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Comment by natmaster | Hacker News Reader

The whole premises of this article is incredibly disturbing. That people are actually mad that a company is able to produce so much new value that it dramatically increases the living standards of even its lowest paid employees.

Are people so delirious with envy that they want everyone to go back to the dark ages?

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I read it a bit differently: these companies are doing so well, they're capturing a huge amount of their respective markets, to the point where they can easily afford to raise the salary on even their lowest paid employees. Likewise on the other end of the spectrum, companies on razor-thin margins are stuck pushing people towards minimum wage salaries.

You could pull a couple of conclusions from this article:

1. The patent system is a mess, and is helping drive huge profits for a small number of very large companies, as well as hindering others from competing or entering that market. They note the biggest examples are in tech and healthcare, which is not surprising.

2. The 'best' or 'smartest' workers congregating in a few very large companies that can afford to pay them very well is no surprise. Add in #1 and employees have less reason to leave and create competing services or businesses.

3. The ability of technology to be so easily replicated, plus #1 and #2, means we see few, if any, challengers to certain established markets.

All this is great...if you work at one of these companies.

I don't think it's just the patent system, the network effects many startups are chasing are just "natural" monopolies.

Zero-to-One is essentially Thiel setting down the fact that everyone should be on the hunt for rent seeking monopolies, since these are the only things that make enough money to be worthwhile from a VC standpoint.

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