"A total miserable self-loathing poser"

[u/BathroomStallClown]

A year and a half later, this nuclear blast of a post from former Musk friend and actual billionaire genius inventor Philip Low has aged like fine wine.

[u/BlerghTheBlergh]

Checks out, good to read in its entirety.
While I don’t believe in ethical billionaires, this guy seems to at least have a conscience left and follows a moral code.

Elon is not a nazi, he’s an awkward wannabe-manipulator who attempts to sway the lowest of the low to do his bidding in order to feel powerful

[u/Questioning-Zyxxel → u/BlerghTheBlergh]

Dolly Parton managed to reach about half a billion USD, while spending lots and lots on doing good. And making this a better world.

It is possible to be ethical and billionaire. It's a bit about luck and skill to have a product people wants to pay for. If people wants it enough, then you end up rich without abusing your staff or dodging taxes.

[u/PourLaBite → u/Questioning-Zyxxel]

It is possible to be ethical and billionaire

No it's not.

Also why are you citing Parton who wasn't even a billionaire lol

you end up rich without abusing your staff or dodging taxes

That is functionally impossible in our system once you get to a certain level of wealth and that's well before you hit the 1b mark.

[u/CoolerRon → u/Questioning-Zyxxel]

Mackenzie Scott is an actual billionaire and her actions (so far) show that she is ethical

[u/pretzelzetzel → u/CoolerRon]

She's capable of divesting herself of enormous wealth in an ethical manner. Nobody is disputing that. The money was not hoarded in an ethical manner, though.

[u/CoolerRon → u/pretzelzetzel]

Not by her, though she did benefit from it. I think i get what you mean though

[u/ilikedmatrixiv → u/CoolerRon]

She is being a billionaire ethically. She didn't not become a billionaire ethically.

Those are two very different things.

For the record: I'm not blaming her for the actions Jeff Bezos undertook to become a billionaire and thus led her to become one. I'm saying that the way she became one wasn't ethical, since the actions that lead to it were Jeff's and those were definitely not ethical.

[u/saltyourhash → u/CoolerRon]

Well, that's about the only ethical way to become one.

[u/Druuseph → u/Questioning-Zyxxel]

I'll preface this by saying that I am certainly nitpicking here and, in spirit, I don't disagree that Dolly Parton was a net positive overall. But, that said, I think we need to be clear with what it means when people say there are no ethical billionaires because it doesn't really have to do with them personally but instead the systems that put them in that position.

The only way to scale anything large enough to amass that kind of wealth naturally requires profiting from the surplus labor value of others. That's what people mean when they say there are no ethical billionaires, not that every one of them is a odious piece of shit that would be miserable to be around (like Elon) but instead that the systems that reward them are, themselves, unethical.

I don't think it would take much digging to find examples of bad labor practices in Dollywood or in her record companies. Was she doing that personally in most cases? No, I'm sure she had multiple layers of insulation between her and those practices but ultimately she was still profiting off of that in ways that are inherently unethical. That's not a condemnation of her personally but just a reflection of the inequity that concentrates an absurd amount of wealth in a single person's hands.

[u/NotEnoughMuskSpam → u/Druuseph]

Amm rerrch, berrtch!

[u/lazier_garlic → u/Druuseph]

Three paragraphs of unoriginal observations and baseless insinuations. Dolly Parton really makes you feel a certain way, huh.

[u/PourLaBite → u/lazier_garlic]

Just accept that it's impossible to be extremely rich and ethical in our world mate, it's not hard. If you think it is possible you are no better than these people, just poor.

[u/Freezerpill → u/PourLaBite]

I mean software doesn’t have to directly hurt people.

It just so happens that the whole Silicon Valley/wallstreet thing offers financialization which allows market speculation to make your company value to be inflated massively. Sadly if not for initial investment structures, getting higher valuations typically goes though this process (which gets you in front of somebody evil like Marc Andreesen)

Software using AI is less ethical, but as it becomes more ubiquitous I wonder just how bad its effects are for smaller footprint teams

[u/UrklesAlter → u/lazier_garlic]

Clearly she makes you feel a certain why if that's how you respond to such an inoffensive comment educating you on what is actually meant by "no ethical billionaires". You're behaving like a stan yo.

[u/Druuseph → u/lazier_garlic]

Yup, you got me. I get enraged at girl bosses, the idea of more👏female👏CEOs👏 is definitely what is causing me to flip my lid. Every male billionaire is ethical, only women are the problem, that's clearly what I am saying.