I've been able to calculate logarithms for well over 20 years.

That's not the problem.

The problem is even simpler mathematics. Proportions. How much do we give to first employees? How realistic is that John Smith, first salesman of the company is getting 2% and should consider himself lucky, while I, Peter Boss retain most of the company?

We always talk about the dilation of the founders' shares and its relation to the VC portion.

What is the usual proportion of the shares held by the founders and the first 10 or 100 employees?

Is that proportion usually realistic with regards to the effort put in and the risk assumed?

Is that risk usually really that heroic or most of us in the "can found a startup" caste can usually go back to jobs that already pay well over average?

I am the founder of a company. I want it to succeed. I don't want to become a billionaire, but I want the people that help me build it to have similar successes to mine.

If we succeed, I don't want my car or house to be 10x more expensive than of those people who joined me first.

There's something seriously rotten about telling university students about billions. The issue isn't whether anyone can earn a billion dollars. Nobody actually needs a billion dollars.

The question they should be pondering is given the excess of talent and opportunity they have, how can they help the people around them and give something back to society.

Simply, neoliberal capitalism is sociopathy with quarterly returns.

The assumptions are:

1. A uniquely special class of people do all the work that matters. They're astoundingly gifted, talented, and insightful, and have a rare ability to make profits happen by having very special ideas, owning Important Things, and telling everyone else what to do. These prodigies deserve everything. They are not to be criticised or judged by their inferiors. Ridicule only proves their superiority.

2. The work everyone else does is far less important. Most of the people doing it are interchangeable and literally disposable. Sometimes they deserve nice things, in a limited sense, if it's hard to make things happen without them. But mostly no.

3. Negative externalities - pollution, ecosystem collapse, spiralling asset prices, financial and political instability - aren't real. If they are real they don't matter. If they do matter they're someone else's fault.

4. It's absolutely fine to treat other humans with aggressive indifference and outright contempt as long as Number Goes Up. In fact it's expected.