has killed thousands of babies. Name anyone who died from a single thing 90s Microsoft did. The modern tech giants take actions every day that are far more anti competitive than anything Microsoft ever did.
    - kick 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Red_herring_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Red_herring_... Fallacy of relative privation (also known as "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to what are perceived to be more important problems. First World problems are a subset of this fallacy. Nestle is evil. Microsoft is evil. Nestle kills more than Microsoft. Microsoft is still evil.
      - wesammikhail 7y ago
        Start by defining evil... Or are we supposed to take your subjective categorization as an objective standard?
      - com2kid 7y ago
        My bar for evil is a lot higher than "signed exclusive distribution agreements with some OEMs in the 90s." Illegal? Sure. Evil? So some other millionaires didn't get to become billionaires. Meanwhile the world got a single API to write software against for almost two decades, how many ISVs existed because Microsoft provided an insanely stable (in regards to API churn) platform to develop against? Hell right now with 2 major mobile OS players there is a huge tax on developers, imagine if the 90s had been a wild west and there had been 4 or 5 major players. One can also note that given how mobile played out, there is a good chance that the desktop market would have coalesced around a single dominant OS and a secondary minor OS anyway. And yeah I know everyone is pissed about BeOS, but they also had their chance to be a player until they tried to hard bargain with Apple and Apple walked away!
        bad_user 7y ago
        While I agree with the general feelings about the evil threshold, Microsoft in the 90-ties built and took advantage of a natural monopoly in order to crush their competition and expand in new markets. Let's not go to the other extreme and downplay what they did. If they had their way, the Internet wouldn't be an open platform and open source would be illegal. Personally I don't care about exclusive OEM deals. What I care about were the dirty campaigns against open source and them trying to leverage their huge patents portfolio against Linux and later Android. Or them planting shills inside Nokia, weakening it enough for a takeover of their mobile division and then running it into the ground, thus destroying one of Europe's top tech companies. A conspiracy theorist would say that this was economic warfare, maybe sponsored by the US, but for me incompetence is enough for blame. Or how about their long battle against open standards, like ODF and their use by public institutions? And the Microsoft of today, in spite of popular belief, isn't very different. Their priorities may have shifted, but even post Balmer they continued to use their patents portfolio against Android and they continued to fight against the adoption of ODF. Their predatory culture is still there and as seen by the ads and aggressive telemetry in Windows 10, as soon as they can gain some economic advantage, they'll take it, regardless of cost to society. Their "Microsoft changed" marketing campaign has been genius in its execution. On the other hand I'm glad that they are doing well, because otherwise they have the potential to become the biggest patent troll. Just like when their Windows Phone failed to gain traction, "if you can't innovate, litigate" seems to work well.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Nobody earns a billion dollars; the only way to get that kind of money is to pay a whole lot of people significantly less than the economic value of their labor. The internet economy has just made it easier to abstract away ethical problems such that you don't recognize them as hugely problematic when you're making them. With the current system, we're reliant on the whims of a couple of billionaires. Some are relatively benevolent, but far more are on the level of the Kochs, Larry Ellison or the Sacklers. Business schools have taught the "fiduciary duty" doctrine for a long time, which is basically "maximize profit above all else, or we'll find someone else who will".
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I don't see the ethical problem. I'm paid significantly less than the economic value of the labor; this is because my company does a lot of coordination work to connect my labor to clients who need it, and I'm not particularly good at that kind of work so I can't effectively do it myself. I don't think "reliant on the whims of a couple of billionaires" is a fair characterization. In what way does the average person rely on the whims of Larry Ellison?

The two richest people on the planet right now are both known for being almost entirely void of morals when it comes to their business dealings.

by kick 7y ago

The two richest people on the planet right now are both known for being almost entirely void of morals when it comes to their business dealings.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

They're known for this because both activists and entrenched business interests benefit from promoting that narrative. Gates and Bezos both regularly talk about the impact they have on the world and why that matters more than just money - there are reasonable arguments that they've done bad things, but the idea that they're completely amoral voids is just silly.

kick 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/4/1/21201162/amazon-delivery-delays-coronavirus-worker-strikes https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/4/1/21201162/amazon-... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-an-amazon-warehouse-treating-human-beings-as-robots/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-an-amazon-warehouse-trea... "The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it." - Bezos Gates's philanthropy is fine, but my comment was on his business dealings. He has a long history of anti-competitive behavior, completely void of morals.
- com2kid 7y ago
  Nestle poisons entire cities and has killed thousands of babies. Name anyone who died from a single thing 90s Microsoft did. The modern tech giants take actions every day that are far more anti competitive than anything Microsoft ever did.
  - kick 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Red_herring_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Red_herring_... Fallacy of relative privation (also known as "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to what are perceived to be more important problems. First World problems are a subset of this fallacy. Nestle is evil. Microsoft is evil. Nestle kills more than Microsoft. Microsoft is still evil.
    - wesammikhail 7y ago
      Start by defining evil... Or are we supposed to take your subjective categorization as an objective standard?
    - com2kid 7y ago
      My bar for evil is a lot higher than "signed exclusive distribution agreements with some OEMs in the 90s." Illegal? Sure. Evil? So some other millionaires didn't get to become billionaires. Meanwhile the world got a single API to write software against for almost two decades, how many ISVs existed because Microsoft provided an insanely stable (in regards to API churn) platform to develop against? Hell right now with 2 major mobile OS players there is a huge tax on developers, imagine if the 90s had been a wild west and there had been 4 or 5 major players. One can also note that given how mobile played out, there is a good chance that the desktop market would have coalesced around a single dominant OS and a secondary minor OS anyway. And yeah I know everyone is pissed about BeOS, but they also had their chance to be a player until they tried to hard bargain with Apple and Apple walked away!
      - bad_user 7y ago
        While I agree with the general feelings about the evil threshold, Microsoft in the 90-ties built and took advantage of a natural monopoly in order to crush their competition and expand in new markets. Let's not go to the other extreme and downplay what they did. If they had their way, the Internet wouldn't be an open platform and open source would be illegal. Personally I don't care about exclusive OEM deals. What I care about were the dirty campaigns against open source and them trying to leverage their huge patents portfolio against Linux and later Android. Or them planting shills inside Nokia, weakening it enough for a takeover of their mobile division and then running it into the ground, thus destroying one of Europe's top tech companies. A conspiracy theorist would say that this was economic warfare, maybe sponsored by the US, but for me incompetence is enough for blame. Or how about their long battle against open standards, like ODF and their use by public institutions? And the Microsoft of today, in spite of popular belief, isn't very different. Their priorities may have shifted, but even post Balmer they continued to use their patents portfolio against Android and they continued to fight against the adoption of ODF. Their predatory culture is still there and as seen by the ads and aggressive telemetry in Windows 10, as soon as they can gain some economic advantage, they'll take it, regardless of cost to society. Their "Microsoft changed" marketing campaign has been genius in its execution. On the other hand I'm glad that they are doing well, because otherwise they have the potential to become the biggest patent troll. Just like when their Windows Phone failed to gain traction, "if you can't innovate, litigate" seems to work well.
wayoutthere 7y ago
Nobody earns a billion dollars; the only way to get that kind of money is to pay a whole lot of people significantly less than the economic value of their labor. The internet economy has just made it easier to abstract away ethical problems such that you don't recognize them as hugely problematic when you're making them. With the current system, we're reliant on the whims of a couple of billionaires. Some are relatively benevolent, but far more are on the level of the Kochs, Larry Ellison or the Sacklers. Business schools have taught the "fiduciary duty" doctrine for a long time, which is basically "maximize profit above all else, or we'll find someone else who will".
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I don't see the ethical problem. I'm paid significantly less than the economic value of the labor; this is because my company does a lot of coordination work to connect my labor to clients who need it, and I'm not particularly good at that kind of work so I can't effectively do it myself. I don't think "reliant on the whims of a couple of billionaires" is a fair characterization. In what way does the average person rely on the whims of Larry Ellison?