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> For all the talk about the Deep State, the truly unaccountable power holders are the C-suite class. Most billionaires realized that they do not need to be in
by hourago 3y ago
> For all the talk about the Deep State, the truly unaccountable power holders are the C-suite class.
Most billionaires realized that they do not need to be in the news or do any work, they can let the CEOs of this world take a small part of the profits and all the blame for what companies do. That is why we know nothing about the super-rich but many CEOs are always on TV. Smaller shareholders do not have power to change things.
- robotnikman 3y agoExactly. You probably wouldn't even recognize the names of most billionaires, just the few who are always in the news taking the blame.
- Workaccount2 3y agoMusk is a great example of the opposite of this. If he had a top shelf PR team and let them handle all communication, he would still be widely adored. In some sense I respect him for at least being transparent. Most other billionaires are only visible through heavily refracted PR lenses.
- rjh29 3y agoAmazon has a top shelf PR team and people still hate Jeff Bezos.
- burnished 3y agoA PR team would help Musk because he is an asshole and they would cover that. Conversely, Bezos is so wealthy that he cannot just stand out of the spotlight and let other people ignore his obscene wealth - the sheer enormity of the dragon's horde attracts attention.
- SequoiaHope 3y agoElon Musk is wealthier than Bezos, and is the wealthiest person in the world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Billionaires_Index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Billionaires_Index Edit: Hi folks. Please remember I’m responding to a comment about public perception, not some ground truth idea of absolute wealth. These lists reflect what regular people are being told, and are probably a good indicator of public perception.
- wkat4242 3y agoMarket cap isn't Wealth. It can evaporate at any time. I'm sure there's people more hidden that have much more real disposable wealth.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWhat kind of wealth cannot evaporate at any time? What is real disposable wealth?
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI’m replying to a comment about public perception of Musk and Bezos’s wealth, which says Musk could benefit from a PR team but Bezos cannot because Bezos is so damn wealthy. But from a public perception standpoint, Musk is wealthier than Bezos. Us regular folks genuinely can’t really understand the ins and outs of wealth at this level.
- mrangle 3y agoIf Musk can borrow against his shares, then Market Cap is wealth.
- wkat4242 3y agoHe can't borrow 200 billion against his shares though. If he were to do that the gravity of that action would upset the value of those shares themselves.
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- Gud 3y agoThese lists mean nothing. Or do you believe Elon Musk is wealthier than the king of Saudi Arabia?
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI’m responding to a comment about public perceptions of Musk and Bezos’s relative wealth. Public perception is often wrong, but most people will tend to believe sources like this. (In searching for this I found loads of news articles published today about Musk taking the top of the list again, which surely influences public opinion.) So actually the lists do mean something. They reflect what people are being told about Musk and Bezos’s wealth. Which is precisely what was being discussed.
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- mywittyname 3y agoNot nearly to the same degree. And I suspect most of them really just hate Amazon, and by proxy, Bezos.
- dylan604 3y agoby proxy? he created the damn thing, so why wouldn't he be hated directly and not by proxy?
- mywittyname 3y agoThat's what I mean; he's hated because he runs/ran Amazon and Amazon is a shitty company. Maybe I should have said, "via the transitive property of hate" instead. This is in contrast to Musk, who is hated for being a POS person, despite running companies that are somewhat respected.
- bombcar 3y agoPart of the top-shelf PR is working for the billionaire and not the company. Gates had a pretty good one somewhere, as he quietly slipped into the night. Bezos, Zuckerberg? They're too involved and don't seem to deeply care (though I suspect Zuckerberg's is doing better, what with that race they had him run).
- jvanderbot 3y agoIts almost like, not matter what, a bunch of people are going to hate you if you're well known enough.
- Capricorn2481 3y agoThere are lots of famous people almost no one hates because they are harmless. People hate some CEOs because of the notable harm their decisions make.
- bobthepanda 3y agoThe issue with being famous is the law of numbers, and it only takes one crazy hater to ruin or end your life.
- scruple 3y agoBut the inverse is also true, no? It only takes one billionaire to ruin countless lives.
- mrangle 3y agoThat's not right in my estimation. The correction would be that there are lots of famous people that you don't hate, but that plenty of other people do. Your simple bias is that you assume that your hatreds and who you give passes to are a type of common sense. The truth is that your hatreds are as nonsensical to a wide variety of others as those of others seem to you (when they aren't being ignored by you, again via bias).
- dylan604 3y agoYou can be well known and still not be wealthy. I'd speculate that it's the wealth that attracts more hate than anything.
- bobthepanda 3y agoRationally, yes. There are a lot of irrational people on the Internet very quick to lump anything into an incoherent conspiracy and start flooding you with hate; for example, nearly every song on Youtube has a comment saying the song has Satanic or Illuminati references, or whatever flavor of conspiracy you like.
- WeylandYutani 3y agoPeople hate Bill Gates and I was never able to find out why. I doubt he votes Republican.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoMicrosoft is hated for many reasons. Bill Gates was Microsoft for a long time, and it still has his DNA.
- mrangle 3y agoAs someone who is 100% indifferent to Bezos I can offer some objectivity. I suspect most people are indifferent to Bezos and most other ultra-wealthy men. No matter who you are and what you do, if you are in the limelight and/or have money there will always be a subset of churlish human who will hate on virtually anyone who is not in their social class. And I suspect who saves their most acidic vitriol for those who are.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago>subset of churlish human who will hate on virtually anyone This is true, but there will also be a set of just regular normal people who see what these powerful people are saying and doing and hate on them because what they are saying and doing is bad and hateful.
- burnished 3y agoI think about that too, the guy is an asshole.. but in an almost banal, everyday sort of way.
- Capricorn2481 3y agoHe is transparently glib, but he often says one thing and does another. And his reputation for "telling it like it is" is doing the leg work of obscuring the fact that he's a massive hypocrite and can't be trusted.
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- davidguetta 3y agoI dont know why people should care that much about him tho. I love musk but mostly like i love conor mv gregor or any other entertainer. Not to save my life or the human race.
- markoman 3y agoI think you're spot-on here. He has (also) casually left unchallenged all the haughty & exaggerated stories of his personal record, be they about the degrees he does/doesn't hold or the businesses he did/didn't found. I suppose he gets all the credit for being authentic due to his telling the public not to buy TLSA shares, and the way he tries to work the number 420 into share purchase prices? Its all just theatrics, just as how he (and was photographed as he) carried a sink into the lobby of Twitter last year on the day he bought it. You'd think a heavily-burdened business leader would have things of greater import on his mind than cheap imagery.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y agoI am not entirely convinced. Not that long ago Musk was very positively portrayed in the media and elsewhere. I personally compared it to Gates' coverage given how they both seemed to aim to make his persona known as 'philantropist', 'visionary' or something along those lines. Naturally, some of it could have been organic. I sure remember having a more positive opinion on Musk based on what he was able to accomplish with Tesla and SpaceX. It is only later as he was gaining more spotlight that the eventual reports of his work practices became more commonly known. OTOH, Gates remain that old guy that talks about sustainability, saving the world and stuff. Come to think of it. Maybe you are right. Musk does not have PR team.
- fragmede 3y agoNot only does Musk not have a PR team, neither does Tesla or SpaceX because he fired them.
- gota 3y agoGates is spearheading the cure of diseases all over the world - there are few better ways to purchase goodwill or a good reputation. That is: his area of work has helped (or at least not hindered) his PR team in keeping up a good reputation. Sadly we cannot trust all billionaires to be 'enlightened despots', but at least in this case I say we lucked out - there's plenty stupid or harmful things he could've done Like, for example, purchase Twitter and grind it into garbage. I'm joking, of course, but goes to show why Musk is considered an imbecile _despite_ having money and Gates is considered intelligent because he made money (and spends it well).
- mrangle 3y agoMusk is still widely adored. I'd point you to the relative popularity of the Media that is down on Musk and instructs others to be so.
- nazgulnarsil 3y agoThere is a deep liability tradeoff structure all up and down the joint stock corporate structure that has co-evolved with the legal apparatus that regulates it. Shareholders are in a symbiotic liability laundering relationship with executives, who are in a symbiotic liability laundering relationship with middle management who etc with actual workers who etc with customers.
- klipklop 3y agoYup and many of the US tech “rulers” (for lack of a better phrase) don’t even live in the country anymore. We (in the US) should all worry as they move to private islands/beaches/New Zealand.
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoThe super-rich are also super-litigious and threaten to get in a money war with any publication that wants to expose their hand in any ventures the rest of society might disapprove of.