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Feh, you're right -- I hadn't looked at the leaderboards lately. While that mistake makes me look stupid, I don't think it detracts significantly from what I wa

Feh, you're right -- I hadn't looked at the leaderboards lately. While that mistake makes me look stupid, I don't think it detracts significantly from what I was trying to say.

ethbr0 5y ago
It happened when Tesla stock shot up 12%. I guess my read is that if Bezos got his title from a company that didn't exist, in modern, sell-everything form, until 22 years ago... (and in +AWS form, until 19 years ago) And if the current holder got his title from a company that didn't have a physical product until 12 years ago... It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever."
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  >It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever." Obviously, but again, the point isn't who's at the very top of the leaderboard. The point is that the material situations of the top, say, 500 richest easily allow for what we plebes would parse as insane economic loss in real wealth, and they'd be basically OK with it. Perhaps they'd no longer be in the top two digits, but they have only really lost in the sense of a high score, not lost in the sense of total dispossession and now your life's over. If SpaceX was somehow destroyed, reputationally and materially, Musk would still have Tesla, and all his other ventures and economic instruments. Likewise Amazon could go belly-up due to a sudden locavore craze and a drone uprising, and AWS would continue making money hand over fist. My point is that the owner class is thus not actually seriously incentivized to prevent an economic crash, and in fact their apocalypse-bunkers indicate that they're pricing in the clearly non-zero chance of it happening. Lastly, the numbers you're using about the ages of these mega-corps? Good point about that -- the Hudson's Bay Company once owned more land than any other company ever, acted as first contact to uncontacted Natives, and now they are a department store. That said, I don't think Amazon or Tesla will fall from grace in the near term. Blithely assuming that the HBC, like many a corporation, would have a 20 year lifespan or even just wane in power in 20 years, would have been a bad bet in 1700.

Feh, you're right -- I hadn't looked at the leaderboards lately. While that mistake makes me look stupid, I don't think it detracts significantly from what I was trying to say.

ethbr0 5y ago

It happened when Tesla stock shot up 12%. I guess my read is that if Bezos got his title from a company that didn't exist, in modern, sell-everything form, until 22 years ago... (and in +AWS form, until 19 years ago) And if the current holder got his title from a company that didn't have a physical product until 12 years ago... It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever."

revolvingocelot 5y ago
>It's probably a bad bet to say "Obviously, these people are going to be the richest forever." Obviously, but again, the point isn't who's at the very top of the leaderboard. The point is that the material situations of the top, say, 500 richest easily allow for what we plebes would parse as insane economic loss in real wealth, and they'd be basically OK with it. Perhaps they'd no longer be in the top two digits, but they have only really lost in the sense of a high score, not lost in the sense of total dispossession and now your life's over. If SpaceX was somehow destroyed, reputationally and materially, Musk would still have Tesla, and all his other ventures and economic instruments. Likewise Amazon could go belly-up due to a sudden locavore craze and a drone uprising, and AWS would continue making money hand over fist. My point is that the owner class is thus not actually seriously incentivized to prevent an economic crash, and in fact their apocalypse-bunkers indicate that they're pricing in the clearly non-zero chance of it happening. Lastly, the numbers you're using about the ages of these mega-corps? Good point about that -- the Hudson's Bay Company once owned more land than any other company ever, acted as first contact to uncontacted Natives, and now they are a department store. That said, I don't think Amazon or Tesla will fall from grace in the near term. Blithely assuming that the HBC, like many a corporation, would have a 20 year lifespan or even just wane in power in 20 years, would have been a bad bet in 1700.