[iancmceachern]

The money comes from somewhere.

In this case, the people who were defrauded.

There is no free lunch, if you aren't adding value to the economy equal to or exceeding what you're taking, you're taking from someone else.

(Editing to respond to child comment below - you don't be daft, SBF nor his father never thought the business was legit, they architected the fraud!)

[Fatnino]

Did the likes of musk or bezos add billions of dollars in value to the economy though their own hard work?

Seems to me they are just takers.

[iancmceachern]

I agree.

The likes of buffet and the other 3,000 or so billionaires who choose to live quieter, less Gatsby lifestyle are better role models IMO.

[nojvek]

I disagree. There a people who are nice and there are people who get capital and talent together to build new technology that makes per person productivity increase tremendously.

With Elon, he brought to cost of sending payloads into space down by a factor of more than 10.

With electric cars, he made them economically viable that many others had failed to do before. Tesla is an incredibly human efficient company compared to its competitors Ford and GM.

Same with Gates, Bezos and Steve Jobs, they got people and capital organize to boost the productivity per person working for them and people using their output (software and devices)

Good technology amplifies per person productivity.

We may hate the personality and character, but what’s worth looking at is what would be the world be like if there was no Tesla, Amazon, SpaceX or Microsoft?

[iancmceachern]

Elon did it once, maybe a few times.

He is not doing it now, what he did with X, Boring Company, etc us not this.

It's possible for someone to do good, then do bad at a later juncture. That's what I'm saying is happening with Elon, etc.

[nojvek]

There’s SpaceX Elon and a Xitter (pronounced shitter) Elon.

[max51]

>Did the likes of musk or bezos add billions of dollars in value to the economy though their own hard work?

If building Amazon, Tesla or spaceX is that easy, where is your company that changed the entire industry? What did you accomplish so far? You may not like the way they comment on social media, but they have tangible results to back up their reputation. Unlike other types of "celebrities", they actually built tangible things that most people would consider good even if they hate the face of the owner (eg. reusable rockets, electric cars, Amazon delivery, AWS, etc.).

[iancmceachern]

I've designed a bunch of medical devices that have done real good in the world. I'm working to design more as we speak. Are rockets and luxury cars more important than medical care?

[Fatnino]

They did build some companies and they deserve the rewards for doing so. What they didn't do is add so much value to humanity's productivity to justify rewards in the $10^11 range.

[HWR_14]

If the dad helped architect the fraud, then it was reasonable to ask for a greater share than 0.00005% of the stolen money. The issue was the fraud, not his email asking for more money.

[tim333]

I lost money in FTX. I don't mind the CEO getting a 1m salary for running a multi billion dollar exchange - that's actually probably below the norm for that job. It's the stealing billions in customer funds I object to.

[iancmceachern]

But isn't nit allowing the stealing of customer funds the job? How did he do his job if he didn't do his job?

[aliyfarah]

Don’t be daft, he’s assuming the father thinks the business is legitimate. No salary would be worth it if you know it was an illegal business as you creditors will come knocking.