Have you ever listened to a congressional hearing? Or spoken to an "average reader"?

Most absolutely glaze over at the idea of calculating the "log base" of anything. If they ever got that far in math class, they certainly have not used the concept since then and cannot remember what it means or how it works. They might remember exponents, but the compounding of them is absolutely lost on the overwhelming majority of people.

I don't think this essay by PG is sufficient to teach them log bases or compounding, and is manipulative to assume now that someone knows 2 million doubling 9 times is a billion, they should be accepting of how one can earn a billion dollars fairly.