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Comment by shusson | Hacker News Reader

> Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber and one of the founders, has a net worth of $4.8 billion.

I agree that the working conditions of workers should improve but I never understand the comparison to the value of CEOs. Travis Kalanick isn't sleeping on $4.8 billion, it's in the economy.

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Is it though, or is it in stocks? And even if he cashed in on that 4.8 bln, what would he do with it? Surely not put it all as a bolus into the economy, no CEO does that, they'd place their funds into bonds or other stocks. He will likely still buy 1 pair of jeans, 2 pillows, and 1 ice cream like the rest of us. The true way to put that 4.8 billion into the economy is to give the consumers, the drivers and riders themselves, the best bottom line. Then each of them in turn can buy that one more product, far more spending than a CEO is likely to do.

Then the value just diffuses in the whole economy, ending up in investments in countless industries.

Instead you can keep it in stocks of companies you believe in, like startups and interesting moonshots.

It all ends up with the question - do you want the economy to decide where to focus the value (the diffusion) or do you want to decide yourself?

But if you have this amount of money in the first place, you are statistically in the better place to decide than the economy.

I think you need a citation for that last point. This is the exact logic that got us the 2008 crash.

Perhaps, but also most of technological progress in recent centuries. It's a shame humans have a bias for negativity.

Certainly lots of technological progress has been made through exploitation but as we see automation taking more and more jobs, maybe we can end that cycle.

This is how progress in society is made. See a problem in the world and try to make it better. I don't think we need to have people working such degrading jobs to have technological progress, but you need it to have this many billionaires running around.

Putting 'statistically' in front of a fully subjective statement doesn't make it magically objective (or true).

Yes, but stocks/bonds is basically giving money to companies so they can do useful stuff with them. So, they are still in the economy.

Well, the IPO is giving money to the company. The rest is speculation and dividend income.

Having your money in stocks is having it in the economy. Buying a stock is loaning your money to other companies who use it to get stuff done, which requires hiring people and paying them.

Okay, you claim that companies will use cash to hire new employees. Well, let's look at a real case. The recent bolus of cash from the tax bill: how much of that went for new hiring, vs paybacks to stock holders or bonuses/raises for CEOs? I'm not an economist but my understanding is that it is a mixed report, many of the companies have NOT helped their workers, though a few have. Relative to the long-term debt-busting nature of the recent bill, it seems this is not a fair recompense for the pain that will come in the 5-year time frame, when middle-class tax cuts evaporate and we're left with just the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, yet no budget balancing.

Why does that even matter?

Admittedly people like me have a larger proportion of our wealth pinned down in things like real-estate, but it's not like most of us stuff cash in shoe boxes around house. Once you discount accommodation and personal cars, most of us have the rest "in the economy".

I think it matters because people blame individuals rather than the system.

That seems like a technicality. He's not searching his couch cushions for beer money.

Okay. I take away all your money and then invest it. Fine with you?

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