I think the genz are very aware of this.
From a look at the two books mentioned here, though, neither seem to clear that bar.
Zero to Sold is about FeedbackPanda, which took 2 years. (Still impressive.) And Company of One, from a skim, appears to focus on services businesses — totally reasonable to get to six-figure revenue and therefore seven-figure valuation, but not terribly interesting as product companies and fairly difficult to exit via a sale.
I'd love to see some case studies of the 3-month number. The more I think about it, the more possible it seems (with a fair bit of luck).
Services companies are very fast to get started, and very easy to make profitable.
Building a product company on the other hand...
When people say they find the "very idea of billionaires" abhorrent, what exactly is the solution here? After the stock in your company becomes worth > billion you have to give it away for free? Because selling it means you are still a billionaire. I think there is something to be said about inheritance taxes and limiting the infinite perpetuation of wealth through generations but unless we are talking asset seizure I am not quite sure how you would do away with the Musks, Brins, Gates' etc. of today.
Yes. Arguably it was never rightfully theirs to begin with—owning someone else's labor output without working yourself is a pretty antisocial act.
Furthermore I'd argue that billionaires have repeatedly demonstrated they are unable to invest in public good. Philanthropy used to be a thing; even the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is a pathetic shadow of that practice with obvious ideological blind spots.
This is what happens when you buy literally anything. What is the distinction you are trying to make?
Well presumably if you buy from the sole creator of a product, they're justly compensated as they could simply refuse the sale. Buying from a privately owned enterprise allows the owners of the enterprise to siphon off of the work of the people who actually build the phone without contributing anything themselves. That doesn't sit right with me, and it doesn't sit right with a lot of people. This creates hugely perverse incentives that magnify to global economic dysfunction and inefficiency and irrational resource distribution and social volatility. The world we live in!
There’s a quote[1] which makes the rounds occasionally and I think sums up the sentiment pretty well:
> Ok how about this:
> No more billionaires. None.
> After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and health care.
> You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism” and we name a dog park after you.
---
> Most billionaires net worth is highly centralised in the stock of the companies they founded[...] unless we are talking asset seizure I am not quite sure how you would do away with [billionaires]
Marginal asset tax rate of 100%? (Really, the main difference between that and the inheritance tax you favor is the timing.) The Wikipedia article[2] has a bunch of arguments for why that might be a bad idea, but it’s reasonably straightforward in principle.
[1] https://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett/status/1241843944238923777
It's called taxes, death, and children. Billionaires only have a single lifetime to spend their wealth, taxed at pretty high rates when they actually liquidate their assets, and it eventually evaporates over a few generations.
There's ~3k billionaires and they're powerful enough that they'll be able to avoid those caps through loopholes, like through shell companies. There's no real practical way to prevent someone from accumulating wealth if they wanted to continue to do so.
That quote about no more billionaires is from someone that cares more about making a point than actual policy.
Not within a capitalist system, no. There are other systems though.
Investors are buying the company's stock, why would it be theirs?
Especially after going public, it's not "your" company anymore.
That is basically what the book Company of One says, yes. Zero to Sold is also another good book in the same vein.
Eventually you (the founder) won't be needed anymore.