<story><title>Powerful Thoughts From Paul Graham</title><url>http://www.rosshudgens.com/thoughts-from-paul-graham/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>karamazov</author><text>&amp;#62; I believe it too, that one person could be 100 times as productive as one other. But what the salaries are saying is that one CEO is more productive than all those 100 people below him put together.&lt;p&gt;We&apos;re not interested in the case where one person is 100x more productive than another because the second person is watching youtube.  If the CEO is 100x more productive than the average person working for her, then she is, in fact, more productive than 100 of the people working under her put together.  That&apos;s exactly what that statement means.&lt;p&gt;And, anyway, whether or not the CEO is 100x more productive, her output is worth 100x more.  How do we know? Because that&apos;s what she&apos;s being paid.&lt;p&gt;Is she being paid for her contacts?  It doesn&apos;t matter, so long as she&apos;s steering the company in the right direction.  You&apos;re implying that &quot;having contacts in the right places&quot; is corruption, but it&apos;s not; knowing what to build and who to sell it to is a big part of running a company.  CEO&apos;s don&apos;t spend their time conniving in smoke-filled rooms, they spend it trying to push their company forward.&lt;p&gt;Rich people don&apos;t get that way without providing something people want.  Wal-Mart may or may not be lowering the quality of products nationwide, but what they&apos;re demonstrably doing is providing goods to people at great prices that let them generate a lot of profit.  That&apos;s something people want, whether or not you agree with them.  The RIAA, on the other hand, is a symptom of the power of the music industry - and the way the music industry got to have so much power, and so much money, is by providing music that people wanted to listen to enough that they paid for it.</text></item><item><author>krichman</author><text>&amp;#62; But I have no trouble imagining that one person could be 100 times as productive as another.&lt;p&gt;This is a smokescreen. I believe it too, that one person could be 100 times as productive as one other. But what the salaries are saying is that one CEO is more productive than all those 100 people below him put together. I think 100x productivity is more standard deviations than that seems to represent.&lt;p&gt;Everyone, just admit that the CEO&apos;s are paid for having contacts in the right places. They aren&apos;t outperforming 100 engineers all day every day or even most days. The notion that salaries are some measurement of productivity is complete hokum.&lt;p&gt;Nor do I buy 54, the idea that rich people create more wealth for society from by-products, like Henry Ford gifting us with the automobile. I don&apos;t think it&apos;s correlated.&lt;p&gt;Yes we have some by-products that improve our lives, but we also have Wal-Marts lowering the quality of products nationwide and RIAA lowering the quality of free speech nationwide. So it&apos;s not as if rich people lead directly to benefits for society and they could just as easily push the other way.&lt;p&gt;Being wealthy isn&apos;t like being some video game paladin, it&apos;s just another form of concentrated power.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jleader</author><text>&quot;Rich people don&apos;t get that way without providing something people want.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Well, to be precise, some ancestor of the rich person at one time provided something (some) people wanted. Not all rich people are &quot;self made&quot;, even if you accept that silly phrase at face value.&lt;p&gt;For that matter, what about successful criminals? There have definitely been people who got rich through fraud, or extortion.</text></comment>
<story><title>Powerful Thoughts From Paul Graham</title><url>http://www.rosshudgens.com/thoughts-from-paul-graham/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>karamazov</author><text>&amp;#62; I believe it too, that one person could be 100 times as productive as one other. But what the salaries are saying is that one CEO is more productive than all those 100 people below him put together.&lt;p&gt;We&apos;re not interested in the case where one person is 100x more productive than another because the second person is watching youtube.  If the CEO is 100x more productive than the average person working for her, then she is, in fact, more productive than 100 of the people working under her put together.  That&apos;s exactly what that statement means.&lt;p&gt;And, anyway, whether or not the CEO is 100x more productive, her output is worth 100x more.  How do we know? Because that&apos;s what she&apos;s being paid.&lt;p&gt;Is she being paid for her contacts?  It doesn&apos;t matter, so long as she&apos;s steering the company in the right direction.  You&apos;re implying that &quot;having contacts in the right places&quot; is corruption, but it&apos;s not; knowing what to build and who to sell it to is a big part of running a company.  CEO&apos;s don&apos;t spend their time conniving in smoke-filled rooms, they spend it trying to push their company forward.&lt;p&gt;Rich people don&apos;t get that way without providing something people want.  Wal-Mart may or may not be lowering the quality of products nationwide, but what they&apos;re demonstrably doing is providing goods to people at great prices that let them generate a lot of profit.  That&apos;s something people want, whether or not you agree with them.  The RIAA, on the other hand, is a symptom of the power of the music industry - and the way the music industry got to have so much power, and so much money, is by providing music that people wanted to listen to enough that they paid for it.</text></item><item><author>krichman</author><text>&amp;#62; But I have no trouble imagining that one person could be 100 times as productive as another.&lt;p&gt;This is a smokescreen. I believe it too, that one person could be 100 times as productive as one other. But what the salaries are saying is that one CEO is more productive than all those 100 people below him put together. I think 100x productivity is more standard deviations than that seems to represent.&lt;p&gt;Everyone, just admit that the CEO&apos;s are paid for having contacts in the right places. They aren&apos;t outperforming 100 engineers all day every day or even most days. The notion that salaries are some measurement of productivity is complete hokum.&lt;p&gt;Nor do I buy 54, the idea that rich people create more wealth for society from by-products, like Henry Ford gifting us with the automobile. I don&apos;t think it&apos;s correlated.&lt;p&gt;Yes we have some by-products that improve our lives, but we also have Wal-Marts lowering the quality of products nationwide and RIAA lowering the quality of free speech nationwide. So it&apos;s not as if rich people lead directly to benefits for society and they could just as easily push the other way.&lt;p&gt;Being wealthy isn&apos;t like being some video game paladin, it&apos;s just another form of concentrated power.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>krichman</author><text>&amp;#62; And, anyway, whether or not the CEO is 100x more productive, her output is worth 100x more. How do we know? Because that&apos;s what she&apos;s being paid.&lt;p&gt;He&apos;s only 100x more if you measure productivity entirely in money.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not implying corruption, I&apos;m saying it&apos;s separate from productivity.</text></comment>