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Erik Torenberg
Co-founder & & . Positive Sum. Thinking aloud/allowed. Looking to start or join your next company? .
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Erik Torenberg 4h
Replying to @comaddox
Serious Qs: 1/ what are they doing with that 15T on avg? Where does that money go? 2/ given govt waste, why is money better off in their hands than billionaires?
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Erik Torenberg 5h
Replying to @comaddox
So taxing billionaires isn’t going to do much here Why not focus on better allocating govt trillions of dollars to solving these problems? Many more billions are currently misspent than can be seized from billionaires
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Erik Torenberg 5h
Replying to @comaddox
how much would it cost to solve those problems, roughly? even wide range guess?
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Erik Torenberg 6h
Replying to @tomaspueyo
"More formally: the marginal dollar is much +useful in the pocket of the average gov than the average billionaire" What's the proof?
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Erik Torenberg 6h
Can you unpack why re: theoretical?
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Erik Torenberg 6h
Replying to @JayDanforth
UBI but instead of collecting more it's just dispersing what they've already seized. re: Billionaires, Is it just sitting in their bank accounts? I'd need to learn more about how they spend (or don't spend) their money vs gov't.
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Erik Torenberg 6h
Replying to @JayDanforth
Does gov’t need 4 trillion—should we put an upper bound there? The extra money could be distributed directly into people’s pockets. And that’s 4000x the amount as a billion, so seems more impactful. Thoughts?
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Erik Torenberg 7h
Replying to @tomaspueyo
How? Can you outline the argument?
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Erik Torenberg 7h
Replying to @jwmares
Interesting. Are more VCs more or less likely to lead to more founders in your view? That more founders may not lead to more growth is a separate but also interesting claim!
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Erik Torenberg 7h
A different argument Mike I think you are making is that we can more precisely align value creation and value capture, which I see as trying to do, to thread the needle between the two extremes (that something is either all private property or all govt owned)
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Erik Torenberg 9h
Replying to @davegoldblatt
totally. the inverse is true too. i'd argue that some of the benefits could be gained by distributing existing pie of VC. (Bundling & Unbundling)
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Erik Torenberg 9h
Replying to @lpolovets
Great point.
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Erik Torenberg 9h
Conclusion from Don Hoffman's "Illusion of Reality": An organism that sees reality as it truly is, is never more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality and is just attuned to fitness payoffs. In other words, seeing the truth will make you extinct.
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Erik Torenberg 9h
What's your best argument as to why there needs to be more, not less, VCs? Examples: - More investors, more founders, more growth: - More investor diversity, more founder diversity - More economically aligned & interconnected society
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Erik Torenberg 9h
Replying to @seanlinehan
exactly. that's why the animosity is so perplexing!
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Erik Torenberg 9h
Replying to @seanlinehan
💯was trying to talk to pro-gov't anti-capitalists on their own terms
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Erik Torenberg 10h
Replying to @eriktorenberg
Another addition: There are 2 distinct kinds of billionaire complaints: Those that think the $ would be better off distributed more widely among employees & public directly +those that think the gov't should be collecting the money & dispersing it itself
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Erik Torenberg 10h
Replying to @eriktorenberg
One thing I'd add is I'm surprised when pro-government fans don't want people to become billionaires as long as they are creating sustainable value (e.g JK Rowling)... It means more money for the gov't!
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Erik Torenberg 10h
Replying to @harmonylion1
I'd rather share the upside upfront than on the back end b/c of the waste, but similar idea:
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Erik Torenberg 10h
Replying to @eriktorenberg
See recent critique of billionaires for not solving climate crisis. US Gov't has over 4 trillion dollars (collected via taxes vs created via growth). What's better use for public $ than solving climate change? The more ppl become rich, the more money gov't has to do so.
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