Bill Gates is part of a system that built Microsoft. The system needs to be maintained if it's going to continue to produce outcomes like that.

And... if we would prefer different outcomes?

Because a growing share of Americans are beginning to feel trapped by poverty and when masses of people feel trapped instability often follows.

Everyone, from the CEO to the custodian has an interest in people feeling there is some truth to "The American Dream." Which is not that you might get rich but that you can at least get ahead.

Did bill gates build Microsoft? He had a larger part than probably anyone, but he wouldn't even be remembered if he ran it on his own. The reason people think it's something to be solved is because for some reason our society attaches all the reasons for success, and the associated benefits, to a handful of people for enterprises that are a group endeavor

Than any one person through the lens of an authoritarian hierarchy that’s structured to reinforce the necessity of top-down rule.

In reality, all the laborers at Microsoft built it into what it is today. And it (like most companies) are at a scale of complexity that is far beyond the fiction that workers are acting out CEO’s “visions.”

It offends my sense of fairness to see the disparity between the very small number of very, very rich and the very large number of very, very poor.

It offends my sense of "people should enjoy freedom" to see so, so many people who are very much not free because of the economic system that offers them no way out of poverty.

(And I don't believe that poor people are all choosing poverty. I've been poor, and no one wakes up to that and says "this is what I choose.")

And it offends my sense of language when people use phrases like "build Microsoft" as though it was a doghouse that someone assembled in an afternoon and sold for the cost of materials plus $50 profit. Gates no more "built" microsoft than George Washington built America, or whatever. Lots of people were involved, and even if they were compensated well, maybe they weren't compensated fairly. Profits being the unpaid wages of the working class and all...

> Did you build Microsoft?

Yes. I purchased several of their products, thereby increasing the capitalization of Microsoft.

I expect you intended the answer to be "No," implying that Bill Gates (and a few others) built Microsoft. However, that rests on a specific understanding of ownership and causality that not everyone shares.

But you did not do so out of the goodness your heart. They provided a product which provided enough utility to justify the cost. Producing such a product is where the value is created, not in the purchase of said product.

But the purchase provided capital, which enabled further production. Banks don't lend money out of the goodness of their hearts, either.

And, really, have you never bought something in small part because you liked the seller? That's the sentiment behind the exhortation to "buy local" or to buy Girl Scout cookies or from a local school's fundraiser. I suppose you could say a purchase is a contribution to the extent that the price exceeds the cost of production.

Would Bill Gates have worked so hard (presumably) if he didn't have that specific understanding of ownership and casuality? Isn't that type of motivation and incentive necessary, to grind through the obstacles?

I expect this is intended to be a rhetorical question, but there's a lot of hidden premises here.

First, it assumes that Bill Gates did in fact work hard. Please define exactly what you mean by "work" and "hard", since I'm not sure there's an obvious thing that he could have done more of, even if he were so inclined.

Second, it assumes there exists some direct relationship between Bill Gates's personal work ethic and Microsoft's outsized success. Maybe all Microsoft needed was a good idea at the right time and would have succeeded about equally well with any minimally competent execution. Maybe they would have done even better had Bill Gates founded the company and then retired at 30.

Finally, it assumes that Bill Gates work ethic had some direct relationship with his financial compensation level. It is quite possible that he would have been more than happy to still give his best possible effort in return for being, say, a mere hundred millionaire. Moreover, plenty of people do hard work for all sorts of other reasons, from duty to boredom to artistic vision. Why do we assume that Bill Gates's internal motivation is predominantly financial in the first place?

None of those premises appear obviously and indisputably true to me. Maybe they are, but it'd be nice to see the case actually made (and made about real humans in the real world, not about perfectly rational actors in an idealized market).

People like Gates don't get rich because they work hard (though most of them do). They get rich because they're willing to risk what they have build something more.

Gates could have sold out to IBM or Apple or whoever and retired as a multimillionaire without taking the chance Microsoft would end up like Wang or Altair or hundreds of other companies.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, worked hard, and yet he still gave his hard work to the public.

Did he? I thought he was working for CERN at the time, meaning the public (or the European public, anyway) already owned the protocol he produced.

According to this [1], it was never an official CERN project, but rather a side project of his.

“Had the technology been proprietary, and in my total control, it would probably not have taken off. You can’t propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it.”

[1]https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/

You always make lesser profits on the tools, than the profits you make by building products using the tools.

The guy who sells tables and chairs is likely to make more money than the guy who sells nails and hammers.

A lot of people work very hard without even the remotest possibility of getting rich. Scientists or aid workers would be an example. Money is not the only motivator for people.

I would argue that it was his understanding of ownership and causality that landed him an OS sans building one.

>Yes. I purchased several of their products...

Which is "no". Buying and building are two different things. So I guess you were right about what I intended.

> buying and building are two different things

Consider the way Kickstarter projects describe their "backers". On the "Why Kickstarter?" page they say backers are "helping to create something new". Yet, one could easily consider Kickstarter simply a website for pre-orders, no different from buying in any other method.

The line between a buyer and a backer/builder isn't so clear.

> The line between a buyer and a backer/builder isn't so clear.

It is pretty clear, if you are funding someone'e kickstart project then you did help them build it but if you pay for a product which was built using the creator's(or some other investor's) money then you did not build it.

Some Kickstarter projects are posted after the product is essentially built and just needs some finishing details. The line gets fuzzy there.

It's even more fuzzy when you consider beta customers for a software company. Heck, how about when I contribute information to Google Maps? Or give feedback and make feature requests for my accounting software?

I think the line between "customer" and "investor" is actually pretty clear.

My React todo app is just as important as Microsoft.

That's why we have money - so people can say things like "No it isn't, because if it were people would have given you billions for it."

Money is not a panacea for valuation. If it were, then ending climate change would be much more profitable.

It's true there's nothing perfect under the sun. But I think the financial judgement of MSFT vs some guy's hobby project is pretty sound, and in general price signals work pretty well as a message to producers.

I agree. However, fatal errors within the money system (i.e. climate change, cyclical poverty) must be addressed, which is what this whole thread is about.

Well, I would have to look at pc86's app first.

I thought it was pretty obvious I was being sarcastic. Anyone who thinks their todo app is as important as a multi billion dollar company employing about 125,000 people has serious mental issues.