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> We need to do something about millionaires. Urgently. Can you elaborate what premise this conclusion follows from? And what do you want to do about them? An

by cheph 6y ago

> We need to do something about millionaires. Urgently. Can you elaborate what premise this conclusion follows from? And what do you want to do about them? And going out on a limb, I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. So maybe you meant to say we should do something about companies?

rimliu 6y ago
So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure?
- cheph 6y ago
  > So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? Not a thing I said. > How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Companies have employees, employees are humans with brains, they come up with ideas. > Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure? I'm sure the normal company structures were involved in approving strategy. I doubt the idea originated with either Bezos or Musk, and not sure why their net worth has much to do with it. If you have a problem with ambition, ambition is something many people who are not millionaires have.
jsiepkes 6y ago
> I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. Elon Musk is CEO of SpaceX and owns > 50% of the shares. As for Blue Origin (aka Bezos / Amazon); Bezos is the owner of the company. That means these people can make decisions on their own without consulting anyone else. They appoint the board, they appoint the CEO, etc. And sure, there are outside investors. However these investors can only marginally influence anything because they can not get a majority of share holder votes (since Bezos, Musk have > 50% shares). Maybe they got a seat on the board if their investment is large enough. But then what? They still can't get a majority in the board. Besides the only reason these investors want to participate is because the whole thing is controlled (and partially bankrolled) by Musk and Bezos.
- cheph 6y ago
  So are you positing that it would be impossible for a company to make such decisions if no individual shareholder owned >50% of the shares? If so the problem is still not with millionaires. And I'm not sure by what mechanism this will function. What will prevent a company where no individual shareholder owns >50% of shares from making a similar choice?

by cheph 6y ago

rimliu 6y ago

So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure?

cheph 6y ago
> So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? Not a thing I said. > How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Companies have employees, employees are humans with brains, they come up with ideas. > Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure? I'm sure the normal company structures were involved in approving strategy. I doubt the idea originated with either Bezos or Musk, and not sure why their net worth has much to do with it. If you have a problem with ambition, ambition is something many people who are not millionaires have.

jsiepkes 6y ago

> I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. Elon Musk is CEO of SpaceX and owns > 50% of the shares. As for Blue Origin (aka Bezos / Amazon); Bezos is the owner of the company. That means these people can make decisions on their own without consulting anyone else. They appoint the board, they appoint the CEO, etc. And sure, there are outside investors. However these investors can only marginally influence anything because they can not get a majority of share holder votes (since Bezos, Musk have > 50% shares). Maybe they got a seat on the board if their investment is large enough. But then what? They still can't get a majority in the board. Besides the only reason these investors want to participate is because the whole thing is controlled (and partially bankrolled) by Musk and Bezos.

cheph 6y ago
So are you positing that it would be impossible for a company to make such decisions if no individual shareholder owned >50% of the shares? If so the problem is still not with millionaires. And I'm not sure by what mechanism this will function. What will prevent a company where no individual shareholder owns >50% of shares from making a similar choice?