What is fair? Obviously hours worked is one metric to determine what is fair. But another way to arrive at what is fair is through negotiation. Neither the founders nor potential hires are obligated to work with one another. The only way it happens is if an early employee believes the compensation they are offered by the founders is fair. If it was unfair, they would presumably reject the offer outright.
Your definition of "fair" is questionable.
If you're negotiating from a position where you've taken on debts and rent that you can't afford to pay, and time has run out to the point where you're desperate for a paycheck as soon as possible, that's unfortunate. But that's not the fault of the person you're negotiating for a job with. Exceptional cases aside, 95% of the time that's likely due to your own risk-taking, neglect, poor decision-making, or financial mismanagement. And you had a "fair" chance to not get into that situation to begin with.
But regardless of blame, it's certainly not the fault of the counterparty in your employment negotiations in that you're in that spot. Nor is it their responsibility. Nor should we want it to be! What kind of system would that be, exactly? A brutal one where many more people fall through the gaps than would otherwise. A much better system is the one we have, where people pay taxes, and do so at higher rates the more fortunate they are, and that tax money goes into programs like unemployment, which helps people in exceptional situations.
What's so unfair about this, exactly?
> What's so unfair about this, exactly?
We don't roll the same dices at birth.
My first startup was one where I was hired because I was young and cheap. I could be paid in free lunches rather than 401k matching and decent healthcare plans.
Big companies often pay better salaries.
Your last sentence you’re saying it’s fair to make this assumption that most other jobs are worse.
So that means if a non-startup offered you a better pay package your assumption and bias might steer you away and take worse compensation to do the same job.
I ask you this question because I made a similar mistake in my youth. I took a pay and benefits cut for a startup because it sounded a lot more fun. 6 months later and the company was going under and I was out of a job.
There are also plenty of employees who just didn’t get a job offer elsewhere. When I took my first startup job I didn’t have a competing offer.
We might as well just say “I exploited my structural power over my employees and got a better deal for myself.”
Of course the employees agreed to the deal presented to them, what other option did they have? They aren’t like all these founders that have the luxury of being unemployed because their dad will pay the rent.
That’s another point I forgot to bring up entirely: PG also hand-waved over the quantity of billionaires from his accelerator that came from families of very decent means where they have the luxury of risking failure. The quantity of true rags to riches billionaires is extremely slim.
What? The employees had infinity other options! They could have negotiated harder. They could have declined the job. They could have taken a job somewhere else. They could have taken the risk to start their own startup, and been in the founder position, instead of choosing to be in the employee position and getting the security and reduced stress that comes along with it.
> That’s another point I forgot to bring up entirely: PG also hand-waved over the quantity of billionaires from his accelerator that came from families of very decent means where they have the luxury of risking failure. The quantity of true rags to riches billionaires is extremely slim.
Over 200M Americans come from middle class backgrounds are above. YC also provides founders with the funds to pay themselves while they start their company. I did YC when I had almost $0 to my name and no well-off family to rely on.
Jeff Bezos famously took an $80,000/yr salary. Bezos didn't make $260 billion, or anything within 1/1000th of that. He built a company, that through some inane estimations his share of which might be $260 billion.
For him to not have that imaginary $260 billion would be for the company to not be built at all. So, if that's what you want, you're at least consistent... but no one else would think that a particularly good idea. Quite a few people like being able to order things online and receive them quickly. They don't want to have to go back to stomping through Walmart, hoping that the store has what they need.
I think part of the problem is that if you can slap a label on someone of "Eleventy billion dollars", everyone's brain malfunctions and treats it as a literal fact, regardless of the truth of the label. When you don't want billionaires to have billions, what you're saying is that you don't want them in control of those billion dollar companies. But do you not want the companies to exist, or do you just want someone else in control of those companies? And who?
This seems to come up on every thread like this. Owning 9% of a company that generates ~$80B in profits and employees 1.5m+ people is literally a massive amount of wealth and putting a dollar figure on that is both straightforward and accurate.
Anyone who owns a house can understand that liquidity and net worth are two different things. But shares of Amazon are far more liquid than a typical home.
In case you need a real example, Bezos personally funds Blue Origin by selling around $1B worth of Amazon stock each year. That's 11000 people earning their salaries + a huge amount of capital investment that are all funded from this so-call "imaginary" money. I can assure you that each time those people get a paycheck, it's just as real as yours.
Which of those would provide the most benefit to the world?
Grombobulous says "But he is one of the people who has dedicated his life to capitalism, even after successfully taking care of his family for many lifetimes, and that says a lot about him."
You're simply anti-capitalist. Please post about that instead of mounting personal attacks on people who make more money than you. And please cease telling other people what to do and not do! Try to put yourself into their shoes and think harder about their situation.
This is the most ironic comment I've seen in a while.
People like you are so sociopathic and unaware that it's simply comedy.
> people who make more money than you.
One of the things I realized, as I made more money... was how much _easier_ every aspect of earning gets, as you are already earning more, and as you need it less.
We live in a system that almost _automatically_ overallocates wealth to people who do little for society. It's pathetic.