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I find it odd that a site started by a rich guy who decided to put together a for-profit enterprise based on the idea that helping entrepreneurs get their first
by nirvana 14y ago
I find it odd that a site started by a rich guy who decided to put together a for-profit enterprise based on the idea that helping entrepreneurs get their first startup off of the ground would both make him richer, and make them richer, is frequented by so many people who want to believe that the "rich" are "evil" and need to be punished in some sort or another. (and this article is trying to put a scientific gloss on that belief.)
Not only is PG an existence disproof of the belief, but the mechanism by which he is getting richer is very much the same mechanism that other rich people employ, though often with less obvious social benefits. So, PG is not an anomaly that proves the rule. He's a more visible example of the rule that is often obscured with hot air, but that applies in the vast majority of cases. For instance, while I truly despise Bill Gates, I must recognize that Windows made billions of people's lives easier[1] and thus Gates made his money by improving the world.
Some people can get wealthy via pull and theft, for example, many politicians get wealthy essentially by trading pull. I'm sure there are examples of non-politicians that get wealthy this very same way (trading political pull at a net loss to society.)
But the real way to get wealthy is to make other people's lives better-- in fact, this is the startup advice often seen in other contexts as "find a real pain point and solve it."
[1] ...not easier than if those people had a good operating system, but that's not the comparison. The comparison is to those people not having any operating system, or having only MS-DOS if they already had a PC.
- farinasa 14y agoThe scope of your comment is extremely small. It ignores millions of other rich people that made their money by exploiting people. I'm sure you can think of your own examples without much difficulty. No social findings are ever absolute. Humans are exceptional at breaking "rules". But I would further criticize your comment with your use of the word "evil". Evil evokes images that are irrelevant to actual behavior. Evil insinuates that these people are intently malicious. The findings indicate the opposite- they are unintentionally malicious. Edit: I've been downvoted without response. Classy.
- _delirium 14y agoPG is only an existence disproof of the statement that all rich people are horrible, which nobody really claims. The claim in this article is that, all else being equal, more money has a negative average effect on certain personality/social characteristics. That's not even incompatible with the same people having created real value through their businesses.
- lolcraft 14y agoI know we all have our prejudices, but come on... You completely miss the point of the article, while jiu-jitsuing some random communist strawman for good measure. Have you even read the article? Many of your objections are mentioned there. Or you could read the actual paper, if you find this newspaper article lacking in data. BTW, please don't elevate rich people to a pedestal with the right hand, and at the same time, throw shit to politicians with the other. There might be a lot of cognitive damage with feet in Congress, but so there is in Wall Street. Personally, I prefer a democracy without Apple than Apple without democracy.
- toomuchcoffee 14y ago>the "rich" are "evil" and need to be punished in some sort or another That's not what the article is saying. Also: >Not only is PG an existence disproof of the belief, No, a sample size of one (or two) is not make a valid counterargument.