> fairly and properly

He takes that as a given but this is, in fact, the argument and you can't wave it away.

By doing so he's being disingenuous. The argument here is about who gets what. And the startup founder and its employees are not the only participants in the economy.

The revenue flowing in to his hypothetical startup is exogenous to the startup so you have to talk about where it's coming from, who's affected, and how that fits in with policy goals.

For an extreme but accurate thought experiment, imagine concluding your analysis of FTX by noting that their employees were "fairly and properly" paid and then moving on.