<story><title>Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies</title><url>https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1453484672827240457</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>threeseed</author><text>This is simply nonsense.&lt;p&gt;All companies once they reach a certain size (including Tesla, SpaceX) have a Senior Leadership Team which decides on the critical decisions affecting the company.&lt;p&gt;This personality obsession is really only perpetuated by people who haven&amp;#x27;t worked in business and don&amp;#x27;t realise just how much of a team effort it is.</text></item><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>I doubt SpaceX or Tesla would exist if they were controlled by a committee. Doing great things usually requires control by a single person who is able to say &amp;quot;screw it, we&amp;#x27;re going for X&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>anigbrowl</author><text>Well, one workaround would be to treat securitization of shares (eg for a loan) as a taxable event. This is a common (and currently legal) tax avoidance strategy.&lt;p&gt;Another consideration is that maybe having sole control of a massive pot of cash or financial instruments by an individual is just a Bad Thing. Consider how Zuckerberg structured FB so that while he it&amp;#x27;s a public company, the bulk of the stock is non-voting so he has &lt;i&gt;de facto&lt;/i&gt; sole control of the firm. No matter how destructive of shareholder value or public goods his executive decisions, it&amp;#x27;s virtually impossible for anyone else to overturn them barring some novel legal line of attack.&lt;p&gt;I have no particular feelings about Tim Sweeney&amp;#x2F;Epic, but would the economy or the gaming world be worse off if he no longer had founder control? If he&amp;#x27;s great at his job I presume shareholders would want to keep him on as CEO and would compensate him handsomely in cash money.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rsj_hn</author><text>The thing is, it&amp;#x27;s really critical to have that &amp;lt;strike&amp;gt;dictator&amp;lt;&amp;#x2F;strike&amp;gt;CEO in charge of the company to reign in the senior leadership, otherwise what happens is the creation of fiefdoms and &amp;lt;strike&amp;gt;intra-oligarchic&amp;lt;&amp;#x2F;strike&amp;gt;turf battles at the expense of overall success.&lt;p&gt;Someone on this site mentioned Pournelle&amp;#x27;s Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Jerry_Pournelle#Pournelle&amp;#x27;s_iron_law_of_bureaucracy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Jerry_Pournelle#Pournelle&amp;#x27;s_ir...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And the CEO is the counterweight to that oligarchic rule. You see this, for example, in the constant battles that kings wage against the nobility.</text></comment>
<story><title>Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies</title><url>https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1453484672827240457</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>threeseed</author><text>This is simply nonsense.&lt;p&gt;All companies once they reach a certain size (including Tesla, SpaceX) have a Senior Leadership Team which decides on the critical decisions affecting the company.&lt;p&gt;This personality obsession is really only perpetuated by people who haven&amp;#x27;t worked in business and don&amp;#x27;t realise just how much of a team effort it is.</text></item><item><author>WalterBright</author><text>I doubt SpaceX or Tesla would exist if they were controlled by a committee. Doing great things usually requires control by a single person who is able to say &amp;quot;screw it, we&amp;#x27;re going for X&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>anigbrowl</author><text>Well, one workaround would be to treat securitization of shares (eg for a loan) as a taxable event. This is a common (and currently legal) tax avoidance strategy.&lt;p&gt;Another consideration is that maybe having sole control of a massive pot of cash or financial instruments by an individual is just a Bad Thing. Consider how Zuckerberg structured FB so that while he it&amp;#x27;s a public company, the bulk of the stock is non-voting so he has &lt;i&gt;de facto&lt;/i&gt; sole control of the firm. No matter how destructive of shareholder value or public goods his executive decisions, it&amp;#x27;s virtually impossible for anyone else to overturn them barring some novel legal line of attack.&lt;p&gt;I have no particular feelings about Tim Sweeney&amp;#x2F;Epic, but would the economy or the gaming world be worse off if he no longer had founder control? If he&amp;#x27;s great at his job I presume shareholders would want to keep him on as CEO and would compensate him handsomely in cash money.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>WalterBright</author><text>&amp;gt; nonsense&lt;p&gt;May I present Steve Jobs, another obvious example? Ray Croc who built McDonald&amp;#x27;s from a single location into a world empire.</text></comment>