Jeff Bezos did at one time run a small business (Amazon started as an online bookshop operated from home). I’ve never heard of him doing evil shit like that back then.
I don’t believe anyone is born evil. Jeff Bezos became evil. And that probably could have been prevented if we just, like, had better tax laws.
Evil is largely circumstantial. If you somehow became a billionaire, you’d probably be evil too.
That said, yes, there are plenty of small business owners who are raging shitbags, too.
Robert Caro disagrees. Power does not corrupt, it reveals. If you somehow became a billionaire, you’d be able to do whatever you wanted, which means we’d be able to see what you wanted to do. If you start acting evil once you get money, it means you were evil but unable to act on it until you had money.
Specifically about Amazon, Bezos made it because he wanted to cash in on the early internet with his own startup, leaving a Wall Street firm to do so. And, yes, we was a dick to his only employee, which is why the man quit after only 5 years.
There have been many studies showing that money changes people, specifically affecting empathy and pro-social behavior. I’m having trouble finding non-paywalled papers atm but this article seems like a decent overview: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_money_changes_the_way_you_think_and_feel
Jeff Bezos did at one time run a small business (Amazon started as an online bookshop operated from home). I’ve never heard of him doing evil shit like that back then.
I don’t believe anyone is born evil. Jeff Bezos became evil. And that probably could have been prevented if we just, like, had better tax laws.
Evil is largely circumstantial. If you somehow became a billionaire, you’d probably be evil too.
That said, yes, there are plenty of small business owners who are raging shitbags, too.
Robert Caro disagrees. Power does not corrupt, it reveals. If you somehow became a billionaire, you’d be able to do whatever you wanted, which means we’d be able to see what you wanted to do. If you start acting evil once you get money, it means you were evil but unable to act on it until you had money.
Specifically about Amazon, Bezos made it because he wanted to cash in on the early internet with his own startup, leaving a Wall Street firm to do so. And, yes, we was a dick to his only employee, which is why the man quit after only 5 years.