If you’re paying your employees what they’re worth (not the minimum the market will bear, but actually in line with the value they contribute), and you’re still making Bezos money, then you’re fleecing your customers.
There’s no way to get to a billion dollars without 1) exploiting your labor and supply chain by taking advantage of capitalist forces to pay less than the value of their contribution or 2) exploiting your customers by taking advantage of capitalist forces to charge more than the value of your product. Usually both, to extreme degrees, enabled by monopolies, regulatory capture, collusion, and other capitalist tricks. That’s not “a business that helps people”.
No matter how “innovative” an entrepreneur is, the actual value of their product or service is generated by the people who actual do the work. Of course, you’re entitled to the value that you personally create, but the best business idea in the world is worth exactly zilch without implementation. Bezos doesn’t build those fulfillment centers, he doesn’t manufacture the products, he doesn’t pack the boxes, he doesn’t drive the trucks, he doesn’t program the website. He only has the wealth he fits because he pays the people that generate the value of his company the absolute minimum that he can get away with, skimming a big slice of everyone’s labor value for himself. That doesn’t help the public.
If you’re paying your employees what they’re worth (not the minimum the market will bear, but actually in line with the value they contribute), and you’re still making Bezos money, then you’re fleecing your customers.
There’s no way to get to a billion dollars without 1) exploiting your labor and supply chain by taking advantage of capitalist forces to pay less than the value of their contribution or 2) exploiting your customers by taking advantage of capitalist forces to charge more than the value of your product. Usually both, to extreme degrees, enabled by monopolies, regulatory capture, collusion, and other capitalist tricks. That’s not “a business that helps people”.
No matter how “innovative” an entrepreneur is, the actual value of their product or service is generated by the people who actual do the work. Of course, you’re entitled to the value that you personally create, but the best business idea in the world is worth exactly zilch without implementation. Bezos doesn’t build those fulfillment centers, he doesn’t manufacture the products, he doesn’t pack the boxes, he doesn’t drive the trucks, he doesn’t program the website. He only has the wealth he fits because he pays the people that generate the value of his company the absolute minimum that he can get away with, skimming a big slice of everyone’s labor value for himself. That doesn’t help the public.