5 ms·

It's less "your product is exploitative" and "you underpay (exploit) your workers for their labor." Bill Gates didn't write Windows 95. Steve Ballmer didn't wr

It's less "your product is exploitative" and "you underpay (exploit) your workers for their labor." Bill Gates didn't write Windows 95. Steve Ballmer didn't write Microsoft Office. But they owned stock in a company that employed people that did (and all the various other labor that goes into building software products). Why did they make so much more money from it than the people who were more directly involved? This dynamic is reducible. If Person A starts a software company, Person B, C and D build the product, and then Person A gets $10,000 while Person B, C and D each get $1, something is off there. The capitalist defense of this is more or less, "B/C/D agreed to those terms", but this ignores the context. If every B/C/D wanted to be As, there would be no B/C/Ds to build things. And it's not always possible to choose to be an A--it usually requires a fair amount of privilege to start a business. But nonetheless, their work is equally important, and even if it isn't, it's certainly not the case that A's work is 100,000x more important. We need to recognize this kind of bonkers concentration of wealth is a huge problem, and fix it with profit sharing and taxation.

refurb 6y ago
Didn’t Microsoft create hundreds of millionaires out of it’s initial employees? I mean, the people building the next generation of Microsoft products aren’t going to have trouble entering the upper income brackets of American society.
- camgunz 6y ago
  I would say a couple things here: - Your argument could be rephrased as "profit-sharing isn't necessary as long as you pay people enough." This may work at mega-successful businesses like Microsoft, but doesn't work so well at something like a restaurant chain (or Amazon), where income inequality is far more pronounced. And those cases are far more common. - Concentrations of wealth and capital have a destabilizing effect on society. It leads to political corruption. Further, even if we have a handful of companies where income inequality is relatively low, that's not the case for most Americans, even at those same companies. In other words, sure software engineers are doing fine, but most people aren't, including many people working for the same companies as those software engineers.
  - fastball 6y ago
    What is the point of being person A if you don't get any benefit over person B/C/D? Why would anyone take on the extra work and risk of being the person that starts the business when you can just be the person that joins and effectively get the exact same things with 1. less work 2. less risk?
    - camgunz 6y ago
      Yeah that's a great point. I think we should make it a lot less risky to start businesses. You shouldn't have to risk give up earning years or career building years, to say nothing of the financial burden of raising money (or competing with people who are able to raise money while you have to bootstrap instead). I think we should do this both generally, but also specifically for women, people of color, and other groups who are underrepresented in the universe of small business owners. Overall I think it would actually be really cool if we could get to where we think we are, where I can essentially pick from a menu of career options based on a risk/reward profile (OK not literally a menu but, yeah). But we're pretty far away from that right now; very few people are making these decisions based on that kind of calculus.
      - fastball 6y ago
        I agree that we should encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur. I disagree that the right way to approach it is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more.
        camgunz 6y ago
        > I disagree that the right way to approach [encouraging entrepreneurship] is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The numbers are real bad though [1] [2] [3]. White people own 80% of small businesses, and men own 64%. In 2012 (admittedly old but, the Census site is very bad) white men owned 2,933,198 firms with employees on the payroll. Everyone else owned 356,816 firms. Those same white men's firms had sales receipts of $8,221,010,815. Other firms had $88,657,443. That's nuts. Even more so when you consider white men are only ~33% of Americans. My guess is that COVID-19 makes this even worse, but who knows really. > The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more. I 100% agree but, I wouldn't say it's unfortunate. I just think people should get equal pay for equal work, and CEOs aren't 270x more valuable than average workers. Maybe it's 5x, maybe even 10x, but not 270x. And that's salary difference, we're not even factoring in lifetime earnings. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financial-risk-to-u-s-business-owners-posed-by-covid-19-outbreak-varies-by-demographic-group/ft_2020-04-23_smallbusinessowners_01a/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financi... [2]: http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf [3]: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA01&hidePreview=true https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA...
travisoneill1 6y ago
But what about the value of having A tell you what to build? If A = Jeff Bezos, B/C/D, who would just be making a $150K salary at some other company, are now multi millionaires. The difference in value didn't come from their work, which is much the same as it would be for some other company, but by being told what to build by the right CEO.
- camgunz 6y ago
  This is kind of the "great man" theory of business, but study after study shows that broadly this is just luck (or crime)--with privilege thrown in. As a result, we shouldn't reward people for this by making them billionaires because: - At best there's no behavior to encourage, person A just got lucky. At worst, person A cheated and by making cheaters super rich, we give them outsized influence on our society - creating billionaires creates bonkers, destabilizing income inequality, for which we rarely get anything in return (not everyone starts the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) - relying on this dynamic entrenches privilege, because it's much harder for women and people of color to become the next Steve Jobs (which is a weirdly super rare case to structure a society/economy/labor theory on, stipulating you think Steve Jobs was actually good at anything substantial).
  - riggernetard 6y ago
    > study after study shows that broadly this is just luck quite confused at this one, what studies? as an example, surely the fact that page and brin created PageRank for web searches led to google being so successful https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-larry-page-sergey-brin-sundar-pichai-co-founders-ceo-timeline https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-... > best there's no behavior to encourage, person A just got lucky the behavior of ... understanding and creating a useful service like pagerank? or amazon? > relying on this dynamic entrenches privilege this is quite ridiculous, this is only believable if you consider having 3-4/5 quintile parents as 'privileged' as having ten billion net worth. equally so when you look at where their parents came from (quite often, poor farmers who immigrated) or their history (jews who had to leave poland or germany due to the nazis js) > because it's much harder for women and people of color to become the next Steve Jobs so? heard of 'lisa su'?
greenyouse 6y ago
Persons B, C, and D are being paid a rate proportionate to the available labor market for their product building skill set. There was nothing stopping persons B, C, or D from being person A and founding a company for that idea. If B, C, and D chose to strike for a higher wage then they could but there might be an E, F, and G which could take over for them at their previous rates. Anybody can make a giant sized, billion dollar company. Those workers chose to work as employees under standard labor terms. The early Microsoft employees that made lots of money from their stock options probably aren't bitter about their compensation.
- camgunz 6y ago
  > Persons B, C, and D are being paid a rate proportionate to the available labor market for their product building skill set. The labor market doesn't set prices based on value to society and scarcity. If it did, nurses and teachers would be millionaires (there's a shortage of both and they provide high value to society) and middle managers would make very little (there's a glut and they provide very little value to society). It assigns value based on prestige. Capitalist labor market folks would argue strongly otherwise, but the evidence is very clear. The law of supply and demand also doesn't explain or account for things like race/gender pay gaps, monopsonies, and collusion. And generally this doesn't pass the sniff test--if the labor market shifts and suddenly people in your profession are in higher demand, it's extremely rare that companies offer pay raises to keep their employees. That's because they know that while theoretically their employees can reenter the labor market to negotiate a higher salary with a different employer, in practice employment is very sticky and employees tend not to--for lots of rational reasons (some of which are "oh you're a job hopper, declined"). > There was nothing stopping persons B, C, or D from being person A and founding a company for that idea. This is generally untrue. Companies build moats with patents, litigation, monopolistic business practices, and corrupt, ladder pulling litigation. I think a lot of committed capitalists believe the market will sort this out, but it clearly doesn't. How many upstart chip design houses are there? How many upstart medical device companies are there? Etc. Etc. Furthermore and again, not everyone has the privilege required to be A. Being A takes more risk, and you have to have more resources to reasonably take that risk. It's also been shown that it's far harder for women, recent immigrants, and people of color to become As. > Anybody can make a giant sized, billion dollar company. What? > Those workers chose to work as employees under standard labor terms. Often people don't have the resources to start businesses (let alone billion dollar businesses). It requires a lot of privilege, and it's even harder for women and people of color. It's not at all a simple choice. > The early Microsoft employees that made lots of money from their stock options probably aren't bitter about their compensation. While being pretty tough to prove, I would say a couple things here: - Microsoft continues to post multi-billion dollar profits, and people still work there. I don't understand why early employees are valued more than current employees here. - It's conceivable that even if you made a few million dollars, you might be bitter if the person next to you who didn't work appreciably harder than you made a billion. Everyone's different but, that seems possible. - Even if these effects are less pronounced or acceptable at a place like Microsoft, concentrations of wealth and capital have destabilizing, corrupting effects on society and governments. Taking a per-company view is short sighted. It's also worth saying that most companies aren't made up of relatively wealth software engineers, and income inequality will be more pronounced.
fastball 6y ago
> If every B/C/D wanted to be As, there would be no B/C/Ds to build things. And it's not always possible to choose to be an A. 1. Person A can be the person that actually builds the product (and often is). 2. It is always possible to be person A.

refurb 6y ago

Didn’t Microsoft create hundreds of millionaires out of it’s initial employees? I mean, the people building the next generation of Microsoft products aren’t going to have trouble entering the upper income brackets of American society.

camgunz 6y ago
I would say a couple things here: - Your argument could be rephrased as "profit-sharing isn't necessary as long as you pay people enough." This may work at mega-successful businesses like Microsoft, but doesn't work so well at something like a restaurant chain (or Amazon), where income inequality is far more pronounced. And those cases are far more common. - Concentrations of wealth and capital have a destabilizing effect on society. It leads to political corruption. Further, even if we have a handful of companies where income inequality is relatively low, that's not the case for most Americans, even at those same companies. In other words, sure software engineers are doing fine, but most people aren't, including many people working for the same companies as those software engineers.
- fastball 6y ago
  What is the point of being person A if you don't get any benefit over person B/C/D? Why would anyone take on the extra work and risk of being the person that starts the business when you can just be the person that joins and effectively get the exact same things with 1. less work 2. less risk?
  - camgunz 6y ago
    Yeah that's a great point. I think we should make it a lot less risky to start businesses. You shouldn't have to risk give up earning years or career building years, to say nothing of the financial burden of raising money (or competing with people who are able to raise money while you have to bootstrap instead). I think we should do this both generally, but also specifically for women, people of color, and other groups who are underrepresented in the universe of small business owners. Overall I think it would actually be really cool if we could get to where we think we are, where I can essentially pick from a menu of career options based on a risk/reward profile (OK not literally a menu but, yeah). But we're pretty far away from that right now; very few people are making these decisions based on that kind of calculus.
    - fastball 6y ago
      I agree that we should encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur. I disagree that the right way to approach it is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more.
      - camgunz 6y ago
        > I disagree that the right way to approach [encouraging entrepreneurship] is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The numbers are real bad though [1] [2] [3]. White people own 80% of small businesses, and men own 64%. In 2012 (admittedly old but, the Census site is very bad) white men owned 2,933,198 firms with employees on the payroll. Everyone else owned 356,816 firms. Those same white men's firms had sales receipts of $8,221,010,815. Other firms had $88,657,443. That's nuts. Even more so when you consider white men are only ~33% of Americans. My guess is that COVID-19 makes this even worse, but who knows really. > The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more. I 100% agree but, I wouldn't say it's unfortunate. I just think people should get equal pay for equal work, and CEOs aren't 270x more valuable than average workers. Maybe it's 5x, maybe even 10x, but not 270x. And that's salary difference, we're not even factoring in lifetime earnings. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financial-risk-to-u-s-business-owners-posed-by-covid-19-outbreak-varies-by-demographic-group/ft_2020-04-23_smallbusinessowners_01a/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financi... [2]: http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf [3]: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA01&hidePreview=true https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA...

travisoneill1 6y ago

But what about the value of having A tell you what to build? If A = Jeff Bezos, B/C/D, who would just be making a $150K salary at some other company, are now multi millionaires. The difference in value didn't come from their work, which is much the same as it would be for some other company, but by being told what to build by the right CEO.

camgunz 6y ago
This is kind of the "great man" theory of business, but study after study shows that broadly this is just luck (or crime)--with privilege thrown in. As a result, we shouldn't reward people for this by making them billionaires because: - At best there's no behavior to encourage, person A just got lucky. At worst, person A cheated and by making cheaters super rich, we give them outsized influence on our society - creating billionaires creates bonkers, destabilizing income inequality, for which we rarely get anything in return (not everyone starts the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) - relying on this dynamic entrenches privilege, because it's much harder for women and people of color to become the next Steve Jobs (which is a weirdly super rare case to structure a society/economy/labor theory on, stipulating you think Steve Jobs was actually good at anything substantial).
- riggernetard 6y ago
  > study after study shows that broadly this is just luck quite confused at this one, what studies? as an example, surely the fact that page and brin created PageRank for web searches led to google being so successful https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-larry-page-sergey-brin-sundar-pichai-co-founders-ceo-timeline https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-... > best there's no behavior to encourage, person A just got lucky the behavior of ... understanding and creating a useful service like pagerank? or amazon? > relying on this dynamic entrenches privilege this is quite ridiculous, this is only believable if you consider having 3-4/5 quintile parents as 'privileged' as having ten billion net worth. equally so when you look at where their parents came from (quite often, poor farmers who immigrated) or their history (jews who had to leave poland or germany due to the nazis js) > because it's much harder for women and people of color to become the next Steve Jobs so? heard of 'lisa su'?

greenyouse 6y ago

Persons B, C, and D are being paid a rate proportionate to the available labor market for their product building skill set. There was nothing stopping persons B, C, or D from being person A and founding a company for that idea. If B, C, and D chose to strike for a higher wage then they could but there might be an E, F, and G which could take over for them at their previous rates. Anybody can make a giant sized, billion dollar company. Those workers chose to work as employees under standard labor terms. The early Microsoft employees that made lots of money from their stock options probably aren't bitter about their compensation.

camgunz 6y ago
> Persons B, C, and D are being paid a rate proportionate to the available labor market for their product building skill set. The labor market doesn't set prices based on value to society and scarcity. If it did, nurses and teachers would be millionaires (there's a shortage of both and they provide high value to society) and middle managers would make very little (there's a glut and they provide very little value to society). It assigns value based on prestige. Capitalist labor market folks would argue strongly otherwise, but the evidence is very clear. The law of supply and demand also doesn't explain or account for things like race/gender pay gaps, monopsonies, and collusion. And generally this doesn't pass the sniff test--if the labor market shifts and suddenly people in your profession are in higher demand, it's extremely rare that companies offer pay raises to keep their employees. That's because they know that while theoretically their employees can reenter the labor market to negotiate a higher salary with a different employer, in practice employment is very sticky and employees tend not to--for lots of rational reasons (some of which are "oh you're a job hopper, declined"). > There was nothing stopping persons B, C, or D from being person A and founding a company for that idea. This is generally untrue. Companies build moats with patents, litigation, monopolistic business practices, and corrupt, ladder pulling litigation. I think a lot of committed capitalists believe the market will sort this out, but it clearly doesn't. How many upstart chip design houses are there? How many upstart medical device companies are there? Etc. Etc. Furthermore and again, not everyone has the privilege required to be A. Being A takes more risk, and you have to have more resources to reasonably take that risk. It's also been shown that it's far harder for women, recent immigrants, and people of color to become As. > Anybody can make a giant sized, billion dollar company. What? > Those workers chose to work as employees under standard labor terms. Often people don't have the resources to start businesses (let alone billion dollar businesses). It requires a lot of privilege, and it's even harder for women and people of color. It's not at all a simple choice. > The early Microsoft employees that made lots of money from their stock options probably aren't bitter about their compensation. While being pretty tough to prove, I would say a couple things here: - Microsoft continues to post multi-billion dollar profits, and people still work there. I don't understand why early employees are valued more than current employees here. - It's conceivable that even if you made a few million dollars, you might be bitter if the person next to you who didn't work appreciably harder than you made a billion. Everyone's different but, that seems possible. - Even if these effects are less pronounced or acceptable at a place like Microsoft, concentrations of wealth and capital have destabilizing, corrupting effects on society and governments. Taking a per-company view is short sighted. It's also worth saying that most companies aren't made up of relatively wealth software engineers, and income inequality will be more pronounced.

fastball 6y ago

> If every B/C/D wanted to be As, there would be no B/C/Ds to build things. And it's not always possible to choose to be an A. 1. Person A can be the person that actually builds the product (and often is). 2. It is always possible to be person A.