I don't agree. They didn't get rich by creating value. They might have created value, but they got rich by keeping that value to themselves.
I would also argue that they don't create the value themselves, but their workers do.
Just like that joke: a worker is admiring the boss's Ferrari, and the boss tells him "if you continue working hard, next year I'll have 2"
> They didn't get rich by creating value. They might have created value…
Odd to contradict yourself with only a period separating the contradictory statements.
> I would also argue that they don't create the value themselves, but their workers do.
Sure, that’s fair - but those workers also have jobs and salaries because of risk the founders took to de-risk the company before the employees joined.
The level of risk required is not everyone’s cup of tea.
why pretend to have found a contradiction when a stronger reading of the comment is clearly that it meant to highlight the distinction between the creation of that value and its consolidation primarily into an individual's personal wealth?
Because it is paradoxical on its face. Many people like to argue that founders (or rich people, or billionaires, or whatever) don’t create real value, but simultaneously discount all the jobs they created and products they produced, because it is convenient to do so when it fits your narrative.
Yes, I’m all for co-op structures, but there is a big difference between “created no value” and “created lots of value but kept the majority of profits for themselves.”
If they’ve created 1000 jobs; is that value? Surely to those 1000 employed people, it is.
Yes these numbers are peanuts compared to the Rothschilds and Saudis of the world. But the question was about self-made billionaires, which I believe everyone on that list is.
This is a breach of the guidelines (“please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community”), but it is also inaccurate. Most regular participants on HN are employees, not wannabe billionaires.
> Most regular participants on HN are employees, not wannabe billionaires.
You can be both and it would be interesting to see the breakdown of aspirations.
Certainly as the tide of public opinion has turned hard against tech and tech billionaires in the last 5 years, the dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion at large.
I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population.
If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the “dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion”, I'd be interested to know about it so I can get an understanding of what you mean.
I suspect it's an assumption based on stereotypes about what kind of people would be interested in a Silicon Valley-based tech-focused discussion forum, but if it was ever accurate, and perhaps it was in the early days of YC/HN, it's not that way any more.
> I read the comments here all day and it's pretty clear to me that overall opinion is weighted fairly strongly against tech billionaires and big tech company leaders on HN, as much or even more than it is among the broader population.
I think you're out of touch with public opinion outside of your bubble.
> If you have a recent discussion thread or subthread that demonstrates that the "dominant demographic on HN seems less and less aware of how out-of-touch they are with public opinion", I'd be interested to know about it so I can get an understanding of what you mean.
This thread is a perfect example. While there is debate about the role and morality of billionaires, offline this phase has passed and now people are talking about how to overturn the economic order and the resulting impacts on billionaires, to put it politely.
> I suspect it's an assumption based on stereotypes about what kind of people would be interested in a Silicon Valley-based tech-focused discussion forum, but if it was ever accurate, and perhaps it was in the early days of YC/HN, it's not that way any more.
I suspect you are insulated demographically if you believe that's the case. I think many/most people's opinions of how to solve extreme wealth inequality would be banned here.
Please don't make assumptions like that. I don't live in Silicon Valley or even the USA. Almost none of the people I associate with socially or in my family work in tech. Much of the work I've done in the past decade has been with farmers. Most people I know are concerned about the influence of the big tech companies and emerging technologies on society and about wealth inequality, as am I.
> I think many/most people's opinions of how to solve extreme wealth inequality would be banned here.
Nothing is banned here if it's expressed in a way that is within the guidelines. I gather what you're getting at is that outside the bubbles that you think I (and the stereotypical HN user) inhabit, there's more of a push to, as you put it "overturn the economic order". I see plenty of support for that on HN too, and nobody gets banned for saying it. But perhaps it doesn't get much visibility, because "overturning the economic order" is not really a new idea. The thing we don't see enough of are workable new ideas on how to build an economic system that gets the best outcomes for society and avoids the pitfalls that have befallen all the economic systems that have come before.
Which brings us back to the beginning of this discussion: the reason comments like that get downvoted is not because "everyone spending time here is a one-off genius, superior to others that deserves to be a billionaire", it's because comments like that are repetitive, generic tangents that stir up indignation but don't raise anything interesting or new to discuss.
