He recently said that evil people can’t survive long as founders of tech companies because they need smart people to work for them and smart people can work anywhere. There are lots of other examples. Especially read his recent tweets/essays that aren’t about his area of expertise.
Look it up yourself. Paul Graham does not have a core competency regarding what smart people are or are not willing to do. That would be sociology or psychology or economics.
Just realised that this is a subtweet of PG's post.
So I think what he's saying here, with some brevity, is: startups require lots of smart people to succeed. If the boss isn't nice to them, then those people can easily find work elsewhere. Therefore, the boss will have to be nice to them. Therefore, the boss can't be a horrible person.
Therefore, the boss will have to be nice to them. Therefore, the boss can't be a horrible person.
You should study up on logic. You are saying that since person A has to be nice to people who work for startups they can’t be a horrible person. This means that if a person is horrible they can’t be nice to people who work for startups. This is egregiously wrong.
I think what PG is saying in this situation is, he's using "evil" as shorthand for "is not nice to their employees", whereas you're reading it as "is fundamentally bad in every way".
Returning to this: even if he were somehow "misrepresenting" the idea of wealth tax - and there are many variants - that does not make him wrong.
My original point was that when PG is writing outside of his core competencies, it's usually about subjective opinions. Such as, is wealth tax a good or bad thing? That is a subject about which you can have an opinion, but there is no absolute.
My concern is that when people say "he doesn't know anything when he talks about, say, economics or politics" what they really mean is "I disagree with him and therefore he is wrong." (I disagree with PG on many such things, but that's like, just my opinion, man)
I guess I'm invested in the debate because I want people to be more open-minded and charitable and not less.
Isn’t PG using that as an example and actually says it’s simpler to calculate that way?
This doesn’t feel like a generous reading.
I’m not against a wealth tax and I’m not aligned with PG, but I do think it’s important to be generous in your interpretation. I think PG is just arguing wealth taxes are unfair on founders.
$2m starting point is reasonable btw, that’s a good ballpark for a founders share at pre seed.
I think it's presented in a way that makes him sound very reasonable, and make a wealth tax sound very stupid.
- A small time founder losing 2/3rds of their stock - OH NO, wealth tax is terrible!
- A businessman worth $162 of stock ends up being worth billions as their stock appreciates, despite having to pay wealth taxes. Huh, maybe wealth tax is alright.
I disagree with PG on economics and politics, but much of his writing on that is subjective.