4 ms·

Perhaps this isn’t the best thing for the company, but personally, I can’t imagine having even ten million dollars in stocks (what seems to be the value of the

Perhaps this isn’t the best thing for the company, but personally, I can’t imagine having even ten million dollars in stocks (what seems to be the value of the stocks sold per my calculation) and wanting to just keep them there, especially in a single stock. Sell it all, and donate all but three or four million. That’s more enough money to live the rest of your life in a very comfortable way. What’s the point of having more? It’s just a rat race to show off to the people around you. That said, he’s already a billionaire, so it’s not like this is actually a significant change in value for him.

gojomo 6y ago
The point of owning more stock (or wealth in general) is often not simply "living comfortably" or any sort of pure consumption. If that's your framing, lots of large-scale economic behavior will remain unimaginable. Similarly, it's not "just a rat race to show off", either – though there's some of that, as a psychological motive among the very-rich. That's still not sufficient to describe the logic of what's actually going on. Rather, ownership of such highly-valuable assets is about the control it offers, over how those assets are used. In this case, the primary asset is "Zoom Video Communications Inc", and all its intangible & tangible assets, including experienced staff, intellectual property, brands, relationships with locked-in users bases, etc. If Eric Yuan wants to guarantee he retains the largest influence over what Zoom does in the future – because he has pride of creation, because he believes it's a valuable service for society, because he finds it an intellectually stimulating way to live life & exercise his unique talents, moreso than just being a 'consumer', he must retain the lion's share of equity ownership. Such ownership is how our society tracks control over big synergistic flotillas of resources. The theoretical amount of lifetime-consumption that ownership could instead represent, if sold, is a tangential detail to the full significance of the holding. And, a true plan to "sell it all" would likely cause much of the value to evaporate – as some of the perceived trading value of the circulating shares is premised on the founder's continued immersion in the business. To a limited extent, the ability to liquidate "a little", & thus get the lifetime-consumption-security that you've portrayed as the whole "point", is relevant – but not because it completes Yuan's ambition, ensuring a lifetime of 'comfort', but because it could allow even more focus on the bigger social enterprise involved.
- gbear605 6y ago
  Personally, I can’t imagine someone caring about that at all. Especially when you compare it to the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of lives (https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-...). But yes, some people clearly care about this sort of power above all else.
  - gojomo 6y ago
    Yet, if no one cared about "this sort of power" – the creative possibilities of large-scale enterprises under the control of those most engaged – we wouldn't have these computers, this internet, this HN. And Bill Gates is likely going to save (if he hasn't already) many more lives with his post-ambitious-building wealth, than if he'd cashed out as soon as he had "three or four million… to live the rest of [his] life in a very comfortable way", and donated the rest at that early moment.

gojomo 6y ago

The point of owning more stock (or wealth in general) is often not simply "living comfortably" or any sort of pure consumption. If that's your framing, lots of large-scale economic behavior will remain unimaginable. Similarly, it's not "just a rat race to show off", either – though there's some of that, as a psychological motive among the very-rich. That's still not sufficient to describe the logic of what's actually going on. Rather, ownership of such highly-valuable assets is about the control it offers, over how those assets are used. In this case, the primary asset is "Zoom Video Communications Inc", and all its intangible & tangible assets, including experienced staff, intellectual property, brands, relationships with locked-in users bases, etc. If Eric Yuan wants to guarantee he retains the largest influence over what Zoom does in the future – because he has pride of creation, because he believes it's a valuable service for society, because he finds it an intellectually stimulating way to live life & exercise his unique talents, moreso than just being a 'consumer', he must retain the lion's share of equity ownership. Such ownership is how our society tracks control over big synergistic flotillas of resources. The theoretical amount of lifetime-consumption that ownership could instead represent, if sold, is a tangential detail to the full significance of the holding. And, a true plan to "sell it all" would likely cause much of the value to evaporate – as some of the perceived trading value of the circulating shares is premised on the founder's continued immersion in the business. To a limited extent, the ability to liquidate "a little", & thus get the lifetime-consumption-security that you've portrayed as the whole "point", is relevant – but not because it completes Yuan's ambition, ensuring a lifetime of 'comfort', but because it could allow even more focus on the bigger social enterprise involved.

gbear605 6y ago
Personally, I can’t imagine someone caring about that at all. Especially when you compare it to the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of lives (https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-...). But yes, some people clearly care about this sort of power above all else.
- gojomo 6y ago
  Yet, if no one cared about "this sort of power" – the creative possibilities of large-scale enterprises under the control of those most engaged – we wouldn't have these computers, this internet, this HN. And Bill Gates is likely going to save (if he hasn't already) many more lives with his post-ambitious-building wealth, than if he'd cashed out as soon as he had "three or four million… to live the rest of [his] life in a very comfortable way", and donated the rest at that early moment.