> This seems to me pretty hard to argue with - if someone creates a surplus, who doesn’t want them getting to keep some large fraction of it as a reward?<p>He literally just described free market competition, which reduces profits to 0, then said "I don't want that"?<p>That's a bad start for talking about Billionaires.<p>Without the free market assumptions, it's just monarchy with extra steps.
1. Some e-commerce companies founded around the time Amazon was (say Etoys) did not survive the .com crash. That introduces an element of luck.<p>2. Some companies make huge profits because of lock-in in two sided markets, it is good luck for the firm to get in a place where it can attain that.
Pedantic and yet still relevant correction: Thomas Edison didn't invent the lightbulb.<p><a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-light-bulb" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-light-bulb</a>