[cjustin]

I often see this sentiment whenever a billionaire is in conversation, but I don't understand. Can you elaborate on how his wealth was "stolen" from people?

The way I see it, he's wealthy because he founded a wildly successful technology company by first creating something of value (MS-DOS). Microsoft has since grown to be one of the largest companies in the world, which hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily work for in exchange for a high salary, at least for engineers.

[closewith]

In a capitalist society, to a rounding error, most people work out of necessity - to house, clothe, and feed their families. This creates an inherently unequal relationship between capital and labour which is exploited to accrue wealth in the hands of a very few people.

This is literal theft from the working class of the fruits of their labours.

[vinceguidry]

Billionaires become billionaires because of preferential treatment by governments, not out of any kind of merit. There are lots of better things the world could have had, Linux and the software commons would be much much much better if Microsoft hadn't hired all the best software engineers to make proprietary software and if the federal government hadn't coddled it and overlooked its monopolistic practices. The Internet would be a much better place without the likes of Google and Microsoft throwing their weight around.

It's perfectly accurate to say that billionaires steal from the public, it's just that what's being stolen isn't easily quantifiable because it's effectively 'potential'. Think of the constant enshittification of everything and you get a sense for what's being stolen.

[Rebelgecko]

Why did Bill Gates get preferential treatment for his operating system over others like Steve Jobs or Vinod Khosla? Government connections?

[vinceguidry]

Sure. They ask him for government backdoors, to add stuff to it for military purposes. It's quid pro quo. Bill Gates gets to capture the lion's share of the wealth from his government-protected monopoly with all its anti-competitive practices and the public is left out in the cold.

[Rebelgecko]

So other OS's like Sun and MacOS refused to put in backdoors, and that's why Bill Gates is richer?

[vinceguidry]

If you want to be reductive about it, be my guest, but don't infect me with that crap. People who get buddy-buddy with the government are allowed to enrich themselves. I don't know why it's such a hard concept to grasp. Been this way for all of human history. Tech billionaires are just the latest iteration.

[Lalabadie]

Correct. When billionaires gain money, they gain it personally. When several billionaires start losing money, it's a recession.