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It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many

by nthj 6y ago

It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. Anyway, I think it’s probably a fair summary of how someone like PG could simultaneously hold the two ideas “don’t start a startup for money” and “higher taxes are a bad idea” at the same time. Which is not to say that he’s right, but I don’t think he’s incongruent.

webmaven 6y ago
> It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” > This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. You're correct in identifying the mental model in operation, but you're missing the fact that the people in question are profoundly deluded. Staggering piles of money (including Bill Gates') were, almost without exception, a result of the ability to capture value, not the ability to create it. And this is worth noting: many of the most significant decisions that led to increasing the value being captured were value destroying, such as "Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run". That isn't to say that value wasn't created at all (quite a lot was), but only that it isn't quite what is measured by, and rewarded with, wealth. In the most benign cases of extreme wealth, much (even most) of the value captured IS also created by the person or organization doing the capturing, but invariably, more value is being captured than created (or at least, the market believes that will eventually be the case).
- solveit 6y ago
  I don't disbelieve you, but do you have evidence to back this up? That is, do you have evidence that suggests value capture at the price of value creation is more important than value creation itself?
  - webmaven 6y ago
    If you don't capture the value you create, you don't become staggeringly wealthy. If you capture value you don't create, you become staggeringly wealthy. Note that I am not claiming that value isn't being created at all in that second scenario, just that the entity capturing the value isn't creating it. If you capture value while destroying some, the picture gets more complicated, as it depends on the nature of the feedback loops involved. It isn't too hard to see examples in the wild of organizations pursuing strategies aimed at getting a larger slice of the pie, or at getting slices of more pies, rather than strategies that are aimed at getting the size or number of pies to grow overall.
- nthj 6y ago
  I didn’t miss any facts. I was deliberately cagey because this line of debate your comment enters is irrelevant to my larger point: the arguments may be wrong, or right, or any number of other conclusions, but they aren’t incongruent with each other.

by nthj 6y ago

webmaven 6y ago

> It seems to me the subtle miscommunication between billionaires and the rest of us is the rest of us are asking “what ever will you do with a dynasty” and many billionaires, I think, have a mental model of “I have proven I can employ this wealth more effectively than bureaucrats, and I like to solve big problems, and wealth makes it easier to solve big problems.” > This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates. You're correct in identifying the mental model in operation, but you're missing the fact that the people in question are profoundly deluded. Staggering piles of money (including Bill Gates') were, almost without exception, a result of the ability to capture value, not the ability to create it. And this is worth noting: many of the most significant decisions that led to increasing the value being captured were value destroying, such as "Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run". That isn't to say that value wasn't created at all (quite a lot was), but only that it isn't quite what is measured by, and rewarded with, wealth. In the most benign cases of extreme wealth, much (even most) of the value captured IS also created by the person or organization doing the capturing, but invariably, more value is being captured than created (or at least, the market believes that will eventually be the case).

solveit 6y ago
I don't disbelieve you, but do you have evidence to back this up? That is, do you have evidence that suggests value capture at the price of value creation is more important than value creation itself?
- webmaven 6y ago
  If you don't capture the value you create, you don't become staggeringly wealthy. If you capture value you don't create, you become staggeringly wealthy. Note that I am not claiming that value isn't being created at all in that second scenario, just that the entity capturing the value isn't creating it. If you capture value while destroying some, the picture gets more complicated, as it depends on the nature of the feedback loops involved. It isn't too hard to see examples in the wild of organizations pursuing strategies aimed at getting a larger slice of the pie, or at getting slices of more pies, rather than strategies that are aimed at getting the size or number of pies to grow overall.
nthj 6y ago
I didn’t miss any facts. I was deliberately cagey because this line of debate your comment enters is irrelevant to my larger point: the arguments may be wrong, or right, or any number of other conclusions, but they aren’t incongruent with each other.