this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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Woz doesn't profit from slave labor in China any more than any of us since he hasn't actually worked for Apple since like 1985. Since then, he's started a number of other companies doing a bunch of other stuff, like cleaning space junk most recently
Oh great. So we can be surrounded by clean space junk
Lmao, unironically made me laugh 😄
Ok ok ok 🤣
Right, exactly. He could be worth billions if he wanted to, but he quit Apple early on. He still has shares of Apple which means he is worth that much, but he's also given shares away to other Apple employees just because he believed they deserved them more. He does profit off slave labor in China, but my argument was that it's not any more than the rest of us. Basically everyone participating in capitalism will benefit from its worst parts, but Steve Woz is not the poster child for capitalism, greed, or slave labor.
Are you saying "not any more than the rest of us" as in "lots of people own stocks or investment accounts and many of those are in businesses profiting from China"?
I think the difference for me is that he's in a position to influence things since he's famous, and he has a ton of money from it already.
Norms need to invest in stocks to be able to retire or afford healthcare. He has the luxury to not need to worry about any of this.
But more importantly, stock holders can absolutely (and should) criticize the companies which they hold stocks in. They have power to vote and influence their business decisions. Owning stock does not mean you have to agree with existing decisions.
Are you saying he doesn't profit off apple as one of its largest shareholders?
He was one of the largest shareholders. One third of the company in fact... but he sold most of those way back when they were worth almost nothing (as in hundreds of dollars). And as far as we know virtually all the rest of his shares since then have been gifted to charities. Mostly schools.
"I do not invest. I don't do that stuff. I didn't want to be near money because it could corrupt your values." -- Steve Wozniak, five years ago
He makes a good living doing speeches at universities/etc - that's his primary wealth, not his shares in Apple. If he had kept even a tenth of the shares he once owned, he'd be richer than Elon Musk. As it is, the house he lives in is likely more than half of his total worth (it's a nice house, with six bedrooms, in a nice location... more than most people can afford but hardly extravagant, 6 bedrooms is enough to host a large family holiday party, which I think is quite reasonable).
That doesn't count if he's saying something I agree with