[oblio]

As much as I'm generally for wealth redistribution, that's not how it works. Gates and probably Bezos especially want to control their companies. They founded them, after all. So for that they own shares and those shares are the bulk of their money.

Also, I don't know about Amazon, but Microsoft was actually famous for distributing wealth quite well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft

> The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees.

[jacquesm]

That doesn't stop them from sharing the profits if they want to.

[koffiezet]

Ehm giving shares to employees is exactly that: sharing the profits.

[oblio]

I think his point is for the on-going operations of the company. Employees there at the IPO make a lot of money but those afterwards probably make way less. At many companies employees don't even get any kind of RSU/ESPP/stock option grants, etc.

Just as a though experiment, Apple Inc. has about 140k employees and had a net profit of $55bn last year. If they'd keep half the profit, you know, for a rainy day, they could give a yearly bonus of ~$20k$ to each employee. With 0 risk for the company, financially.

Now, I'm not sure how this would work out since generally cash based bonuses are considered bad for long term motivation, but it is something worth pondering, at least.

[oblio]

True, but does any mega corp do that? I wish it did...