24 ms·

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 meg

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...
      - 6y ago

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...
    - 6y ago