No, I don't primarily because you have a similar chance to getting hit and killed by a car. Does that have an impact on innovation?
Really, I've never met anyone who is actively "hustling" (or whatever the bullshit flavor term-of-the-week is) to try to make mega-millions who's someone I actually think would make decent decisions with those mega-millions. Everyone I've met who I think would actually make decent choices just wants a comfortable life, maybe a bigger house and a few more vacations a year, and to do something interesting for the sake of it being interesting.
> No, I don't primarily because you have a similar chance to getting hit and killed by a car. Does that have an impact on innovation?
This is... not a very good comparison for a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which being that not everyone has the same chance of being hit and killed by a car, of course...
> Really, I've never met anyone who is actively "hustling"
Have you considered that maybe some of the very rich ended up being worth quite a bit of money without that being their explicit goal? I ended up being very successful in my niche without ever dreaming of my company turning into what it is today, or what it may become tomorrow, and I live extremely modestly in a cheap townhome and drive old used cars.
> This is... not a very good comparison for a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which being that not everyone has the same chance of being hit and killed by a car, of course...
That's also true for the chances of becoming mega-rich. Can you name any actually successful person who got into the business they're in because they wanted to be come rich, rather then because they were doing something that interested them, and were in the right place a the right time?
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The point is not that seeking to work in a niche where you are successful isn't valid, it's that there is a point at which point people accruing more money is basically ridiculous. 10 million dollars is a 100 thousand dollars a year for more then my entire lifetime. I live in a ridiculously expensive west-coast town and I'd be more then comfortable on that income. Having more money then that basically serves no purpose for the economy, or civilization at large.
Scaling the limit up just becomes more transparently ludicrous. What reasonable lifestyle can consume more then 10 thousand dollars a month!
Pegging limits to subjective personal thoughts is pretty ludicrous, in my opinion. That's the height of authoritarianism and rule by random dictation. Whether or not that's a good idea, it's absolutely a horrible process, which is a lot more important than enacting good laws via force.
I did say it's just a thought experiment. Though to be fair, I don't see it being dramatically more random then what we have now.
The numbers here are mostly spitballing, and not based on much, but the idea I think is worth considering, if for no reason other then the contrast it provides with the way things currently are.
I think 10 million dollars is as much incentive as 100 million for anyone trying to make it big. After a certain amount for most people it is just a lot of extra zeros.
The idea that someone who would strive to do something great would lose interest at being limited to 10 million is laughable.
Most innovators aren't striving to reach some grand self-motivating concept. The world is much better off for having people like the Collison brothers, who see that a moderately sized piece of infrastructure is too complicated and try to earn a lot of money by making it simpler.
I'm not sure I follow. They were still motivated by money. I doubt there was some altruistic revelation that got them incredibly interested in processing credit cards.
Sorry, that's my point. They were motivated by money and not some deep underlying passion for payment processing, meaning there's no way Stripe would be what it is in a world where they could only make $10 million each from it.
Ah sorry I misread. And that could be the case but I see a net positive from it. They might do enough to get theirs and then once they flatline it becomes someone else's opportunity.
For example Bezos might have had enough from just being the bookstore of the internet. Everything else Amazon does would be open to small business fighting it out.
There are still shareholders for public companies to please so just hitting the mark might not mean just stop innovating.
Really, I've never met anyone who is actively "hustling" (or whatever the bullshit flavor term-of-the-week is) to try to make mega-millions who's someone I actually think would make decent decisions with those mega-millions. Everyone I've met who I think would actually make decent choices just wants a comfortable life, maybe a bigger house and a few more vacations a year, and to do something interesting for the sake of it being interesting.