This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates.
Anyway, I think it’s probably a fair summary of how someone like PG could simultaneously hold the two ideas “don’t start a startup for money” and “higher taxes are a bad idea” at the same time. Which is not to say that he’s right, but I don’t think he’s incongruent.
> This is a huge generalization we could easily find counter-examples and counter-arguments for, but we could also probably find fair arguments FOR this view, like Bill Gates.
You're correct in identifying the mental model in operation, but you're missing the fact that the people in question are profoundly deluded.
Staggering piles of money (including Bill Gates') were, almost without exception, a result of the ability to capture value, not the ability to create it. And this is worth noting: many of the most significant decisions that led to increasing the value being captured were value destroying, such as "Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run".
That isn't to say that value wasn't created at all (quite a lot was), but only that it isn't quite what is measured by, and rewarded with, wealth.
In the most benign cases of extreme wealth, much (even most) of the value captured IS also created by the person or organization doing the capturing, but invariably, more value is being captured than created (or at least, the market believes that will eventually be the case).
If you capture value you don't create, you become staggeringly wealthy.
Note that I am not claiming that value isn't being created at all in that second scenario, just that the entity capturing the value isn't creating it.
If you capture value while destroying some, the picture gets more complicated, as it depends on the nature of the feedback loops involved. It isn't too hard to see examples in the wild of organizations pursuing strategies aimed at getting a larger slice of the pie, or at getting slices of more pies, rather than strategies that are aimed at getting the size or number of pies to grow overall.
http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
I feel this... I don't want billions for myself, I want billions so I can fund moonshot projects. If starting my business in a foreign country with no wealth tax is the difference between being a millionaire and a billionaire, I will strongly consider relocating.
It seems like it'd be easy to create a charity funded with your wealth that provides grants to innovators. You can do this even in a country with a large wealth tax.
The world also has an awful lot of yachts and private jets for me to really buy the argument that billionaires really want the money to give it away. So maybe democratic control over that wealth ends up being better on average, even if you truly are committed to giving away all of your wealth in the way that maximally benefits humanity.
Founders aren't motivated by the problem no more than athletes are motivated by the love of the game. Children are motivated in that manner. But not adults.
Startups, like sports, are a business. The only concern is money. That is the ends. The startup, problem, etc are just the means to that end.
Every founder is motivated by money. It just sounds tacky and cheap to say you did it for money, so everyone builds up some silly story - "to help people", "to solve a problem", "cause it was a passion", "to create jobs for the community", "create value for others", etc. Nope. It was all for money. No need to be embarrassed about it.
I've really started to think that inheritance is one of the biggest problem we have. Each one has the right to their own worth and riches acquired through their own effort, but if you pass those on afterwards then you create a dynasty that defeats the point of meritocracy and equality of opportunity. The incentives then become tribal, to your family, to your friends, and not simply a realization of your earnest passion.
1. The elite will still hand down a superior education and social connections to their progeny, so their children will still be privileged, just not ridiculously so like they are today
2. This will incentivize parents to invest more in their children's soft development, rather than just handing down their wealth and calling it a day
If you don't have that context, then the essay is in fact very confusing: the beginning of it says that caring about money is the wrong motivation, and the end of it says how good it is that you now get money from earnestly working on things. What it's actually doing is trying to convince people that there's a connection between his financial success and his earnest work on Lisp, and more generally that successful startups (who apparently still need VC investment) tend to be successful because they deserve it, not because they happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right access to capital.