Do you mean like how some people are born into rich families and some into poor families? (I kid :))
> I also can't help but look at this cynically as a largely self-interested PR grab by Apple that is not a real sacrifice on their part.
It may be but so what? They could have done nothing, but they didn't. Good on them for doing this.
Why kid? This is the way of the world.
As you can see, only a 9 or 10 should really count as coming from significant disadvantage. Mark Zuckerberg is an 8 on the scale (where 10 is most disadvantaged), and I think we can all agree he did not claw his way out of poverty. I'm having trouble finding overall numbers for each rank, but I'm certain 9s and 10s are not a majority of this list if 6-10 is only 67%.
Did the Forbes 400 Billionaires Really 'Build That'? https://www.cnbc.com/id/49167533
Trimming a lot:
"United for a Fair Economy breaks down the Forbes list using a baseball analogy. It says
- 35 percent of the list was born in the “batter’s box,” with a lower-middle class or middle-class background...
- 22 percent of the list were born on first base: they came from a comfortable but not rich background and might have received some start-up capital from a family member.
- 11.5 percent were born on second base, the report says. Second base is defined as people who inherited a medium sized company or more than $1 million or got “substantial” start-up capital from a business or family member.
- 7 percent were born on third base, inheriting more than $50 million in wealth or a big company. The report includes Charles Koch and Charles Butt on third base.
- 21 percent were born on home plate, inheriting enough money to make the list."
So less than 35 percent would be coming from poverty, if this study is to be believed. This is for the 400 billionaires list though.
I mean, it considers Donald Trump, whose father died with a net worth of about $300 million to start on 2nd base!!
Gates did not directly inherit vast wealth. But, most people’s parents don’t know the CEO of IBM back when it was the computer company.
That bottom 35% is a little doubious. Larry Ellison was put in that category, though he was adopted at a young age. Further, his adopted family had recently been wealthy which is a much better than average background for becoming rich.
Finally, the category they place Trump in vastly underplays the amount of direct family support he received. The initial gift was under 50 million, but was just the first of many. He would have become a billionaire simply putting the money given to him into the S&P 500.
Had Bill Gates gone to Seattle Public Schools at the time, its doubtful that he would have gained similar contacts or become notable at such an early age.
At least in the US, less than 35% of the population actually lives in poverty.
On the Share of Inheritance in Aggregate Wealth: Europe and the USA, 1900–2010 http://www.piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/AlvaredoGarbintiPiketty2...
I would also be hesitant to take the top 500 as representative of the top, say, 5 million.
I understood it as: how is it that education is a privilege?
That's not Apple's fault, but it shows how we live in a modern aristocracy, built on finance and lines of capital instead of noble bloodlines.
It's not that some entities cannot have more than others, it's that we have entire classes where their first order needs (food, shelter, clothing) aren't met despite being willing to work and working, let alone their second order needs (enough margin of profit for emergency funding, healthcare, means to acquire skills initially or skills in different areas, etc), or even third order needs (a broad means to form new ventures addressing what is locally perceived as important). If those areas are met and within a stable system, then I think it's fine that some entities have more wealth - but too much imbalance imho causes systemic instability.
The article only says: "[Apple] said it would compensate the Thompson family and make an additional gift toward 14-year-old Grant’s education."
For all we know, they got a check for $250.
How do you reconcile your statement with the fact that you, yourself, can confer life-changing benefits to all sorts of people?
It's incredibly rare for a company to have an objective bug bounty system. I would estimate that the number of companies like this is zero. (Source: I have worked triaging reports to public bug bounty systems for large companies that you've heard of. Payouts can differ by thousands of dollars based on factors like your prior history reporting to the program, what the triager chose to put in their report (even if your two reports are identical), or the label you put on the vulnerability you're reporting.)
A bug bounty program would demonstrate a lot more sincerity around securing their devices than a one-off reward to a kid given simply because the kid got enough attention in the media.
It's not all that different than in the past some regular person assisting the royalty, and being rewarded for it with some money or small title or allowance, such as being able to utilize a natural resource that's controlled by the crown. It's just a consequence of a massive power disparity, and those are natural (I mean even without market power and m oney, we're talking about a single person and an organization of tens or hundreds of thousands or people, which is its own power difference).
> I also can't help but look at this cynically as a largely self-interested PR grab by Apple that is not a real sacrifice on their part.
It probably is, but that doesn't mean its all it is. It's not always a zero sum game, and if you can help yourself and help someone else at the same time, should we denigrate that just because it's also self serving? Tempering how much good will we attribute for this action is all well and good, but let's not go too far and negate all of it or come away thinking worse of Apple just because they gain something from this as well.
A government's (a monarchy is a form of government) money comes from taxes from people who wish to be part of that system and benefit from the security and markets it provides (otherwise they can leave. Sort of. But in the past they likely could), and they are limited in what they can do because the government enforces the rules.
It's not totally dissimilar, in my eyes.
Before someone gives me the standard "don't hate the player hate the game" speech. I do hate the game. It's fundamentally broken and I think we need to do a 2.0 version.
"The biggest taxpayer was the most profitable: Apple, which reserved $15.8 billion for income taxes on $59 billion in operating income. Apple reports its effective tax rate as 25.8%"
I think it's time to end this falsehood about Apple as I constantly see it posted on HN.
It almost sounds like they are referring to taxes withheld from paychecks for employees, which is definitely not the same as what a company pays in corporate taxes in its profit.
1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2017/04/18/wh...
2: https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/05/heres-how-much-app...
Of course, I understand that corporations have always been able to do lots of things that people couldn't do, such as enjoy limited liability. But these are very close analogs, and there aren't any compelling policy reasons as to why corporations should get unlimited SALT deductions if people aren't given this privilege.