[theptip]

But his N=1 anecdote doesn’t prove anything. He shares a feel-good story about an early stage company with very high growth on a small base. This person is not a billionaire yet.

The actual comparison would be to look at all the startups with billionaire founders (so likely $10B companies) and then analyze the market dynamics that enable them to keep growing so fast.

[edouard-harris]

What AOC actually said was (linked in the essay): "You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that." That is a strong claim - a claim of universal impossibility - but it's the claim she chose to make. Because she made a universal claim, an N=1 anecdote is enough to disprove it by counterexample.

[theptip]

Fwiw I agree that the universal impossibility statement is too strong.

But his example doesn’t demonstrate anyone earning $1b. It just demonstrates a very high growth rate at $1-2m.

[nfw2]

You can disprove an absolute statement with n=1

[theptip]

And yet the N=1 he chose doesn’t disprove the statement.

[csallen]

That's an argument for AOC to make. This post is about PG responding to the argument she actually did make.

She has made vague, handwavy, and (depressingly) oft-repeated statements that "there are no ethical billionaires" and that "it's impossible to earn a billion dollars," but she has rarely supported with these statements with any facts or evidence whatsoever.

[stouset]

The statement that there are no ethical billionaires who’ve gotten there by creating something approximating a billion dollars of value can be trivially disproven through a single counterexample.

The fact that her detractors have spilt gallons of ink arguing against her point without providing such a counterexample speaks volumes.

[csallen]

Plenty of counterexamples have been provided, people just don't accept them because the definition of ethical is subjective. And when you have circular reasoning that defines making money itself as unethical, then you become impossible to please.

But here's a quick list from the top of my head: Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems, Hamdi Ulukaya from Cobani, the founders of Canva, the founders of Stripe, Tobi Lutke from Shopify, Paul Graham himself, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, George Lucas, Roger Federer, J.K. Rowling. Probably dozens/hundreds of others.

If you do something that somebody likes and they give you $1000, that's ethical. But if you do something a million people like, and they give you $1000, then you're a billionaire, somehow you must be unethical?

[callmeal]

I just took a quick look at the first person on your list: Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems

Umm - a healthcare company selling patient health records. I'm willing to bet a lot of those records were not obtained through ethical disclosure and most patients would refuse to have private details of their health sold to anyone who wanted it.

Ok, let's take a look at the next: Hamdi Ulukaya from Chobani

https://www.kirkland.com/news/in-the-news/2014/04/chobani-ce...

Right. I'd better stop now.

[csallen]

My point exactly. Your grand slam-dunk evidence that all billionaires are unethical is that:

1. One started a healthcare company, and bad things happen in healthcare, and you aren't going to look into any more than that.

2. One is a rich man being sued by an ex-wife who wants his money/stake in his business.

By these standards, not only are there no ethical billionaires, but there are also no ethical millionaires, or thousandaires, or taxpayers, or politicians. Because they're almost all going to be a degree or two of separation from someone or something doing something unethical or making a claim. "Ethical" is such a high bar that no one meets it, and it becomes a meaningless standard. AOC herself isn't ethical[0][1].

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/politics/house-ethics-aoc-met...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERYaHawzMQ

[callmeal]

>1. One started a healthcare company, and bad things happen in healthcare, and you aren't going to look into any more than that.

I did some more oldfashioned lmgtfy:

This is not just "bad things happening in healthcare". It's how you become a billionaire:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-01-epic-dystopia/

> Epic became the dominant vendor of databases because it was better than anyone else at combining regulatory compliance with maximizing hospital income. Epic enables the hospital to maximize the use of codes that determine the payment. “Before Epic, nobody was able to systematize upcoding,” says an executive of one hospital system.

> Epic’s software can enable doctors and hospitals to overcharge patients, insurers, and Medicare and Medicaid.

Edit: so really, "billionaire healthcare company owner" is all you need to know about the ethics of that person.

[chasd00]

Isn’t Oprah Winfrey the left’s beloved billionaire and the one who actually “earned it”? I wonder if AOC would say Oprah is unethical and immoral.

Edit: I’d like AOC to publicly say Taylor Swift is unethical and immoral too. Heh the swifties would have her head over that.

[inigyou]

She said there are no ethical billionaires.

He said nonsense! If you start as a two millionaire and grow 95% every month you can be there in 9 months!

I say if I start with one cent and grow 10000000000000% every millisecond I can be there in a millisecond.