• @chonglibloodsport
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    612 hours ago

    They can’t do anything with it, even if they wanted to. Trying to sell $120 billion worth of stock will cause the price to crash. Plus since he’s an officer of the company he has to go through a bunch of reporting requirements and basically announce the stock sale well in advance. Announcing that you’re going to sell $120 billion of the stock, without providing a strong reason, is just going to cause investors to believe you think the company is in trouble and drive the price down before your stock sale goes through.

    • @CheeseNoodle
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      512 hours ago

      Even 1 billion covers everythign most of us could ever hope for in our entire live.

      • @chonglibloodsport
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        511 hours ago

        Right, but then a CEO like Jensen Huang already has a paycheque to cover that sort of thing.

        The question is what is it really like to have your stock holdings go from $5 billion to $120 billion as a result of the company you run getting caught up in the AI hype bubble? Honestly I think not much. Just a number changing on the computer screen, like a new high score in an arcade game.

        How much do I think it affects his daily life? Pretty much not at all. Yet if it went back down to $5 billion people would be screaming at the company and he might be fired. It’s very strange!

        • @[email protected]
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          410 hours ago

          If he’s smart he’s not taking a pay check. They get bank loans backed by stock. They never part them of and the bank just assumes the estate will settle it.

          They have to bet on Nvidia staying valuable enough to cover the loans though. (Or not, hence the adage about owing the bank a billion dollars).

          • @chonglibloodsport
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            19 hours ago

            That’s a consequence of capital gains tax being structured the way it is.

            I think one of our biggest issues as a society is the way we try to use tax to target specific people. It never works out! They just find ways around it.

            We should be trying to set up a tax system that’s very simple, straightforward, and easy to enforce, such as land value taxes.

            • @[email protected]
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              7 hours ago

              You mean income tax.

              His stock options would be capital gains. But the loan trick works on either one. No selling stock, no capital gains taxes, paycheck/salary, no income taxes.

              But you still get mansions, compounds and mega yacht fleets.

              • @chonglibloodsport
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                16 hours ago

                And land value taxes work on both. I mean, unless he wants to live on that yacht and not own any mansions of course. But the land value tax is still going to get him (indirectly) when he pulls into the marina.