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Subconsciously, or many even consciously a person or entity that holds a large amount of wealth will be wary of creating stable well-paying jobs because that distributes the power that the wealth represents.
That army of people may decide that they want to have a say in how things are run.
But not spending the money, not hiring people means that it's eaten by inflation.
The dream is a way to invest without creating a big middle class.
This is why so much money appears for AI.
As soon as a person starts to see the middle class, and it's people who want things like schools and health care as a threat to their wealth and power very silly ideas start to sound like good investments.
There is a different way to see all of this.
But it would require seeing sharing power as something that could make your technology better-- Instead of just fearing all the hoos down in hooville wanting a library.
Central to the tension that AI has created is this idea of these big companies and wealthy people sending the message that they don't really think they need any people working for them. You'll never face a union if you have no workers.
Fundamentally it makes no sense and doesn't really work. Everything worthwhile that can be done with money involves people, there is no bunker without trusted bodyguards, no fancy meals without chefs.
Anti-social wealth is horrible vector.
We worry about anti-social incels and anti-social extremists, but I think we should worry more about the anti-social company.
Shouldn't part of the dream of running a big successful company be all of the people proud to work with you making lots of money? The talent you attract because you are "the best" at doing the thing?
@futurebird cf. Bryan Cantrill's "do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison" aside-rant in the middle of his 2011 history of OpenSolaris:
I think the young people boo'ing AI at that commencement speech illustrates this perfectly.
College grads should be excited to work for companies but they have been told over and over that they don't matter, aren't needed, and if they want to "win" in the economy start gambling and get inside tips. Or find a way to exploit your peers. Anything else is baby stuff and woke.
It sucks!
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