Ask HN: Is anyone growing further from capitalism?

I think many people that succeed do want to give back. You can, too.

I think everyone has to develop their own idea of what is an acceptable ratio between the top guy and the bottom guy in a company. In the US Navy, that ratio is 9 to 1. Costco and Ben & Jerry's also have low top to bottom ratios.

There are many successful business people philanthropists that give much or most of their wealth to good causes.

Move out to another house and have a loss in the family. Then, you won t care so much about money anymore. All the things we own, they own us

Humans are fundamentally irrational. Studies with chimps have proven exactly how irrational we are.

One classic experiment has the reseacher give the chimps tokens in exchange for simple tasks, like finding a pebble and bringing it to the reseacher. Then the chimp can exchange the token for food. The chimps will do this all day for slices of cucumber. But if a chimp sees the researcher give another chimp a grape in exchange for the token then suddenly cucumber isn’t good enough any more. If the researcher keeps giving the first chimp cucumber then it will scream and throw it back, even uselessly threaten the reseacher.

Rationally the chimp is still as well off as before. It still prefers cucumber over kibble, and it is still worth the chimp’s time to earn the cucumber. What it doesn’t like is the _unfairness_.

> But seeing valuation rounds of tens of billions and now a net worth of a trillion dollars - million times million - it just feels like the game is eternally uneven and I can't in good conscience support these ideas anymore.

Do you see how you are making the same mistake? If you earn the millions you wanted then you will still be just as well off as you would have been before you found out about someone earning a trillion.

Of course it’s not entirely a mistake to want fairness. Fairness is a good thing in many cases. But when it comes to self–improvement we have to look beyond fairness and try to be more rational. Earn those millions and be satisfied. They will provide you just as much stability now as they ever would have.

> Do you see how you are making the same mistake? If you earn the millions you wanted then you will still be just as well off as you would have been before you found out about someone earning a trillion.

It’s not the same mistake. I’m doing fine. I have completely tuned my life and aspiration to my income. I need know more and I am personally satisfied. But forget morality and “who has enough”. Money is just not moving sufficiently in the system. And even traditional capitalists are sounding the alarm on this. It’s not about how much Elon Musk has compared to me. It’s looking at the total distribution of money.

But like all the rules about the economy and capitalism not being a zero sum game are dependent on moderation and a set of rules. AI companies really are sucking up all the capital leaving less money for smaller firms.

Depending on how AI companies tie themselves to the government, you could see bailouts and inflation that make us all poorer.

It's not the same mistake.

The thing tied to the dictionary shared by the people here - SAFEs, pre-seeds, Sand Hill Road - has shifted.

~Ten years ago SF and the Valley represented the opportunity to meet quirky people, have smart fun, build something and maybe get an order or two magnitudes richer than your parents.

Now Paul Graham is lecturing Oxford students about how you can become a billionaire in 9 months.

It's all gotten insane.

I used to respect him, have his book in print and now I feel like everything he and his world represents is shifting further and further away from what I consider a disciplined, virtuous life.

I no longer want to play their game.

Having a YC badge on my front page has turned from something I longed for to an idea that's oddly cringe now.

None of that seems relevant to your initial question.

Start a company, sell something people want, earn your stability.

What part of that requires associating with Paul Grahram or YC?

> It's not the same mistake.

You didn’t answer my other question, but I still wanted to return to this point.

Consider two scenarios:

1. Chimp A does a task, gets a token, gives the token to a human, and gets cucumber in return.

2. Chimp A does a task, gets a token, gives the token to a human, and gets cucumber in return. Chimp B does the same thing but gets a grape instead.

In which scenario is Chimp A better off? Answer: neither. He gains the same amount in each case.

Now consider your future:

1. You start a company, sell things people want, profit, sell the company for $2½ million after taxes, and retire with financial security (assuming you have some financial discipline).

2. You start a company, sell things people want, profit, sell the company for $2½ million after taxes, and retire with financial security (assuming you have some financial discipline) and Elon Musk has a net worth (on paper) of a trillion dollars?

See how in both cases you have gained the same thing? Don’t let your envy of Elon Musk cause you to lose out on something that would be good for you. The chimp loses his head and throws the cucumber at the researcher who was unfair to him, but you can be better than that.

The way I see it, you have five basic options:

1. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you work for someone else, earn a salary, live paycheck to paycheck, and retire penniless.

2. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you work for someone else, earn a salary, save ~50% of your income, and retire with millions (exact figure depends on your age, your exact savings rate, and how many kids you send to college).

3. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you start a company, work hard for a few years, go bankrupt, then start over.

4. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you start a company, work hard for a few years, succeed, sell it, and then retire with millions.

5. Elon Musk has a net worth of $1 trillion, you start a company, work hard for years, never quite have enough yearly revenue to sell the company, but still manage to pay yourself a salary and save for retirement, and then retire with millions.

Just to belabor the point, Elon Musk’s net worth doesn’t really affect the outcome you get.

The way I see your five options:

1.) You are average, get exploited and retire penniless.

2.) You are in the small minority whose knowledge is valued highly enough by the market that they're not predestined to become part of the precariat and might have some pennies by the end of their lives.

3.) You are part of the small circle that has the resources to start over.

4.) You win at capitalism.

5.) You provide a service, live a normal life, enjoy the fruits of it.

I am lucky enough to not be option 1. Most (most!) people aren't.

Elon's wealth doesn't affect my wallet directly. However, % of total wealth owned by his caste obviously does affect the % remaining to the ~8 billion people not in hist caste.

I have friends who are great at their trade, but it's somehow not marketable, and mine or yours might as well not be, nobody really knows what's happening to our industry in the next few years. I don't consider myself one bit more valuable than my poet friend whose yearly revenue is about the same as the monthly salary I can get today.

And I find it bizarre that #4 is somehow considered a better goal than #5. The dream is to build something that gets sold to someone with more capital, thus concentrating their power even more? We celebrate stories where a trillionaire behemoth buys up your startup? Are we really only building stuff where we want an exit?

What about finding an entrance to something that's enriching in a way that's worth doing long time? Finding some kind of meaning? The way great writers often publish their best work after they're 70?

I do want financial freedom, but financial freedom is also tied to being able to do something meaningful, about serving my community, not about sipping mai tais while the rest of the world is drinking polluted water.

> 2.) You are in the small minority whose knowledge is valued highly enough by the market that they're not predestined to become part of the precariat and might have some pennies by the end of their lives.

No, I think most wage–earners save far less than they could, as a percentage of their salary. They spend too much on commuting, on short–term pleasures like sweets or drinks, unproductive expenses like new cars, etc, etc. I count myself in this category, because I had long ago planned to retire last year in 2025 (or to be financially able to retire, even if I didn’t actually retire). Now that 2025 is here and gone I find that I’m not quite there yet, and probably need another four or five years to realistically retire. I had a plan, but didn’t follow it well enough. Most people don’t even have the plan.

> 3.) You are part of the small circle that has the resources to start over.

I think this is far easier in most cases than you realize, even outside the USA. Starting over might just mean getting a normal job and executing option #2. Even if you have to fully declare bankruptcy (which with proper planning you should not have to do even if your company fails), you can still just get a job and save your money.

> Elon's wealth doesn't affect my wallet directly. However, % of total wealth owned by his caste obviously does affect the % remaining to the ~8 billion people not in hist caste.

This is the wrong way to look at it! Elon Musk, or really SpaceX, created that wealth out of thin air! He didn’t gain a paper net–worth of a trillion dollars by subtracting money from everybody else, but by creating it. The pie got bigger, and our shares of it are the same size they always were. The SpaceX IPO involved selling stock in exchange for $75 billion in cash, all given to them voluntarily by people who want a piece of SpaceX’s future earnings. It’s only worth a trillion dollars to Elon Musk because he owns a lot of SpaceX stock, and we are assuming that he could somehow sell it all at the same price. We all know that ultimately he couldn’t really do that, right? Most of that trillion is imaginary money. If SpaceX does really well over the next decade or two then it will gradually become real money.

> And I find it bizarre that #4 is somehow considered a better goal than #5. The dream is to build something that gets sold to someone with more capital, thus concentrating their power even more? We celebrate stories where a trillionaire behemoth buys up your startup? Are we really only building stuff where we want an exit?

Sure, you’re not the only one who gets annoyed at that. That’s _why_ I put option #5 in there. You can have a completely successful company that you simply run for the rest of your life, rather than selling and getting the money as a lump sum.

But you have to admit that lots of people like the idea of retiring early, and selling a company is one way to do that.

> What about finding an entrance to something that's enriching in a way that's worth doing long time? Finding some kind of meaning? The way great writers often publish their best work after they're 70?

Keep in mind that what has meaning might not be a 9–5 job, even at a company you personally run. Running the company might be a life–long job and still only be a means to an end that has more meaning. Option #5 might be satisfying, but might not be the place you find meaning in life. Option #4 might realistically provide a better chance at giving you that meaning simply by giving you more time to accomplish something meaningful. The writer who publishes his best work after 70 did not start writing at 70 years old. They started _much_ earlier.

> not about sipping mai tais while the rest of the world is drinking polluted water.

It’s also a mistake to equate retiring early with ultra–wealth. For most people, retiring early means saving up enough money that your investments consistently bring in enough money that the interest is enough to pay you the same salary you had while you were working. For example, you might earn $100k/year and save half of it, aiming to retire when the interest can bring in at least the same $50k that you actually lived on before your retirement (adjusted for inflation, of course). If you want to spend more during your retirement years then you’ll have to work longer. To get ultra–wealth you’ll have to create that wealth, and creating a huge company is the best way to do it. Creating one that merely pays you a salary isn’t going to do it. My barber is a nice guy and has built a reasonably successful business, but I don’t think he’s going to retire to a beach resort.

The thing about capitalism, is that there used to be a lot of things like say - stock buybacks that were implicitly immoral or against norms.

JD Rockefeller aside from starting a monopoly had deals with the railroads most people at the time found immoral and this was either against or before the concept of common carrier.

So like - there are a lot of ways in which - I want to be a sort of economically conservative capitalist. I want to live in a world where we have a set of rules that create a level playing field. But we’ve had this slow drip of deregulation and norm breaking over the past 100 years, and yet debates of socialism vs capitalism still sort of come down to oversimplified debates of “are you meritocratic or not”.

And then cap this off with the fact that business wealth is extremely concentrated in the magnificent 7; capitalism isn’t capitalism without competition. I forget the name of the group, but there are even though leaders on the right that see that like wealth is not currently distributed the way any reasonably moderate person - left or right - idealizes it to be. It feels like we are so far from the colloquial definition of - “someone has a good idea, invents it, sells it to people, and gets rewarded”.

On some level, if Elon musk sold 100 million cars and pocketed 10k each, I might not care if he was a trillionaire, but we need to realign incentives with tangible value and not financial games.

Yes, I have nothing against rewarding merit. I just also believe that those who are rewarded have a sort of a duty towards the rest of society.

And you can't really say that, because instantly you're attacked with "so you want Elon's money!" - I don't. I'm not even a US citizen. Not even a resident. But I also see the Starlink trails from my balcony and there are three Teslas parked in front of the building I live in right now. It's global.

I just believe owning $100B+ worth of assets, paying less % in taxes than the average Joe, while taking out loans against said assets is... corrupt. Not legally, but morally.

I really like Porsche. Then again, I made friends with a homeless guy a couple corners away. He's been on the streets for two years, can still make his way back.

I can't imagine sitting in a 911 without having first made sure he has a roof over his head.

And I'm not trying to signal virtue here, this is an anonoymous account after all.

Pretty much everyone I know.

I went to the kind of elite east coast college where people were generally mostly pretty left and weren't too "capitalist" to begin with, but even my friends who were more business-oriented or economically moderate before are now openly pointing out that it's not working out well for the vast majority of people.

No. Musk’s money affects me no more than yours or anyone else’s. Creating something that people want is giving back to society, in a mutually-beneficial way.

His doesn't. But the ratio owned by his caste does, it affects all of us. This level of capital concentration is not to the benefit of society.

And creating something that people want isn't always mutually beneficial. If that was universally true, Walter White would have VIP parking in Heaven.

Economics is not zero-sum so the ratio is irrelevant

Yes; the past decade has cured me completely of my capitalist sympathies. Put Marx/Engels back on the menu, though I’m sure attempts to implement centrally-planned economies will again degenerate as badly as they did with the Soviets. Our Sisyphian torments will continue unabated.