> Since we started it in 2005 we've funded about 6500 companies.
> Starting a successful startup is the most common way to become a billionaire, so in effect I've spent the last 21 years training people to become billionaires. So far about 30 of them have, but there are many more in the pipeline.
Seems to me that right off the bat he completely undermines his own point - less than .5% of the founders being funded at basically the best connected best financed incubator become billionaires. Easy, right?
I won't even go into the embarrassing math that follows... pyramid scheme salesman levels...
It really isn't. It's a short of counterfactual and it's actually quite useful in checking if you are morally/intellectually consistent. This strategy even has a name (some Bostrom thing that I can't remember right now).
Nope. My opinion on short-selling is, let's say, nuanced, but in this case I was making strictly a technical analogy.
It feels to me like this type of corruption is a temporal play in which you "lend" your influence in the present to somebody. Using your influence they pass legislation/regulation etc. that yields them lots of money in the future. Once you leave office, the people that you lent your influence to will pay you back with the proceeds they obtained while they were making use of your influence.
The more "standard" type of corruption (the kind people in nice suits usually think of when they say "corruption") doesn't involve a temporal play. You get money in the present for using your influence directly in order to benefit the people who paid you, also in the present/near future.
Perhaps my analogy to short selling is not fully accurate, but this is kind of how it feels to me.
> Would we expect her to a) not speak at Citadel if asked or b) request less than market rates for doing so?
Pretty much. I think there should be a significant cool down period (let's say 5 years or so) after leaving a top public service or political position before you can make money from the private sector you were supposed to oversee. As far as I know something like that already applies to people who retire from the military and want to transition to a public civilian position.
In a sense I feel like this kind of corruption is a bit like short selling.
You perform a corrupt act in the present with a tacit understanding that, at some point in the future, the beneficiaries of that act will pay you back.
The fact that this is a temporal play makes it seem like its not corrupt, but in fact all it does is put white gloves on the same kind of dirty deeds that happen in poorer countries all the time.
> Starting a successful startup is the most common way to become a billionaire, so in effect I've spent the last 21 years training people to become billionaires. So far about 30 of them have, but there are many more in the pipeline.
Seems to me that right off the bat he completely undermines his own point - less than .5% of the founders being funded at basically the best connected best financed incubator become billionaires. Easy, right?
I won't even go into the embarrassing math that follows... pyramid scheme salesman levels...