Jeff Bezos is a product of the system, not a driver of it. Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel, etc, are outputs, not inputs.

Their decisions are absolutely constrained by the system's values. They have zero agency in this, and are literally unable to imagine anything different.

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A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is a fascinating take. One way to measure agency is whether Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and Thiel have the power to destroy their creations. With exception of Bezos ( and only because he no longer has full control of his company ), the rest could easily topple their creations suggesting that system values you refer to are wide enough to allow for actions greater than 'zero agency'.

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blackoil 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They may destroy their creations but that would be a minor blip in overall system that will keep moving. Destruction of Facebook, Amazon, SpaceX won't destroy social media, eCommerce or reusable rockets. Previously destruction of giants like IBM/Apple(1st round)/Cray/Sun had no impact on PC, GUI, Supercomputers, Servers or any other fields they were pioneer in. Even if OpenAI/Gemini/Anthropic all disappear immediately the void will be replaced by something else.

	▲	TeMPOraL 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not to mention, organizations don't just blip out of existence. A dying giant leaves behind assets, IP, and people with know-how and experience - all ready to be picked up and stitched back together, to continue doing the same thing under new ownership.

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TeMPOraL 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's actually a quite good high-level measure. However, I'd question your measurement: I doubt that Musk, Zuckerberg and Thiel would actually be able to destroy their creations. SpaceX, Tesla, X, Meta, Palantir - they're all large organizations with many stakeholders, and their founders/chairman do not have absolute control over them. The result of any of those individuals attempting to destroy their creations is not guaranteed - on the contrary, I'd expect other stakeholders to quickly intervene to block or pivot any such moves; the organization would survive, and such move would only make the market lose confidence in the one making it.

There's no total ownership in structures as large as this - neither in companies nor in countries. There are other stakeholders, and then the organization has a mind of its own, and they all react to actions of whoever is nominally "running it".

	▲	ndiddy 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't know about the others, but Zuckerberg can absolutely destroy Meta. He owns a special class of shares that have 10x voting power vs. normal shares, so he personally controls about 60% of the votes. If there was any way of Zuckerberg getting ousted by investors, there's no way they would have let the company lose so much money for so long trying to make VR a thing.
	▲	blackoil 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Even if Tesla is destroyed by Musk, EVs and self-driving cars are here to stay. If not in USA than in rest of the world.
	▲	suddenlybananas 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Musk is clearly doing his best to destroy Tesla.

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goodpoint 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can also measure agency as the power to destroy other things.

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jon-wood 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What are you talking about? Of course they have agency. They're using that agency to funnel as much money as possible into their pockets, and away from other people, it's not that they can't imagine anything different, it's that when they do what they see is a world in which they're not as well off.

	▲	TeMPOraL 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's a very naive take - but also a popular one, because it gives people license to hate those who seem to be better off. The truth is, no one just acquires power on their own - people with power have it because other people let them, and they can wield this power only as long, and only in ways, as others allow it. Gaining power doesn't make one more free to exercise it - on the contrary, the more power you have, the more constrained you are by interests of those who provide you that power.