> so blunt and misrepresentative

You should read that as a self-preservation technique. The eager use of a strawman tells us PG heard AOC's words as an attack against him personally, his business, and his friends.

So the essay is not a reasoned retort but more an emotional self-defense to soothe a bruised ego. It's to assure himself that no -- in fact he did earn his wealth fair and square, and to imply otherwise shows a lack of understanding of how this all works. But I do love this essay because it does show just how emotional and irrational billionaires can be when their wealth and egos are threatened.

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pseudalopex 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> So the essay is not a reasoned retort but more an emotional self-defense to soothe a bruised ego.

No. It was to persuade future politicians not to redistribute his and his friends wealth.

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andriesm 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plenty of us non-billionaires are glad PG wrote this article, because a lot a success-striving people are pretty grossed out by the lie that the only way to be a self made billionaire is to do something 'bad'.

	▲	geysersam 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's a misunderstanding of the original argument. It's not about billionairs "doing something bad". The claim is that the only way to become a billionaire is to benefit from an unfair economic system.
	▲	crispyambulance 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		A lot of success-striving people are pretty grossed out by absurd levels of wealth inequality as well. Sure, some folks are going to be fantastically wealthy, that's OK to a large extent. But, we're on the precipice of trillionaire's existing in a country where literally half of the population is functionally illiterate (yes, that's the USA), where the middle class is dissolving, and where we are approaching a feudal level wealth inequality-- and all this stuff is accelerating. I mean, I guess it's not that bad. We still have a democracy. It's not like we have billionaires re-arranging political power and public resources for their pleasure and benefit. Oh wait, we do!
	▲	ModernMech 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		So then if you're glad for it, what do you have to say about the straw man he presents? The sibling reply spells it out, but as a non-billionaire why are you willing to accept that argument?

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CPLX 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, this is exactly it. One of the things I've found sort of interesting and unique about the current generation of asshole industrialist sociopathic technologists is that they're not satisfied with all their money and power. They somehow have decided that people have to like them for what they've done and treat them like the best most awesome little boys.

I wasn't there at the time, so I could be wrong. But I feel like their robber baron counterparts 100 years ago knew that they were hated and had some idea of why. And that's why they spent so much money on parks and buildings and colleges and everything else. They could see option B was the masses coming across their lawn with sharp implements.