3 ms·

Cool website, but so what..? He risked it all and worked hard to start one of the world's biggest companies, he shouldn't be rewarded for that? I really don't

by altern8 7mo ago

Cool website, but so what..? He risked it all and worked hard to start one of the world's biggest companies, he shouldn't be rewarded for that? I really don't get it.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
banach 7mo ago
How much he worked has nothing to do with what he is earning - there are people working three jobs out there who barely make ends meet. The page illustrates the absurd level of inequality our society has reached, a level that pure numbers are useless at illutrating.
- altern8 7mo ago
  Well, my main point was that he started one of the world's biggest companies. How many people can do that? Not me.
  - gambiting 7mo ago
    Sure, but let me ask you this - do you think there should be any limit to how much wealth can one person own? Like, to take it to the extreme - say Bezos owned every single media corporation, evey factory and every farm in the US, buying it with his "hard earned" money - would that be fine? Like, he started one of the world's largest companies, why shouldn't be allowed to own everything, right? What if he(completely legally) starts giving hundreds of millions of dollars to politicans so they just start doing what he wants instead of what their constituents want? Is that ok too? I think we can both agree that hard work and one of a kind achievement like this should be rewarded. But I suspect we will disagree on whether the reward should have a limit or not. I don't want Bezos to give up his wealth and live on 50k/year. But I don't want him to be so wealthy he can influence politics both home and abroad.
    - altern8 7mo ago
      No, there shouldn't be a limit. If there's a limit it means that somebody needs to decide what limit that is, and steal whatever is over the limit by force. I'm for freedom. Should he be able to won every single media corporation? He shouldn't and he can't, because there are laws to protect against monopolies. Same thing for factories and farms. Should he control politicians? No, but in theory people still control politicians since they can vote them out. If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed, perhaps the solution would be to impose more transparency and harsher penalties for that.
      - gambiting 7mo ago
        >> If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed The problem is that bribery is completely legal in the United States, donating money to a PAC is completely legal and without a limit. I'm not talking about money under the table in a suitcase kind of thing - I'm talking about the situations like recent OpenAI donation of $25M to Trump's PAC - do you think after such donation he is more likely to do what OpenAI wants, or what his voters want? It's not even about Trump specifically - the entire American system is structured in such a way that this is allowed, billionaries from both sides donate to politicians to help them win and achieve their goals, this is the real power of the money they make and this is the problem I have with it. >> I'm for freedom. Someone already decides that you pay taxes on the money you make, and presumably will come and take it from you by force if you don't pay - the only difference is the percentage value. Or are you commenting from somewhere that doesn't have a functional tax system?
  - dudefeliciano 7mo ago
    He also avoids paying taxes, and commits labor and privacy law violations. Who can do that? Not me.
  - Garlef 7mo ago
    > How many people can do that? The answer is simple: By definition only about 100-300 people. There's only 100 of the "worlds biggest companies" (assuming this refers to the top 100). And companies are usually started by 1-3 people. Similarly: There's usually only 4 participants in the top 4 of a tournament bracket. (The question is a bit: what does "can" even mean in this context and the answer im hinting at here: It's not individual skill that creates companies ex-nihilo. It's our economic system that produces companies.)
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
iso1631 7mo ago
> He risked it all No he didn't. He tried a business venture like thousands of other founders on this site, and got insanely lucky.
- altern8 7mo ago
  Sure, all entrepreneurs risk it all. They quit their job to pursue something that can fail and make them bankrupt. Was he lucky? He had an intuition that books could be sold on the internet because you don't need to test them out before buying. Luck might have been part of it, but I hadn't thought of that in 1990-something, I was playing AOE II all day instead.
brazzy 7mo ago
> He risked it all What exactly did he risk that justifies this reward? > and worked hard How hard exactly? How much harder than a doctor, firefighter, waiter, or just your average joe could he possibly have worked to justify earning a million times more. > to start one of the world's biggest companies, he shouldn't be rewarded for that? No, he really, really shouldn't. Not that much, not even remotely that much. > I really don't get it. It is absolute poison for society, for the whole of humanity, that a single person can own that much, hold that much power, with zero accountability.
TheOtherHobbes 7mo ago
He didn't "risk it all." He was never going to end up on the street in a tent if Amazon failed. And a lot of what he did risk was other people's money. Which is how Amazon works anyway. Everyone who relies on Amazon - the authors, the drop shippers, the small traders, the warehouse staff, the drivers, the white collar employees - can be rug-pulled at any moment for any random reason. And Amazon lives off indirect government welfare. Pay at the low end is so miserly nearly a quarter of employees rely on SNAP.
danbruc 7mo ago
Let us ignore the specific case of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, let us look at a generic founder starting a company that turns into a billion or trillion dollar company making the founder a billionaire. The founder founded the company but the billions were earned by the thousands of employees working for the company. The founder alone would not have earned a single dollar without the employees and there would not be a company the be employed by without the founder. If you start a business, you create a company to isolate the business risk from your personal risk, if the business does not work out, the company goes down, the founder should be fine. You will probably risk some of your personal money as a founder in many cases, but how much of a reward do you want for that? If you risk a million and make a billion, is that not more than enough? Did you really start a business where you expected to fail with more than ninety-nine point nine percent? On the other hand, even if the founder would not get an oversized portion of the profit, because that money would get distributed to many employees or many sold products, the effect is relatively small, it would neither make all employees earn millions nor the product significantly cheaper. Bushiness owners making billions is just being in a position where you can take a little money from very many others and that adds up. Also founders getting rich is capitalism not working as intended. The point of an economy is to provide goods and services that people want as efficiently as possible. Business making a lot of profit means that things are not as cheap as they could be and competition is supposed to correct that. Making a profit is a mean to an end, an incentive for the creation of businesses to satisfy demands, it is not the end itself.

by altern8 7mo ago

Cool website, but so what..? He risked it all and worked hard to start one of the world's biggest companies, he shouldn't be rewarded for that? I really don't get it.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

banach 7mo ago

How much he worked has nothing to do with what he is earning - there are people working three jobs out there who barely make ends meet. The page illustrates the absurd level of inequality our society has reached, a level that pure numbers are useless at illutrating.

altern8 7mo ago
Well, my main point was that he started one of the world's biggest companies. How many people can do that? Not me.
- gambiting 7mo ago
  Sure, but let me ask you this - do you think there should be any limit to how much wealth can one person own? Like, to take it to the extreme - say Bezos owned every single media corporation, evey factory and every farm in the US, buying it with his "hard earned" money - would that be fine? Like, he started one of the world's largest companies, why shouldn't be allowed to own everything, right? What if he(completely legally) starts giving hundreds of millions of dollars to politicans so they just start doing what he wants instead of what their constituents want? Is that ok too? I think we can both agree that hard work and one of a kind achievement like this should be rewarded. But I suspect we will disagree on whether the reward should have a limit or not. I don't want Bezos to give up his wealth and live on 50k/year. But I don't want him to be so wealthy he can influence politics both home and abroad.
  - altern8 7mo ago
    No, there shouldn't be a limit. If there's a limit it means that somebody needs to decide what limit that is, and steal whatever is over the limit by force. I'm for freedom. Should he be able to won every single media corporation? He shouldn't and he can't, because there are laws to protect against monopolies. Same thing for factories and farms. Should he control politicians? No, but in theory people still control politicians since they can vote them out. If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed, perhaps the solution would be to impose more transparency and harsher penalties for that.
    - gambiting 7mo ago
      >> If there's a problem where politicians are willing to get bribed The problem is that bribery is completely legal in the United States, donating money to a PAC is completely legal and without a limit. I'm not talking about money under the table in a suitcase kind of thing - I'm talking about the situations like recent OpenAI donation of $25M to Trump's PAC - do you think after such donation he is more likely to do what OpenAI wants, or what his voters want? It's not even about Trump specifically - the entire American system is structured in such a way that this is allowed, billionaries from both sides donate to politicians to help them win and achieve their goals, this is the real power of the money they make and this is the problem I have with it. >> I'm for freedom. Someone already decides that you pay taxes on the money you make, and presumably will come and take it from you by force if you don't pay - the only difference is the percentage value. Or are you commenting from somewhere that doesn't have a functional tax system?
- dudefeliciano 7mo ago
  He also avoids paying taxes, and commits labor and privacy law violations. Who can do that? Not me.
- Garlef 7mo ago
  > How many people can do that? The answer is simple: By definition only about 100-300 people. There's only 100 of the "worlds biggest companies" (assuming this refers to the top 100). And companies are usually started by 1-3 people. Similarly: There's usually only 4 participants in the top 4 of a tournament bracket. (The question is a bit: what does "can" even mean in this context and the answer im hinting at here: It's not individual skill that creates companies ex-nihilo. It's our economic system that produces companies.)

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

iso1631 7mo ago

> He risked it all No he didn't. He tried a business venture like thousands of other founders on this site, and got insanely lucky.

altern8 7mo ago
Sure, all entrepreneurs risk it all. They quit their job to pursue something that can fail and make them bankrupt. Was he lucky? He had an intuition that books could be sold on the internet because you don't need to test them out before buying. Luck might have been part of it, but I hadn't thought of that in 1990-something, I was playing AOE II all day instead.

brazzy 7mo ago

> He risked it all What exactly did he risk that justifies this reward? > and worked hard How hard exactly? How much harder than a doctor, firefighter, waiter, or just your average joe could he possibly have worked to justify earning a million times more. > to start one of the world's biggest companies, he shouldn't be rewarded for that? No, he really, really shouldn't. Not that much, not even remotely that much. > I really don't get it. It is absolute poison for society, for the whole of humanity, that a single person can own that much, hold that much power, with zero accountability.

TheOtherHobbes 7mo ago

He didn't "risk it all." He was never going to end up on the street in a tent if Amazon failed. And a lot of what he did risk was other people's money. Which is how Amazon works anyway. Everyone who relies on Amazon - the authors, the drop shippers, the small traders, the warehouse staff, the drivers, the white collar employees - can be rug-pulled at any moment for any random reason. And Amazon lives off indirect government welfare. Pay at the low end is so miserly nearly a quarter of employees rely on SNAP.

danbruc 7mo ago

Let us ignore the specific case of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, let us look at a generic founder starting a company that turns into a billion or trillion dollar company making the founder a billionaire. The founder founded the company but the billions were earned by the thousands of employees working for the company. The founder alone would not have earned a single dollar without the employees and there would not be a company the be employed by without the founder. If you start a business, you create a company to isolate the business risk from your personal risk, if the business does not work out, the company goes down, the founder should be fine. You will probably risk some of your personal money as a founder in many cases, but how much of a reward do you want for that? If you risk a million and make a billion, is that not more than enough? Did you really start a business where you expected to fail with more than ninety-nine point nine percent? On the other hand, even if the founder would not get an oversized portion of the profit, because that money would get distributed to many employees or many sold products, the effect is relatively small, it would neither make all employees earn millions nor the product significantly cheaper. Bushiness owners making billions is just being in a position where you can take a little money from very many others and that adds up. Also founders getting rich is capitalism not working as intended. The point of an economy is to provide goods and services that people want as efficiently as possible. Business making a lot of profit means that things are not as cheap as they could be and competition is supposed to correct that. Making a profit is a mean to an end, an incentive for the creation of businesses to satisfy demands, it is not the end itself.