r/wallstreetbets Feb 28 '25

News Google's Sergey Brin Says Engineers Should Work 60-Hour Weeks in Office to Build AI That Could Replace Them

https://gizmodo.com/googles-sergey-brin-says-engineers-should-work-60-hour-weeks-in-office-to-build-ai-that-could-replace-them-2000570025
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1.2k

u/Alicenchainsfan Feb 28 '25

You don’t become a billionaire by being chill and caring about people

401

u/IWasRightOnce Feb 28 '25

And in regards to the few chill ones out there, you don’t hear about them/from them because they aren’t saying crazy shit

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '25

[deleted]

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u/Astray Feb 28 '25

Not sus at all Bill Gates

53

u/ClaymoreMine Feb 28 '25

And don’t you dare look into Cascade management his family office. He makes all these claims but his children will inherit Cascade and he approves cascades investment memo

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u/McClainLLC Feb 28 '25

I'm pretty sure when he bought it was because Chinese businessmen were planning to buy it. Which would've been terrible for American interests.

2

u/cheeze2005 Mar 01 '25

How much is owned by giant companies?

-7

u/Astray Mar 01 '25

Giant companies are controlling the farms to make food and profits from food. Bill Gates is a tech billionaire. One owning farms is significantly more suspicious than the other.

28

u/Masterandcomman Mar 01 '25

Buffett gave away a big chunk of his wealth, but it was balanced by the appreciation of the remainder. He had 498,320 A shares in 2006, when he started donating big sums after the death of his first wife. He now owns almost 206,363 A shares, or a 59% decline. The stock is up 9X since then.

If he never donated, he would be worth $386 B today.

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u/No-Olive-8722 Feb 28 '25

Mackenzie Scott

3

u/Normal_Loss_220 Mar 01 '25

A woman i used to tailgate with knew her now ex-husband. He was a cool guy. Teacher at a private school.

1

u/haarp1 Mar 01 '25

Why did they go apart so fast though?

3

u/Cptn_BenjaminWillard Mar 01 '25

A true hero for the people.

7

u/Needsupgrade Mar 01 '25

which he pledged to donate when he dies, but changed his mind.

What's this about him changing his mind?

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u/veilwalker Mar 01 '25

He was going to give it to the Gates foundation but then it turned out that the Gates foundation is not well run or efficient in its use of the money.

Now Buffet is giving it to the foundations run by the Buffet children (iirc). Nepotism is better than the Gates foundation apparently.

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u/rinky-dink-republic Mar 01 '25

It's still going to charity, but the disbursement of the funds will be managed by his children and not the Gates foundation.

3

u/WartimeMercy Mar 01 '25

I have a bridge to sell you.

2

u/tothemoonandback01 Mar 01 '25 edited Mar 01 '25

It's six of this, half a dozen of the other!

1

u/TheBigBo-Peep Mar 01 '25

I mean... The wife doesn't necessarily have those character traits which made the money in the first place.

-29

u/Sjroap Feb 28 '25

Bezo's ex wife who's name eludes me is spending her free time donating millions (billions?) because she can.

Bezos' wife became a billionaire by fucking Bezos. She got handed the money.

Nothing against her and I like the fact that she uses it for good, but I don't think that's a fair comparison.

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u/tarants Feb 28 '25

I mean she married him before he started Amazon and was a major part of the early years of the business, so saying she was handed the money seems pretty inaccurate and more than a little sexist.

6

u/suddenly-scrooge Mar 01 '25

i take the point to be that she doesn't share the characteristic of most billionaires since she was taken along for the ride to some extent (not dismissing her contributions but to get to billions with a B, that was Bezos). So she may be a normal individual and not be the type of sociopath that accumulates billions of dollars

1

u/tarants Mar 01 '25

That's actually not a bad point when presented that way. Basically she probably would not have been as exploitative as Jeff so wouldn't have gotten to billions since she possesses some kind of moral compass? That certainly presents it in a better light than she fucked her way into billions.

8

u/Old_Doughnut_5847 Mar 01 '25

imagine spouting off like this while being completely ignorant of the actual facts

4

u/Alicenchainsfan Mar 01 '25

In wsb of all places smh

3

u/cyrusthemarginal Mar 01 '25

This is a sub for informed discussion and lossporn dammit!

29

u/thetraveler02 Feb 28 '25

she was an equal part of Amazon since the start(which he also acknowledges) and was with Bezos far before Amazon and successful in her own right. she didnt get it by sleeping with him.

1

u/rinky-dink-republic Mar 01 '25

she was an equal part of Amazon since the start(which he also acknowledges)

BAHAHAHA she was not an equal part. Important to his success? Sure. A part of Amazon? Absolutely. Is it stupid to say she got her money by fucking Bezos? Yes, it's horrible. Is she equally responsible for the success of Amazon? You are out of your mind.

4

u/HighBeta21 Mar 01 '25

She made more than bezos when they got together. She has had her own career.

Are you mad bezos didn't choose you? He fucks you over for free.

5

u/Worth_Inflation_2104 Mar 01 '25

I came to a realization: billionaires who are greedy are a problem but there is something much much worse: billionaires who are extremely vain.

I feel vanity is much much more dangerous than greed.

4

u/AceStarS Mar 01 '25

Myspace CEO comes to mind. 

3

u/NightOfTheLivingHam Mar 01 '25

At least not publicly. These people are fucking nuts.

110

u/hoopaholik91 Feb 28 '25

Pretty much. The process of becoming a billionaire is like the ultimate human rock screen that ends up with just shitbags.

First, you already gotta be from an upper middle class family at worst - that's going to already isolate you from the concerns of the normal working man. Next, you need to have the gall to think you can build a company from scratch which requires a certain hubris.

Then, you've succeeded and made a semi-successful company. Congratulations! What should you do with your newfound 10s-100s of millions of dollars? Fuck off and enjoy the rest of your life on a private island? Spread the wealth and make sure those that were along for the ride with you are compensated appropriately? Nope, instead you have a psychopathic need for more, growing your business into the billions of dollars. Add in the fact that your success has grown your ego to the size of Rhode Island, and now you've explained how 95% of billionaires are the dickweeds they are.

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u/fredotwoatatime Mar 01 '25

Very accurate an and yet so many ppl have this irrational need to defend the rich like as if they’re gonna pay them for doing so lol.

I think deep down they hope to be part of the 1% so they too can live like it’s heaven on earth

Edit: and what they don’t realise is more often than not u need all the odds stacked in ur favour from birth in terms of family, intelligence, genuine luck to build a great company. Obvs they still need to work rlly hard and should be rewarded but inequality has gotten out of hand

20

u/Agaac1 Mar 01 '25

We like to try and say it was pure genius that got these guys to be billionaires but the reality is most of them were at the right place at the right time.

6

u/Alicenchainsfan Mar 01 '25

So much this, life rng

1

u/DN-BBY Mar 02 '25

Yeah def this part I don't get . It's like bro, just cuz you suck up to them doesn't make you a friend of there's.

-8

u/TowlieisCool Mar 01 '25

I see it more as if you find a way to justify confiscating the wealth of billionaires, then why not take money from people with $100 million? $10 million? Where do you draw the line? Ramen budget to survive on and you get all your excess money taken? People are too quick to throw around wealth redistribution like its an obvious answer to society's ills imo.

Living in America is is exactly why we or our descendants even have a sliver of a chance of becoming the 1%. You can't become wealthy in other countries without prostrating oneself to the government or you risk getting murdered or thrown in political prison forever and all your money taken. We should not be so quick to relinquish the rights our forefathers died for.

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u/PrimeDoorNail Mar 01 '25

The redistribution will happen whether they like it or not, thats what history teaches.

The next system of government they come to with must prevent the creation of of billionaires in the first place.

Workers create the value, workers get the money.

-4

u/TowlieisCool Mar 01 '25

Capitalism has its drawbacks, but we reap the benefits of its excesses in ways we don't even comprehend. I agree wage growth is far more stagnant than I'd like, but the pros outweigh the cons for a majority of U.S. citizens.

4

u/AndaramEphelion Mar 01 '25

The vast majority of USians is one bad sneeze away from literally dying in an empty cardboard box...

-2

u/TowlieisCool Mar 01 '25

Once we cut off your ungrateful asses we'll be in a lot better shape. For a continent that feeds off our crumbs, you Eurotards sure are insufferable. Enjoy your cultural enrichment.

1

u/GoodBoyWithASun Mar 01 '25

JK Rowling, Taylor Swift, Notch...

-1

u/PlasticPresentation1 Mar 01 '25

Where, exactly, do you propose a founder draws the line?

Do you think the world would realistically be a better place if Google/Apple/etc made their first products into a 1 billion dollar business, then decided enough was enough and then cashed out and declined to further the business so that everybody could enjoy their riches?

6

u/hoopaholik91 Mar 01 '25

Lol, are you trying to get me with some sort of gotcha? Yes, it would be massively better if instead of a mag7 there was a mag25 with Youtube, Twitch, Whatsapp, Instagram, LinkedIn AWS, GCP, Azure, Teams, Slack, etc. where separate companies. And that's just in the tech sector.

And I'm not saying a company has to stop growing. But I'm saying if the founders decide they have a billion dollars, and instead want 10 or 20 or 100, yes that shows a certain psychopathy the rest of us don't have.

0

u/Historical-Egg3243 24076C - 1S - 4 years - 1/7 Mar 02 '25

Yes. The world would be a better place if we did not have megacorps. Monopolies are not good. No one needs a phone with a slightly larger screen every year. No one needs to be advertised to constantly. Most of these products aren't really improving our lives

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u/Few_Bags69420 gargle my calls Feb 28 '25

their level of cunt-iness is directly proportional to how much stock they own.

7

u/WeAreAllFooked Feb 28 '25

You do if you're Mike Ilitch

6

u/Fenix04 Mar 01 '25

Michigan resident here, Mike Illitch was not someone who cared for others. He had a huge hand in the decades-long decay of Detroit which hurt so many people and families. He has a few media-friendly stories that get touted about (e.g. the Rosa Parks one), but he was pretty much a glorified slum lord. He was a good sports team owner though, much better than his son.

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u/OneiricBrute Mar 01 '25

And tbh, people today are kind of encouraging them. Why wouldn't they be assholes if they can get away with some mild tsk-tsking and a slap on the wrist at worst?

1

u/type_error Harambe Died For This 🦍🍿🚀 Mar 02 '25

One exception maybe: Richard Branson 

1

u/PrivateDurham Mar 02 '25

Unless you’re Mark Cuban.

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u/Alicenchainsfan Mar 02 '25

He sold his team to the devil. Don’t let him fool you.

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u/Difficult-Coffee-219 Mar 01 '25

John Chambers, Steve Wozniak?

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u/b_digital Mar 01 '25

I spent 25 years at Cisco, and Chambers is no better.

-7

u/fireduck Feb 28 '25

There are exceptions. Bill Gates, a bit of a dick to work for or do business with but seems to be an actual human.

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u/hoopaholik91 Feb 28 '25

Bill has done such a good job improving his image, I don't get it.

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u/fireduck Mar 01 '25

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation goes a long way. He also said something recently against TrumpElon.