> the gap between the highest and median employee — inside an American corporation has increased from 30:1 to more than 300:1. This is the very definition of a zero-sum game<p>That's not the very definition of a zero sum game. For that to be true you would need to prove that 1) had the ratio of ceo to employee earnings not increased, all of the money that didn't go to the ceo would have gone to the employees. And 2) that increased ceo compensation was not caused in any part by company valuations rising and CEOs' corresponding equity compensation increasing in value.<p>Both of those are, on average, much more false than true. 1) The vast majority of savings from decreased ceo pay would be retained in the business or distributed to shareholders. 2) CEOs making more than employees because they have more equity only happens when the "pie" actually gets bigger (which is the very definition of "non-zero sum"). The employees wouldn't have gained everything the CEO lost - it's not even close to being zero sum by definition<p>As far as tech companies having more employees with more equity, my guess is that it has more to do with them being younger and early employees still having equity<p>Snapchat and tinder are absolutely thousands of times more valuable than being a principal in a troubled district! What kind of tortured social justice metric do you use to argue otherwise? Genuinely curious to hear that argument<p>Just because <i>you</i> don't find certain projects useful doesn't all of a sudden mean that everyone working on them needs to drop what they're doing and become a city planner<p>And it's especially ironic coming from a professional writer! Should he drop what he's doing to try to be Morgan freeman in "Stand by Me" because some fraction of people don't think his writing is valuable?<p>There were a couple other very unconvincing, phaux-moralist points but I need to get back to working on my "9 Reasons Why Paul Graham is Even More Evil Than We Thought" article
TL;DR: We stand on the shoulders of giants. The author seems to think this is an amazingly original idea and fails to notice that Newton said it hundreds of years ago; he could save a lot of rambling explanation.
Even though I mostly disagree with the author, I enjoy reading the detailed alternative perspective. It helps me gain a deeper understanding of how different individuals think about income inequality.