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Comment by Neliquat | Hacker News Reader

Imagine for a moment you are a driven, self-made .00001%er. If you KNEW your profits were taken at the top, would you work hard and innovate? Or would you commit fraud and squirrel away your wealth or not bother. Im sure a few would see it as a 'goal', but stakeholders would doubtlessly disagree. The spirit, I agree with, but not possible to cleanly implement.

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Who are these mythical self-made 0.0001%? All the ones I've heard about relied on family wealth and connections, inheritance, and most often worker exploitation.

The filthy rich do enjoy this ego-feeding narrative that it was all just talent and hard work that gave them a disproportionate slice of the world's wealth, but it's not borne out by the facts.

There is no amount of work a human being could do that justifies the wealth that is in the hands of people like Zuckerberg and Warren Buffet. They seem like decent enough people, but they have an obscene amount of wealth and power.

Great wealth is rewarded for placing winning bets, not for hard work.

For example, gambling on investments, as with Buffet, or on a new idea, as with Zuckerberg. Sometimes just for gambling on Powerball.

The great rewards are balanced by great risks, and many of these gambles are valuable to society. Where would we be without new businesses and new ideas?

It seems to me that we all recognize the need for incentives and disincentives in order to promote behaviours valuable for society.

But, the idea that a person deserve the financial power of a country in order to be motivate is a little ridiculous. Are we saying that Zuckerberg would not be creating Facebook if he though that it's going to get only 100 million dollars? or that Buffet would not invest if he is only to be the 5th in the Forbes list?

I suspect most of Zuckerberg's wealth is in Facebook stock. Are you proposing the government should take control of Facebook? Or force him to sell the majority of Facebook to someone else to pay taxes?

I do think it would be demotivating to know that if you start a really successful company, the government will take it away.

>The great rewards are balanced by great risks

Zuckerburgs wealth exceeds that of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. Do you honestly believe that the risk he incurred was greater than all of our nations oil rig workers, foresters, soldiers and police combined?

Am I missing something? If Facebook goes belly up do his shareholders get to cut off his hands?

Imagine investing $1000 in something with a 1 in a million chance of success (just for example). For that to be a rational bet, the payoff would need to be a billion dollars.

Oil rig workers, foresters, soldiers and police have guaranteed pay instead of a very small chance of very great rewards.

maybe the could innovate for the good of other humans instead of the good of their wallet ? Or at least, accept a proper balance ?

money is just a proxy for status.

the rich can be brought to heel so long as they're allowed to feel as though they're high status. if you take that away from them, they will not "produce" whatever value they're claimed to.

Maybe the .00001% don't work hard to innovate, but they with hard to exploit and concentrate wealth.

Lots of innovation for example Congress it of universities, from people who are not millionaires.

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