Do the very wealthy deserve more scrutiny, or is criticism of wealth mostly bad faith?

Paul Graham · published Dec 2020 · hedged

Politicians who claim billionaires get rich by exploitation start from an instinctive feeling that large inequalities of money are wrong.

That feeling is in our DNA, and even in the DNA of other species.

source Billionaires Build

Amjad Masad · published Mar 10, 2023

Wealth inequality is worrying because it breeds envy and political scapegoating of the rich, not because technology leaves anyone worse off

Humans keep getting richer overall; the harm is that people assume the wealthy must have robbed someone, and politicians frame it that way

Scope: specific to wealth created in technology

31:21 20VC: Why AI Will Lead to Thousands of Billionaires and Elon Musk's, Will TikTok Be Banned and How Facebook Should Be Investing in AI & Why Startups Have Become Too Soft; We Need a Spiritual Reform with Amjad Masad, Founder & CEO @ Replit

Oren Zeev · published Feb 2, 2026

There is a rising and harmful hostility toward wealthy and successful people, worse in Europe but now spreading to America

He sees it on Twitter and in politicians proposing measures that punish success because it makes them popular with people who assume wealth implies wrongdoing

55:11 20VC: 50% of Funds Will Go Out of Business | Why Growth Expectations Today are BS and Will Not Last | Why Oren Zeev Takes $0 Management Fees But 30% Carry | Why GPs Should Not Tell LPs Their Strategy

Harry Stebbings · published May 4, 2026

There is a particularly American demonization of wealth in which people assume any billionaire must have stolen from someone poorer

Scope: framed as something 'you see' as an American thing

64:45 20VC: Shopify's Tobi Lütke on How AI is a Scapegoat for Mass Layoffs & What Will Labour Markets Be in the Future | Why We Need More Scrutiny on Charitable Giving, Governments are Bad at What They Do and Trump Derangement Syndrome in Canada

Paul Graham · published Jun 2026

You don't have to cheat to become a billionaire, because outcomes depend only on growth rate and duration — one of which startups routinely achieve honestly, and the other of which (market size) cheating cannot affect.

Growing at 15% a month without cheating is commonplace, and how long growth continues depends on market size, which cheating could not increase.

source How to Earn a Billion Dollars

Tobi Lütke · published May 4, 2026

The more wealth and resources an entity or individual has, the more scrutiny they deserve; what is broken right now is the process of figuring out who is additive, which is owned by people acting in bad faith.

25:39 More resources warrant more scrutiny but the vetting process is bad faith

Amjad Masad · published Mar 10, 2023 · speculative

Rich people will become increasingly hated, politicians will exploit that division, and it may escalate to violence in the streets

32:28 Wealth hatred will escalate into political exploitation and possibly violence