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> that the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people Any statement that has the word "only" in it is guaranteed to be wrong. I wonder if PG word
by glaive123 6y ago
> that the only way to become a billionaire is by exploiting people
Any statement that has the word "only" in it is guaranteed to be wrong. I wonder if PG worded it this way intentionally (straw man fallacy).
Most people agree early employees should get more equity. This doesn't address whether startup founders are hoarding equity for themselves and their investors instead of fairly rewarding early employees.
- Taylor_OD 6y agoIsn't that true though? A millionaire? Sure there are a lot of ways to get there. A Billionaire? There are only 2000~. Are there any notable ones who got there without exploiting people or building/aided in building a business that does?
- nverno 6y agoI don't think someone like Warren Buffet 'exploits' anyone in particular. Of course you might have a very loose definition of exploitation.
- applecore 6y agoA lot of Berkshire Hathaway's businesses sell overpriced sugar or cheap junk.
- monknomo 6y agowell, in the really pedantic sense, you could inherit a billion dollars and not exploit anyone. It may be difficult to hang onto without a certain level of exploitation
- dkyc 6y agoI wouldn't say this is a straw man. Every billionaire being exploitative/criminal is a real political position among the American Left, see e.g. this tweet [0] by Robert Reich. He was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, so not some extremist weirdo. [0] https://twitter.com/rbreich/status/1193526297647108097 https://twitter.com/rbreich/status/1193526297647108097
- travisporter 6y agoI think Robert Reich is more left of center than the current political party since the 90s, in an increasingly polarizing nation. Here's the quote: There are basically 5 ways to accumulate a billion dollars in America: 1) Profiting from a monopoly 2) Insider-trading 3) Political payoffs 4) Fraud 5) Inheritance
- dsr_ 6y agoTo disprove this, one must simply enumerate the 2000 or so billionaires and determine how they each made their money; then categorize them and see if a significant percentage (say, 5%? 10%) do not fit these five criteria.
- jackpirate 6y agoThis is a needlessly divisive interpretation of that tweet. The tweet lists 5 concrete ways of becoming a billionaire, and you're putting words in the author's mouth by labeling them all "exploitative/criminal", which were not used at all.
- tylerhou 6y agoWhen leftists say "exploit," it's because they regard paying workers less than the marginal value they produce with labor exploitative. (Cf. boss makes a dollar, I make a dime.) They claim that it's unfair that that product of labor goes to the company's owners — hence, to fix this, leftists want to "seize" or "democratize" the means of production. (Sitenote: this a core tenet of capitalism: value going to owners.) Others would disagree that this is exploitative because they believe that wages should be set by the market. It's clear that workers are not compensated for all of the value they produce, and that the excess value goes to owners. The disagreement is whether this is exploitative. Leftists argue that it's not fair for owners to capture value without contributing any work. Rightists argue that capital is a scarce (i.e. limited) commodity, so owners deserve to be compensated for providing capital. Who you agree with is up to you to decide. Pg's blog post strawmans "exploit" because he uses a different definition of exploit than leftists use. This might be because he misunderstands leftism, but the cynical believe that he is deliberately strawmanning them for his own gain (since pg benefits from capitalism). A more honest blog post would examine whether value going to owners or founders is exploitative or not.