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It's an interesting read, and not entirely new information, but I find this leap pretty unconvincing: > So it's not 2020 that's the anomaly here, but 1982. The

It's an interesting read, and not entirely new information, but I find this leap pretty unconvincing: > So it's not 2020 that's the anomaly here, but 1982. The real question is why so few people had gotten rich from starting companies in 1982. It seems more likely to me that industrialization and mass-production in the late 19th century, and information technology in the late 20th century were inflection points at which the gradual progress of new technologies enabled revolutionary businesses across a wide spectrum of the economy. There is no reason to assume that this is always possible, or to extrapolate into the future. > we should expect both the number and wealth of founders to grow, because every decade it gets easier to start a startup. Non-sequitur. If the technology that there is is sufficiently well exploited by Google, Amazon, Facebook, then where is your supposed opening? We are not at the end of the IT tech revolution now, but we are also nowhere near the beginning. The best VR experience right now is engineered by Facebook, not by some plucky start up acquiring new customers. It's easy to imagine that tech will enter a consolidation and comodization phase in the next decades, if it hasn't already. In fact, if the forces that are claimed to be behind the resurgence of founders getting rich were really correct, we should see lots of new manufacturing start ups. Yet those are extremely rare, and not terribly disruptive in the grand scheme of things. Edit: The Gini coefficient bits are also pure ideology dressed up as data. Sweden has more billionares per capita than the US, has a better per capita start up rate than the US, and yet because it never followed the disastrous right turn on economic policy, it has far far far lower inequality (though rising somewhat recently it's still lower than France for example). [1] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-technology/no-country-for-young-firms_5jm22p40c8mw-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-technology/no-coun... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=SE-US-FR https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=S...

ptr 6y ago
Sweden's wealth Gini coefficient is the 4th highest in the world though. US is at 5. Asset distribution is very unequal in Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...
- Certhas 6y ago
  That's an interesting point, thanks. I only looked at income...
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  If you have assets they are barely taxed, if you have the audacity to go to work you are taxed into oblivion. The politicians tried to tax assets but to no ones surprise, there was a mass exodus of rich people so they stopped.
stereolambda 6y ago
> Non-sequitur. If the technology that there is is sufficiently well exploited by Google, Amazon, Facebook, then where is your supposed opening? We are not at the end of the IT tech revolution now, but we are also nowhere near the beginning. This is so true. I say the "tech" (~= internet software?) industry is now somewhere near the telecom level of maturity. We can think of these companies selling the raw (cloud) infrastructure as of something related to that. (Although the precise economics of this for customers is debatable, as discussed time and time again on HN). Selling ad placements is not predicated on huge innovation either, rather on trying to find untapped markets (as much as they still exist) and efficiency gains for the same thing. The next stage, farther in the future, is these corporations becoming more like boring railroad companies. In fact, it's one of the few glimmers of hope for people aware of big tech's ramifications. > The best VR experience right now is engineered by Facebook, not by some plucky start up acquiring new customers. Maybe AI is a better example of something that has huge potential for sure, but is mixed in equal proportions with fantasy. To use similar analogies, I'd say it's in its (later phase of) dotcom era. And even then, as you say, it's not really made by startups built to get big, but - at best - by entities hoping to get bought. But this way, we are still kinda able to sustain the public mythos of tech entrepreneur as a big idea person, and not an industry knowledge and capital efficiency person (related to really driven and good at making deals from the essay). It may be a result of fiscal policy, but it's certainly also beneficial for existing big corporations. Also, the romantic idea is more emotionally appealing.

ptr 6y ago

Sweden's wealth Gini coefficient is the 4th highest in the world though. US is at 5. Asset distribution is very unequal in Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...

Certhas 6y ago
That's an interesting point, thanks. I only looked at income...
danielscrubs 6y ago
If you have assets they are barely taxed, if you have the audacity to go to work you are taxed into oblivion. The politicians tried to tax assets but to no ones surprise, there was a mass exodus of rich people so they stopped.

stereolambda 6y ago

> Non-sequitur. If the technology that there is is sufficiently well exploited by Google, Amazon, Facebook, then where is your supposed opening? We are not at the end of the IT tech revolution now, but we are also nowhere near the beginning. This is so true. I say the "tech" (~= internet software?) industry is now somewhere near the telecom level of maturity. We can think of these companies selling the raw (cloud) infrastructure as of something related to that. (Although the precise economics of this for customers is debatable, as discussed time and time again on HN). Selling ad placements is not predicated on huge innovation either, rather on trying to find untapped markets (as much as they still exist) and efficiency gains for the same thing. The next stage, farther in the future, is these corporations becoming more like boring railroad companies. In fact, it's one of the few glimmers of hope for people aware of big tech's ramifications. > The best VR experience right now is engineered by Facebook, not by some plucky start up acquiring new customers. Maybe AI is a better example of something that has huge potential for sure, but is mixed in equal proportions with fantasy. To use similar analogies, I'd say it's in its (later phase of) dotcom era. And even then, as you say, it's not really made by startups built to get big, but - at best - by entities hoping to get bought. But this way, we are still kinda able to sustain the public mythos of tech entrepreneur as a big idea person, and not an industry knowledge and capital efficiency person (related to really driven and good at making deals from the essay). It may be a result of fiscal policy, but it's certainly also beneficial for existing big corporations. Also, the romantic idea is more emotionally appealing.