Tech billionaires who donate millions are just “bribing society at large.”

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/22/18634612/anand-giridharadas-billionaires-philanthropy-zuckerberg-bezos-kara-swisher-decode-podcast-interview

by howard941 • 7 years ago

75 20 7 years ago

vox.com

NeedMoreTea• 7 years ago

Are we surprised?

We are effectively in another gilded age. The wealthy are acting much like they did in the last one. Tech is an irrelevance here.

blub5• 7 years ago

Tech is an enabler and a power multiplier.

LarryDarrell• 7 years ago

While inequality is not inherently a bad thing, we are starting to see the corrosive effects letting a few have too much.

I've gotten to the point where it feels like we need a Net Worth Limit. Cap it at $250 million let's say. The rich still get to enjoy a post-scarcity lifestyle, and the rest of society doesn't hang in the balance of whether our billionaire gods are benevolent or not. I doubt Jobs, Zuck and Gates would have said "Forget it" if they knew they only had the opportunity to acquire a quarter of a billion dollars. And if they did, they are probably not the sort you want to have more money than that anyway.

AstroChimpHam4• 7 years ago

I've had this thought before, but always come back to what happens after they hit that limit?

maerF0x02• 7 years ago

The concept that one has to contend with is the assumption is order to get $N in compensation one has to provide >$N value back to society. Ex: I make $100k as a engineer, I am actually building >$100k in software per year...

By restricting ultra productive people to a capped return we're effectively disincentivizing these people from providing additional value once they've hit their cap.

additionally you can forsee the fixed per capita cap will be gamed. $250M for me, and for my spouse, and each next of kin, and each parent / uncle aunt etc. Suddenly neopotism is all over the place.

chii• 7 years ago

disincentivizing these people from providing additional value ...

but the question i have is whether these people who are ultra rich really did provide the value to society that their wealth suggests.

Did bezos or zuckerberg create value? Or did they just extracted the residual value from their employees?

May be instead of a wealth cap, the cap needs to be applied at income (and also make capital gains into income). Your wealth total is uncapped, but you as a person, could not possibly have created more value than $X per year. Where X is set can be debated, but i would expect it to be less than $10mil.

freewilly1040• 7 years ago

The productivity is coming from the capital, not the people.

mythrwy• 7 years ago

That's an idea worth considering perhaps.

The question is, will a cap like this produce a net negative or net positive to society?

On one hand, what's the incentive to keep being productive and innovative once the cap is reached? If we can come up with some (besides money), and they are good and desirable, it may offset some of the negative effects.

I always think of it like we don't let private citizens posses atom bombs in the US (even if they are really good people who would never use them for evil). A shotgun is fine though. Too much power in a single individual unbalances society.

But I'm really not sure what the net effects would be. Besides, as other posters have pointed out, the system would almost certainly be gamed. The hazard of too much wealth does seem real though.

hackeraccount• 7 years ago

Is that really the question - if it's good or bad for society? You ever read "the ones who walk away from omelas"? I'm willing to put up with a lot of really bad things to avoid getting societies hands dirty.

solveit• 7 years ago

How do you cap Bezos at $250 million without taking Amazon away from him?

I doubt Jobs, Zuck and Gates would have said "Forget it" if they knew they only had the opportunity to acquire a quarter of a billion dollars.

They might have if they knew their companies would be taken away from them at the first sign of success. Jobs was worth well over 250 million in 2001 (probably earlier thanks to Pixar, but cannot confirm at the moment). You would have taken Apple away from Steve Jobs before the iPhone was a pipe dream, and Pixar away from him before Finding Nemo.

Bill Gates was worth 1.25 billion in 1987, and I'm not even going to start talking about what Microsoft did after 1987 (tbf there's a case to be made that MS wasn't so great for the world after 1987, but my point that founders would totally say "Forget it" stands).

blub5• 7 years ago

So what if they would have said "forget it", what amazing, life changing inventions would we be missing today?

Slim laptops with dust-sensitive keyboards? Windows 10 telemetry? The world moves on without larger than life characters.

Zuckerberg saying forget it would have been a great thing for everyone except Facebook and its employees, not sure why you even bothered to put him on the list.

AstroChimpHam4• 7 years ago

but, he asked, why should they be treated as sagacious experts when they come from a completely different arena

Because they have a history of getting impressive shit done. Not complained about, but actually done. And they have the will to get it done, and a bunch of capital to put behind that will, even if they were taxed at whatever ridiculously high rate Giridharadas wants them taxed at.

Giridharadas is welcome to disagree with successful people, but they've at this point proven their opinions do tend to matter when it comes to shaping the country whether we want to pay attention or not.

blub5• 7 years ago

I'm sure everyone would be all ears if Zuckerberg were asked for advice on how to best violate people's privacy, or Bezos were asked how to abuse warehouse workers, but there's no reason why the opinions of those two regarding e.g. medicine would be worth more than those of actual specialists and experts.

Just because someone's successful it doesn't mean they're wise. Looking at Zuckerberg fumble from scandal to scandal certainly doesn't give one that impression. He's just another ruthless rich businessman.

AstroChimpHam4• 7 years ago

Snarky comments aside, Zuckerberg built a massive ads business from scratch, not previously knowing anything about ads. He built a massive social network from scratch, not knowing anything previously about social.

Bezos built the biggest e-commerce business in the world, never having worked in e-commerce or retail before. And seems to be doing some impressive stuff at Blue Origin, not knowing anything about space travel.

That's all not to mention Musk, who goes from new industry to new industry, building successful businesses that fundamentally change those industries, without previously knowing anything about those industries.

These are incredibly impressive accomplishments. They've proven their bonafides for solving general problems in fields they weren't previously familiar with, probably more than just about anyone else in the world.

Tech billionaires who donate millions are just “bribing society at large.”

Related Stories