\n\n","wordCount":303,"charCount":1945,"replyCount":0,"reactCount":0,"reactPreview":null,"reactSummary":null,"shareCount":0,"image":"file:6a7ba7fee027edc3c5bc461a@kwln.social","attachments":[],"tags":[],"originDomain":"kwln.social","createdAt":"2026-08-11T22:53:50.070Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-18T05:36:16.326Z","id":"post:6a7ba7fee027edc3c5bc45f8@kwln.social","url":"https://kwln.social/posts/post:6a7ba7fee027edc3c5bc45f8@kwln.social","server":"@kwln.social","summary":"The starkest example of this in Capital 21C is Piketty's contrast between L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt (then the richest woman in the world) and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft (then the most successful corporation in the world). Piketty compares the growth in the fortunes of Bettencourt and Gates over two periods: first, the period between Microsoft's founding and Gates' retirement as CEO; and second, the period after Gates's retirement from his executive role, when he became a mere investor, no longer an entrepreneur.
\nDuring that first period, in which Gates was founding and running the most successful corporation in the world, he accumulated less wealth than did Liliane Bettencourt, who did precisely nothing of value over that period. Bettencourt didn't even manage her investments – that was all handled by some very clever financial planners, lawyers and accountants. In other words: for Bettencourt, doing nothing at all produced more wealth as founding the most successful corporation in the world did for Gates. Bettencourt, a person who owned things, did better than Gates, a person who did things.
\nAnd then Gates retired. He stopped doing things and started owning things. He became an investor, whereupon he out-earned both Bettencourt and Gates-the-entrepreneur. Again, the market system allocated fewer rewards to the most successful person in the *doing things *business than it allocated to that same person once he quit that job and got into the owning things business.
\nPiketty shows that this holds true across markets and nations and eras: all other things being equal, the market system produces a class of hereditary aristocrats who command the world's capital and direct its deployment, despite never having done anything. The market's most lavish rewards do not go to its most productive participants, but rather, to those participants who have the good fortune to emerge from the luckiest of orifices.
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\n\n","textPreview":"The starkest example of this in Capital 21C is Piketty's contrast between L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt (then the richest woman in the world) and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft (then the most…","signature":"q8Am4lWCrA/86B7xqqrCvhQ/IDktqZuC90HMLzhRDsThtalAA/FJrxRsy3ePFYhoL0ruM+BZdxLHbVcIBtTjNBY0u8/zRlwtzkq0oMnJOwmTyfLVF9iaJHy0/h82hJj7I04Maq2PYZB+rsnIcy6/znqk8IGlPkGsWxYuvL0YISwToGIQ+WB+ThVmCymUCKZvZVYLEob4vIMxiJwu+9iAZiqL+vsl63KKV3I3xrPsDx0vMoLt91Az6qfrJKbVJrSJXumMgDx40fb3Kvkn9ZMMwDJuyn6U3dnDjHjK/FNorrkTHD5fJBG1Ha9wGzHlrtdSr9hKh3u1rj8ltc4+e9Q1IA==","canReply":false,"canReact":false,"publishedAt":"2026-08-11T22:53:50.070Z","visibility":"Public","featuredImage":"https://kwln.city/files/file:6a7ba7fee027edc3c5bc461a@kwln.social","myReact":null,"reactCounts":[]}The starkest example of this in Capital 21C is Piketty's contrast between L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt (then the richest woman in the world) and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft (then the most successful corporation in the world). Piketty compares the growth in the fortunes of Bettencourt and Gates over two periods: first, the period between Microsoft's founding and Gates' retirement as CEO; and second, the period after Gates's retirement from his executive role, when he became a mere investor, no longer an entrepreneur.
\nDuring that first period, in which Gates was founding and running the most successful corporation in the world, he accumulated less wealth than did Liliane Bettencourt, who did precisely nothing of value over that period. Bettencourt didn't even manage her investments – that was all handled by some very clever financial planners, lawyers and accountants.
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