Comment by willio58 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by willio58 | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to feel dread from it. I totally resonate with that. I do think that PG's tweet there is pretty weird and disconnected from reality too. He claims that founders deserve to be rich. And his proof comes from AI making employees obsolete.

The thing I'm hoping for is that as we as a society lose the need for people to work through automation, the vast majority will begin to recognize that the top 1% of earners in fact do not inherently deserve to hoard wealth and that the only true solution to so many of society's issues is to spread the wealth by closing loopholes and upping taxes massively.

In other words, being born to the right parents with the right genes and the right social standing and being at the right place at the right time with the right product does not mean that you deserve to keep all of the value from the company you create in perpetuity. AI advancements don't mean that you have any more claim to that.

Eventually, we need to detach ourselves from money and status as a society. That is the only way we will become happy.

I have huge respect for PG as an engineer but I often disagree with him politically. Moral desert is a complicated concept and I'm not sure that arguing the people who created Instagram, possibly a net negative for society, deserve be worth hundreds of millions just because they could sell their company for a billion is the best argument. Some founders by some reasonable (subjective, ik) definitions of "deserve" probably do deserve to be worth a lot of money.

In any case this current wave of AI depends on a monumental amount of labor from mostly uncredited artists, programmers, authors, etc. To say that someone does all the work in prompting an AI to "create company" seems ridiculous.

> I do think that PG's tweet there is pretty weird and disconnected from reality too. He claims that founders deserve to be rich. And his proof comes from AI making employees obsolete.

I read it a lot differently. I read it having nothing to do with AI, really. (Automations are not generally AI at this time). But his point is that the employees who the founder brings along are not bringing core value. They're filling roles required by what the founder built, and when they're replaced by automations, it becomes obvious that they were not core value.

In the context of this topic, I think a lot of people will be left behind. The dread is for a reason. Society will figure it out, probably, eventually.

> being born to the right parents with the right genes and the right social standing and being at the right place at the right time with the right product

I think this is a made-up point, and it's really a disservice to your fellow humans to act like only a few lucky genetic winners are capable of creating something. But for your actual point (they don't deserve the results forever), the background of the founder is absolutely irrelevant.

> Eventually, we need to detach ourselves from money and status as a society. That is the only way we will become happy.

Yup. In a far-enough future, all the material wealth is generated by machines. Hopefully they're doing our bidding. If so, I doubt we need money anymore. The path their isn't clear, though. I think it'll be a messy transition.

> his point is that the employees who the founder brings along are not bringing core value

So is the idea that founders who have brilliant and incredible thoughts will be rewarded just for the ideas since execution is trivial? I guess the VCs love the idea that intelligence is the most important trait and is rewarded directly with wealth. Which I feel is ironic since it's very hard to make the claim most of them got to where they are primarily because they are smart.

I mean I don't want to speak for PG, so I'll just speak for myself.

The thing I'm talking about (value of employees) isn't really about founders at all. I know that society likes to hate rich people or whatever, and you seem focused on those rich founders.

The point is really about how the Very Important Workers can be readily replaced by automations, which means they weren't Very Important. The company value was not derived from them. That's the end of the statement.

Who deserves the value generated by the founder's idea/work/risk? That's a matter of opinion. The law already prescribes the current situation in a technical sense, so you're clearly talking about a moral sense. Morals vary by person. Your debate won't be settled anytime this century IMO.

Yeah, I guess the thing I'd really like to know is, if the employees aren't bringing core value, then who is? I'd be curious to hear pg's take here, since it's either (1) the founder, for having such good ideas, (2) the AI, for doing the work, or (3) the creators of the AI.

Since we don't reward our washing machine for doing our chores, I'm assuming it's not 2.

I guess maybe the 4th answer is society?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com