>If it's not publicly traded, it's super secure from any public accountability.

Under the existing legal and regulatory model, yes.

But what abusing that model long-term will eventually result in government-level change that effectively bans the existence of such exploits, wide-spread vigilantism, and/or some sort of collapse.

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JumpCrisscross a day ago | parent | next [-]

> what abusing that model long-term will eventually result in government-level change that effectively bans the existence of such exploits, wide-spread vigilantism, and/or some sort of collapse

The endpoint of vigilantism and collapse is more economic opacity. Not less.

My personal view is companies with more than any of 1,000 employees, $10mm revenue or a $100mm valuation should have to file a simple annual disclosure showing the cap table ad balance sheet, a simple P/L, list of >5% beneficial owners and their auditor. But the path to that is through legislation in a complex, stable society.

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AnthonyMouse 19 hours ago | parent [-]

Those are single-member LLC revenue numbers. You can get $10M in revenue just by being in a low-margin business. For industries with a 1% margin that's $100k a year in net income, i.e. wages and benefits for one person.

And how are you going to calculate valuation for a closely held private company? In particular, how are you going to calculate it without making them do the thing you don't know if they're required to do without having the calculation already?

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JumpCrisscross 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Those are single-member LLC revenue numbers

My thinking was it should be simple to produce. Maybe for revenue only you eliminate the balance sheet and maybe P/L or cap table requirements.

> how are you going to calculate valuation for a closely held private company?

I was thinking headline valuations, but you’re right. Skip valuation.

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cycomanic 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Those are single-member LLC revenue numbers. You can get $10M in revenue just by being in a low-margin business. For industries with a 1% margin that's $100k a year in net income, i.e. wages and benefits for one person.

I'm not sure I understand your argument? Wages come out of revenue not income? So the $100k would go to the owners, but as captical gains not wages.

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AnthonyMouse 16 hours ago | parent [-]

It's a single-member LLC. The person doing the labor and the person who owns the company are the same person and whether they pay themselves the money as wages or dividends is not really the issue.

A thousand employees is a business on the scale of a mid-sized bank or companies like VeriSign or LendingTree or Iridium Communications. Companies with something like a billion dollars in revenue. $10M in revenue is a small business.

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JumpCrisscross 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> It's a single-member LLC

Maybe exempt pass-throughs?

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AnthonyMouse 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Why do it for entities of that size at all? It's not about their type of incorporation, it's about not adding more paperwork for small businesses.

You're using or. That means you don't need a low revenue number. You could use $10B because nearly all of the relevant companies would already be in on the basis of the number of employees regardless, so all you need is to catch the few outliers that manage to be major companies without hitting the employee threshold.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> You could use $10B because nearly all of the relevant companies would already be in on the basis of the number of employees regardless Out of curiosity, why $10bn versus $1bn?

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stonemetal12 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So? At 10M revenue what are the chances they don't have an accountant who does their taxes and already has all the relevant info? Asking their accountant to crank out one extra form is not going to break the bank.

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WarOnPrivacy 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But what abusing that model long-term will eventually result in government-level change that effectively bans the existence of such exploits

After a couple of generations watching my government become increasingly captured by the lobbyists funding elections - I'm fairly skeptical that your optimistic assertion will come to pass.

Doubly so now that capture is rapidly accelerating into a hostile, fascist takeover.