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> As far as Justin and Co having deserved this, they worked harder than most people ever will When you say this, you mean harder than other people in western b

> As far as Justin and Co having deserved this, they worked harder than most people ever will When you say this, you mean harder than other people in western based office work? Sorry not trying to pick on you, you seem reasonable and decent! I just think it's a shame that bestowing incomprehensible amounts of wealth on individuals should be celebrated as a deserved reward. Hard work = lots of rewards is not the reality for the majority of the world. I agree they deserve a payout of course, that level of wealth just feels wrong to me, like everything feels a bit out of whack. And I know myself I would of course probably keep the majority of it as well.

jacquesm 12y ago
I tend to compare this to my mom, which keeps me on the humble side of things. She worked really hard her whole life long and does not have much to show for it. She supported me and my siblings whenever we needed it. When I was 21 and sold my first company I realized I had just made more money in a year than my mom made in 10. That was a really weird feeling. So I'm well aware of the fact that 'deserved' is a pretty elastic concept. But if you want to start that discussion then you should pick up the Forbes list of billionaires and start petitioning them to abandon the capitalist way, they are most likely as much or more 'not deserving' of their wealth as the people that put together twitch. I've got a very healthy respect for people that do regular work, farmers, masoners, lathe operators, millwrights, mailmen and so on, if only because I tried my hand at all those professions at some point in my checkered past and have found that each and every one of those takes tremendous dedication and skill to perform with any amount of success. And yet, barring lucky accidents very few people in those professions will ever be wealthy. It's an unfair world we live in, but that does not stop me from congratulating those that achieve a certain level of success if they played this particular game by the rules that they themselves did not set. That it is possible to envision a better world in which the wealth could be spread better does not detract from their achievement.
sillysaurus3 12y ago
I agree they deserve a payout of course, that level of wealth just feels wrong to me, like everything feels a bit out of whack. http://paulgraham.com/gap.html http://paulgraham.com/gap.html
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  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    It doesn't seem like market efficiency was the central thesis of the essay. He was saying that countries which don't allow their citizens to get rich are worse countries to live in. That's empirically true. Based on that observation, he argues that income variation is actually a sign of health. None of that relies on efficient markets. Most "highly valued" startups usually disappear in thin air once founders get their payouts as if they had never existed (ahm... Viaweb?). Viaweb was designed to be sold. Pg didn't want to work on online stores the rest of his life. But it went on to become a profitable part of Yahoo. That seems like a win-win for both Yahoo and the Viaweb team. now you can argue founders are 100X better in skills to exploit market and make believe everyone that their goods are far more worth than it actually is. Should they be paid 100X for these skills? If you think of benefit to the human kind as a whole, perhaps not. If someone paid the founders a certain amount of money for those skills, then those skills were worth that amount of money. What does it mean to "benefit humankind as a whole"? That presupposes humankind has a purpose. Who gets to decide how much benefit something has to humankind? It seems like the answer is "the market."
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jacquesm 12y ago

I tend to compare this to my mom, which keeps me on the humble side of things. She worked really hard her whole life long and does not have much to show for it. She supported me and my siblings whenever we needed it. When I was 21 and sold my first company I realized I had just made more money in a year than my mom made in 10. That was a really weird feeling. So I'm well aware of the fact that 'deserved' is a pretty elastic concept. But if you want to start that discussion then you should pick up the Forbes list of billionaires and start petitioning them to abandon the capitalist way, they are most likely as much or more 'not deserving' of their wealth as the people that put together twitch. I've got a very healthy respect for people that do regular work, farmers, masoners, lathe operators, millwrights, mailmen and so on, if only because I tried my hand at all those professions at some point in my checkered past and have found that each and every one of those takes tremendous dedication and skill to perform with any amount of success. And yet, barring lucky accidents very few people in those professions will ever be wealthy. It's an unfair world we live in, but that does not stop me from congratulating those that achieve a certain level of success if they played this particular game by the rules that they themselves did not set. That it is possible to envision a better world in which the wealth could be spread better does not detract from their achievement.

sillysaurus3 12y ago

I agree they deserve a payout of course, that level of wealth just feels wrong to me, like everything feels a bit out of whack. http://paulgraham.com/gap.html http://paulgraham.com/gap.html

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- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  It doesn't seem like market efficiency was the central thesis of the essay. He was saying that countries which don't allow their citizens to get rich are worse countries to live in. That's empirically true. Based on that observation, he argues that income variation is actually a sign of health. None of that relies on efficient markets. Most "highly valued" startups usually disappear in thin air once founders get their payouts as if they had never existed (ahm... Viaweb?). Viaweb was designed to be sold. Pg didn't want to work on online stores the rest of his life. But it went on to become a profitable part of Yahoo. That seems like a win-win for both Yahoo and the Viaweb team. now you can argue founders are 100X better in skills to exploit market and make believe everyone that their goods are far more worth than it actually is. Should they be paid 100X for these skills? If you think of benefit to the human kind as a whole, perhaps not. If someone paid the founders a certain amount of money for those skills, then those skills were worth that amount of money. What does it mean to "benefit humankind as a whole"? That presupposes humankind has a purpose. Who gets to decide how much benefit something has to humankind? It seems like the answer is "the market."
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