Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.īut the problem isn’t that we have inequality.
The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. And what do I see in our future now?Īt the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country-the 99.99 percent-is lagging far behind. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. I’m not technical at all-I can’t write a word of code. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working.
Now I own a very large yacht.īut let’s speak frankly to each other. Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality-Bezos’ great insight). So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. It just happened that the second Jeff-Bezos-called me back first to take up my investment offer. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough-and that time wasn’t far off-people were going to shop online like crazy. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries-from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. 01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those. Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.
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