A Coveted Landing Strip for Google's Founders

An anonymous reader writes "The NYT reports, "In the annals of perks enjoyed by America's corporate executives, the founders of Google may have set a new standard: an uncrowded, federally managed runway for their private jet that is only a few minutes' drive from their offices. For $1.3 million a year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin get to park their customized wide-body Boeing 767-200, as well as two other jets used by top Google executives, on Moffett Field, an airport run by NASA that is generally closed to private aircraft."

Comments

That's not evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it's just badass.

Re:That's not evil...

[hal9035]

I For One Welcome Our Parking Paying Overlords..... ain't Capitalism great?

Re:That's not evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's pretty cool because I imagined it going like this: Google: Hey, NASA... NASA: Hello, there, Google! Google: So you're running low on cash, huh? NASA: Yea... that damned "War on Terrorism" is raping our budget. Google: So $1.3 million a year would really help you then. NASA: We could do something with that... ok I suck at this... post anonymously FTW

Re:That's not evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suck

+1 Insightful

Re:That's not evil...

[random0xff]

It's a waste of money, what is the ROI on that?

Re:That's not evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only suckage is lack of line breaks. +1/2 (+1 funny, -1/2 style)

Re:That's not evil...

[monkeyboythom]

I guess I am the only one who thought of the Urban Dictionary definition of landing strip. :/
And who's landing strip would be coveted?

For those who still live in their Mom's basement, that would be considered "badass."

Re:That's not evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

And who's landing strip would be coveted?

"whose".

Larry's had that for a while

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I had something witty and intelligent to write, but I just got an email notification that a message just arrived from Northwest Airlines. I get to fly in economy, those guys get to fly in their own plane.

The only consolation is that I get to rack up miles while they don't. Are first class accomodations and free blowjobs from hand-selected stewardii worth the loss of airline mileage?

Sadly, I don't think I'll ever know.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[JordanL]

Does anyone else remember a time in American history when people would here something like this and go "I want to try and become like them" instead of "I want what they have" or "they can't have that because I don't"?

Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness? If you have the money, you can get it. If you don't have the money, work for it. These guys were nobody's once upon a time as well... it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[ngworekara]

You make a comment deriding others' entitlement and laziness... when the article is about some guys getting a taxpayer funded private parking space so that they don't have to walk as far to the front door. You're gonna turn me into a Paultard.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[mlk]

. For $1.3 million a year To me that sounds like is not "taxpayer funded".

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[thogard]

Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work. These guys made their money because they were in the right place at the right time which lead to meeting the right people (when the people with the money were willing to spend some). They also lucked out getting into a university that helped get them into the right place. Look at all the other dot com millionaires and look at how lucky they were to be in the right place at the right time. Even BillyG lucked out to have contacts into major companies like IBM thanks to his mother. With out her assistance, there would have been no way his company could have ever gotten the meetings that landed them their big contracts.

I know plenty of people who worked harder but got no where mostly due to things out of their control.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[couchslug]

They are paying for the ramp space. No way is this a loss to the taxpayer (the ramp was already there) and it makes a few bucks for NASA. That much money more than covers their few launches and recoveries.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[JordanL]

Having an idea that works in the market is luck? Getting into MIT is luck?

I think if there is one thing that is just plain hard work, it's getting into MIT.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[imdx80]

Does anyone else remember a time in American history when people would here something like this and go "I want to try and become like them" instead of "I want what they have" or "they can't have that because I don't"?

Maybe when it was a colony? thats the standard attitude to anyone who shows a sign of doing better than the average in england. Whether it be through luck or skill, "Wahhhh, they've got something i haven't, tax them more" (and thats a newspaper headline)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

'Stewardii' is wrong in many, many ways.

It appears to be an attempt at the plural of 'stewardess'. If the word were instead 'stewardus', and derived from Latin, the plural form of the noun _might_ be 'stewardi'. In no case would the plural ever have two trailing Is, as in 'stewardii'. Stop being pretentious, /. !

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

luck is where preparation meets opportunity

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[ngworekara]

Hey, since the place is already there, why not just open it up to any commercial flights that want to come in? Speaking of which, Al Gore has some coax he'd like to sell you.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[eebra82]

Fortunately, that's how it works. A world without hierarchy would be a world without leaders and without people with billions who can invest in ideas that could create thousands of new jobs. And why would anyone want to become a brain surgeon (aside from helping people) if it wasn't for the good money?

Aside from my sarcasm above, a company like Google has only a few executives "up there". Don't you think their time is better spent on meetings rather than being forced to travel for hours to the airport? You're flying economy because you didn't end up well like the Google execs did. That's life. That's hierarchy.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[rolfwind]

There are lots of people who go into MIT but never hit it big. (I'm sure they were moderately successful.)

There are a lot of people who work hard - and the majority of 1st gen. billionaires are no exception. But reading Bill Gates history, I believe there was a definite element of luck there - right place at the right time - along with some cunning to get where they are at.

With the same skill set and drive, just with different luck, I could definitely see Gates as head of just another software company and be worth "only" $50-100 million.

I don't think he's the exception among the billionaires. I could see a lucky break at the difference between moderately sucessful multi-millionaire businessmen no one heard of and the ultra-rich - in fact it seem to be that the once in the lifetime jackpot is what propels them to ridiculous wealth.

The one exception to this I think would be Steve Jobs - that guy could probably make fortunes several times over starting from scratch.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else remember a time in American history when people would here something like this and go "I want to try and become like them" instead of "I want what they have" or "they can't have that because I don't"?
Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness? If you have the money, you can get it. If you don't have the money, work for it.

To an European, this aspect of the American way of thinking is one of the more astonishing of all. To see why, let us analyze the logic carefully:

• Google funder's got rich after working hard.
• Therefore if I work hard, I will become rich.

Up to now it may seem ok, but now let's do the parallel:

• The lottery winner's got rich after playing lottery.
• Therefore if I play the lottery, I will become rich.

The problem is that "working hard" is not the key and only ingredient of success ; just like playing lottery is not the key ingredient of success. To win at the lottery, you need sheer luck. To really succeed in business, you need luck, money, talent in about every possible domain (vision, scientific and accounting ability, human management, human relations, manipulation, greed, ... and so on), and a lot of other things... Most of the time, not just working hard.

There is no way, you take J.Random.Guy and make it work hard, and make him become a top football player, basketball, pianist, scientist, or whatever; although of course you will improve his performance by training.

The same applies to professionnal life: the average schmuck will not become the highly successful entrepreneur or professional, even if he works like a madman - on average. Of course, there is a chance, just like the lottery, or like sports.
But most of us won't get a chance... of course we could get some small success, at the expense of some work. It's a cost/benefit analysis - do you want to play this lottery, and sacrifice your free time. Every one of us will have a limited time on Earth - our time is our most precious ressource, it should be spent very carefully.

These guys were nobody's once upon a time as well... it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.

For one reason, my friend: that was just a dream. Reality is catching back.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Examples?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Stormcrow309]

The only thing that makes me not want to be them is not that they are filthy rich and having fun with it, it is some of their business decisions. Specificly, the particular two tiered scheme of stock and the sheer ego when dealing with the SEC. The stock scheme leaves the Google founders with almost all of the voting rights, because their premium stock gives preferencial voting rights. This means that the shareholders have no control over a company they own, without the founders needing to worry about common stock amounts. It is odd to see that in trading today. When they went public, Google try to tel the SEC that they didn't need to make all the filings that the SEC requires. That is just pure ego and allows for the shareholders to be screwed. Some days, I think Lary and Sergey need to have someone whispering in their ear, 'Remember, shut the hell up. Remember, shut the hell up.

Author's Note: I did make a crap-load off of GOOG stock though.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jcr]

it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.

Sounds like you need to find a new social circle. Here in the silicon valley, there's no shortage of people trying to get rich and/or change the world.

-jcr

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[slashdot.org]

You make a comment deriding others' entitlement and laziness... when the article is about some guys getting a taxpayer funded private parking space so that they don't have to walk as far to the front door.

Actually, the taxpayer has been paying to maintain a perfectly usable, but practically unused airstrip because of your typical Bay Area NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).

The peninsula has many resources that can't be used because certain people, and forgive my generalization, who are often paying negligible property taxes thanks to California's brilliant (NOT) Prop 13, want to keep things the way they were 50 fucking years ago. That's great when other people are paying for the facilities and infrastructure that those assholes enjoy on a daily basis.

At the same time tons of people with an otherwise considered extremely well paying job (that bring in the actual tax $$$) will only be able to rent or perhaps if they have dual income they can get a $800K condo with $400/mo HOA fees. Interestingly enough I never hear those people complain about stuff like this.

I'd like to see how people that pay tax as if their property was worth $200K would like to live in a place in California that _actually_ is worth $200K. See how much they would object to some rich dudes parking a plane somewhere if that also meant that finally electricity would come to town.

If this is the beginning of the erosion of the out of balance power of the NIMBYs, then that is excellent news. Unless of course you'd prefer the bay area to become a Route 66 (See also: Cars).

Anyways, I'm glad to see that Anna Eshoo had a healthy response to this.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jcr]

Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

That may be true in Hollywood, but it's not the case in the business world. Every rich person I know worked like crazy for years before they made it, and most of them still work sixty hours or more a week because they got rich doing something they love to do.

These guys made their money because they were in the right place at the right time

Don't forget that they also had the crucial insight that links to a page were a more useful ranking indication than keyword hits. Google isn't a case of catching IBM's fumble like Microsoft did. They had a great idea, they implemented it, and they figured out how to get paid for it.

-jcr

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jcr]

No, that's Harvard. At MIT, you have to make the grade.

-jcr

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[thogard]

Somewhere I have my rejection letter from UC Berkeley. It said they had over a million applications since they filled up and they didn't even bother considering my application. That was when UCB had a better comp-sci program than MIT did. I applied the 1st day I could based on when my high school did its testing. That was just bad luck and completely out of my control. I had a better chance of getting into Stanford or MIT than most students in my state but I went to one of the best high schools in the state and both schools limited how much aid could go to people from one high school and I lost out even if my parents had enough cash to pay for either school. There is a huge amount of luck required to get into the best schools in the world.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

Well considering they probably have 10 accountants who work year after year on schemes on how to get Larry and Sergey's taxes minimized, it probably is taxpayer money. Then again I'm one of those crazy people who think you should just pay whatever your tax is without trying to do a dozen shady schemes in order to avoid it.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

Having a good grade is often reliant upon having good parents who create an environment conducive to you giving a shit about school.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

Right. And how many people prepare and don't make it for the one that did? Sounds like luck to me.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else remember a time in American history when people would here something like this and go "I want to try and become like them" instead of "I want what they have" or "they can't have that because I don't"?

Perhaps it starts in high school, where some kids are rich and others are poor, largely due to their parents rather than hard work or skill? The young might perceive (e.g.) owning a sports car to be vulgar showing off of unearned wealth. And perhaps that perception of wealth is maintained into adulthood.

At least, that's the impression I got when I drove my solid gold Cadillac out of my personal tiltrotor transport plane arriving at my last high school reunion - people acted like I was "showing off" my wealth and that was somehow a bad thing.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

If you don't have the money, work for it.

Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation.

They, like many others, hit the stock-market lottery. There's enough stupid people that will buy stocks for millions of times what they're actually worth, that early buyers can become billionaires just because they happen to be there.

No amount of (legal) work can guarantee you that level of riches. You can only hope to be in the right place, at the right time. You'd do just as well to buy a $1 "Power-Ball" lottery ticket as to invest many thousands of dollars (of cash, or your time/service) in some start-up, hopping it'll be the next ridiculously overhyped and unbelievably overpriced stock-market darling.

it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.

That's crap. There are more American entrepreneurs making themselves rich right now than there ever have been before. Few or none are naive enough to believe they can work enough to make themselves billionaires on merit.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[JoelKatz]

"I know plenty of people who worked harder but got no where mostly due to things out of their control."

How hard you work has nothing to do with anything. It's how much value you produce how much more value you let other people produce. These folks didn't work hard, they worked smart and they took risks.

You seriously think they got into universities that helped get them into the right place by luck? That's kind of crazy.

Yes, some luck is involved. If you don't think there's some moral problem with luck being a factor in wealth, work to ban lotteries.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[dal20402]

Welcome to Slashdot. Someone civilly expressing his desire for people to pay the taxes they are legally required to pay is "flamebait." The reaction to this article exposes geek libertarianism for what it is: the law of the jungle. Instead of an argument to help us determine whether Larry and Sergey's $1.3 million is actually covering the government's costs here, or to determine whether anyone with a large private aircraft could get the same treatment, we have a whole bunch of posters blindly getting on their knees for the silverback geek.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[thogard]

All the very rich people I know worked about as hard as most of my successful friends. Thats based on a small sample sizes (no billionaires but a handful of those who got 9 digit checks). They all were very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I know lots of others others who worked hard and had it all destroyed by bad luck.

Google making money out of the idea was a result in being able to talk to the right people at the right time. They didn't have any magic technology at hand but they were unique compared to their competition in that they had enough resources to demo their early work. They could pull that off because they had been in the right place at the right time a bit before they where in the right place earlier. Most what is now considered their innovation was all discussed on usenet news groups long before their research was done. You can even look it up in google groups if you want.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.

The American dream is certainly cheaper to make abroad. Trust me, you don't need a first class seat to get a free blow job.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember?

?

But...

?

No, I use Google.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

They are still nobody's, even more than they used to be.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[the grace of R'hllor]

That idea, "I want to try and become like them", is still firmly an American idea. The vinegar-pissers would be more at home in a country with socialist influences, like my Netherlands. Much as I tend to like it here, the attitude that people who made it big somehow should don't deserve it is not conducive to entrepeneurialism (not sure that's a word, but you know what I mean). In fact, it's leading to an emigration wave of even mildly financially successful people.

I also find myself occasionally thinking "It's not fair", but I have a functioning brain, so I get over it. Probably not the best investment they can make, and it's showy, but hey, it's their money and they worked for it.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[laparel]

Making it big requires hard work but working hard doesn't mean you will make it big (especially financially). Granted there are those few who are born in royalty, but that's just the exception and not the rule.

I hate it when people belittle other people's achievements - claiming that they're born a genius, they were lucky, etc.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[smittyoneeach]

If we're going to throw around implications of "theft wrapped in a perfectly legal prophylactic", let's also consider the amount of economic value they inject into the economy via their products and services, not to mention jobs they bring to strange places by dropping big data centers in the hinterland.
Google is a an economic driver, not a load.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

"I want to try and become like them"

Lucky?

Seriously, there are lots of people equally talented, driven, etc as they are. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certainly not taxpayer funded. It's investor funded. If you're the investor, do you want YOUR money spent that way to make a few execs happy? I'd rather them invest $1.3 million a year to fund some startup.

Read some letters by Warren Buffett. They had a corporate jet at one point too. They sold it, 'cause it didn't provide enough benefit to justify the cost to investors. It's a money sink. There are rumors that the execs travel in economy class.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[thogard]

Well Sergey won the NSF grant that was instrumental in his staying at Stanford. That grant is a result of a random selection out of the best candidates. To even get that far you have to know the right people or else you can't get the right recommendations no matter how hard you worked or how smart you are. If he didn't go to Stanford would he be a billionaire now? How does one even get into the Stanford PhD program anyway? They get far more applications than they have positions and everyone that is considered will be very well qualified. There is some luck into be accepted since I expect many of the final votes come down to random choices made by the selection committee while selecting between two equal candidates. Page had a huge advantage by the luck of being born to the parents he had. Remember his brother is also a billionaire.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[beavis88]

You've got it backwards - it's 99% hard work, and 1% luck. The 1% luck component just happens to account for 99% of the money most of the time...

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick and tired of people like you reiterating that hard work is a sufficient condition for success. In most cases, it is not even a necessary condition for success.

Scores of people, many of whom are quite clever and intelligent, work their entire lives without ever becoming successful. By far, success is more a product of luck than skill--being in the right place, at the right time.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

When people ask, "Why do you hate America?" two reasons are given almost exclusively: the geopolitical, namely that American interests have been spending much of the past half-century fucking up the Middle East and the developing world, and the ideological, which produces comments such as:

And why would anyone want to become a brain surgeon (aside from helping people) if it wasn't for the good money?

I was fortunate enough to have in my family one of the United Kingdom's top consultants in geriatrics (actually, I'm fortunate enough to have many high achievers in my family, and this is just one example - but what's interesting is a common philosophy they've shared). He was respected not just for his good understanding of medicine - helped by painfully perfect eidetic memory - but for his patient care. He did not assume that medicine had full understanding of the processes of old age, not connecting a weak older patient's difficulty in communication with a lack of understanding/intelligence, and ensuring a mentally stimulating recovery process.

He consulted to the Royal Family - because he was asked for assistance, not because he wanted the most lucrative contract - but he spent almost all his practice hours in NHS service, i.e. for the state healthcare system. Despite being born in India into a high caste family at a time (not too much has changed outside the cities) where those with less money were considered not only unworthy of life-preserving care, but less human, this was an astonishing ideological achievement. He advanced the state of the art in geriatric medicine for the love of medicine - like a true geek does it for the love of technology, and not, like Brin or Page or Gates or Ellison or, moving back a while, even TJ Watson, for the sake of finding a couple of unique selling points then cashing out for billions.

If you want to find people improving the lot for humankind, look at those working quietly in research, using their work to help "whoever needs it" - as in this doctor's case. Or find those, like one of my cousins, who, having earnt Bachelors then Masters in engineering through elite universities in France and Spain, went immediately to South America - despite the uniqueness and in-demand nature of her specialisation - to assist in irrigation programmes.

When any man feels better because he has received a wad of cash than because he has saved a life, fear him, because if destroying your life might win him his next raise, he will not hesitate to proceed. When I see Brin/Page contributing toward the Chinese economy and hear fanatics glorify that this is slowly opening access for the country, I recall only how American firms in the '20s and '30s propped up a nascent brutal Soviet Russia under the same foolish beliefs.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[lottameez]

It's an old George Carlin joke.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[GooberToo]

Does anyone else remember a time in American history when people would here something like this and go "I want to try and become like them" instead of "I want what they have" or "they can't have that because I don't"?

Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness? If you have the money, you can get it. If you don't have the money, work for it. These guys were nobody's once upon a time as well... it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.

If I had to guess it would be because the world is full of completely undeserving people with lots of wealth. You may or may not be amazed at the number of people that are wealthy only because of who they know rather than what they can do or even what they have done.

It used to be the super wealthy were wealthy because they were crafty and smart; masters of business within their field. These days we have super wealthy for no other weather than because they know a guy from college. The fact that they are very often dumber than dirt, just adds insult to injury.

In this case, I feel the founders of Google qualify for the crafty and smart lot. Many others do not. So to be clear, I'm not shaking a finger at the Google guys.

Have you actually spoken with many CEOs and CIOs in your time? Many of them don't understand the most basics of what their company does, how it makes money, or how they can improve things to benefit both their customers and their company. They are in the position because they have a large pool of "friends". These friends in turn buy crap from each other's company basically moving money from one company to the other, making them look good in the mix. This in turn is used to fuel additional raises for the higher up.

I'm not saying all CEOs or CIOs are like this, but there is certainly no shortage of absolute morons running (or at the top of) large corporations in America for no other reason than they have buddies which do favors for each other. And these morons, in exchange for giving each other on the board raises, reduce your benefits so they can pocket it, attempt to keep your salaries down, destroy your retirement, and generally waste large sums of corporate dollars on pet projects which even your average man knows is a complete waste, which only a absolute moron would dream of doing..

It's not that the general population has changed in this regard, it's that the average corporate head has changes from a highly regarded figure head to thieves, scumbags, and general confidence artists.

So perhaps a better question is, why are YOU saying, "I want to try and become like them"?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[MikeBabcock]

The only way I can think of to actually earn billions would be working your way up in the very competitive real estate market. Of course, you're just as likely to go bankrupt, but the profit margins and work load are such that you can grow nearly exponentially in profits if you do it right.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[krgallagher]

"Are first class accomodations and free blowjobs from hand-selected stewardii worth the loss of airline mileage?"

YES!

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Is that from first-hand knowledge?

Because I can almost fly to Denver for free with my mileage. Just another 1,500 miles more!

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[RESPAWN]

There are a lot of people who work hard - and the majority of 1st gen. billionaires are no exception. But reading Bill Gates history, I believe there was a definite element of luck there - right place at the right time - along with some cunning to get where they are at.

With the same skill set and drive, just with different luck, I could definitely see Gates as head of just another software company and be worth "only" $50-100 million.

I don't think he's the exception among the billionaires. I could see a lucky break at the difference between moderately sucessful multi-millionaire businessmen no one heard of and the ultra-rich - in fact it seem to be that the once in the lifetime jackpot is what propels them to ridiculous wealth. Actually, this was very much the case of how Ross Perot earned his fortune. Growing up and seeing him on TV campaigning for president, I always just assumed that he was Yet Another Texas Oil Tycoon (TM). Turns out, after reading his autobiography, that he was indeed another case of being in the right place in the right time. He just happened to be the first one to found a working business around the model of selling computer processing time which eventually grew to be a full IT outsourcing company.

I'm sure some people could name others, but I think that for a lot of the uber-rich, luck did indeed play a pivotal role.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[yada21]

Then again I'm one of those crazy people who think you should just pay whatever your tax is without trying to do a dozen shady schemes in order to avoid it.

They are paying what there tax is, by definition. Otherwise it would be evasion instead of avoidance. It might not be what you think it should be, but them's the break's.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Guppy06]

"Every rich person I know worked like crazy for years before they made it,"

Original poster didn't deny this, but simply pointed out that, for every rich person that "worked like crazy for years before they made it," there's 99 people who worked just as hard for just as long (if not moreso) that didn't.

It's not that they don't work hard, but that working hard isn't the deciding factor.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[nurb432]

They also got lucky.

Its not always about hard work, often times its who you know, and getting lucky being in the right place at the right time.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[GeckoX]

Just to note: There is approx. one billionaire per 4.5 million people in the US.

Lots of people dream that dream, but know it's just that, a dream. The chances of attaining that are insane. And living your life out striving to attain that...well, lets just say you're in for a lot of disappointment.

Besides, for a lot of people anymore, that's not the dream they want to attain. There are other worthy dreams that don't center around becoming one of the richest people on the block.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think Google's accountants are crooked?

I doubt it, at least for now, considering the scrutiny applied to corporate books these days. If you assume they aren't then they wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't take advantage of every possible avenue to minimize Google's taxes. So whether they have 10 tax accountants or 10,000 they are likely paying all the tax they are legally required to pay in the face of 'breaks' specifically designed to enourage business.

It is also notable that corporate taxes are little more than proxy taxes on individuals. They are part of the cost of doing business, like the price of landing strips, and are passed on to customers through the price of goods and services.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Reality Master 101]

All the very rich people I know worked about as hard as most of my successful friends.

A ditch digger works hard. It's not just about working "hard", it's about working on the right things.

They didn't have any magic technology at hand but they were unique compared to their competition in that they had enough resources to demo their early work.

Almost everything looks obvious after the fact. The wheel is "obvious", yet very few cultures actually invented it.

The fact that Google is *still* the best search engine ought to tell you something about the difficulty.

Most what is now considered their innovation was all discussed on usenet news groups long before their research was done.

Talk is cheap, and ideas are cheaper. The devil is in the details.

I know lots of others others who worked hard and had it all destroyed by bad luck.

There's no such thing as bad luck. *Everybody* encounters bad luck. There is only lack of preparation for disaster and lack for foresight for consequences.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[UbuntuDupe]

Yes, people *should* pay the taxes they are required to (or *publicly* withhold their taxes as a protest, so as to show they're not merely trying to stiff other taxpayers), but as long as the tax structure encourages that, all the wishing in the world isn't going to change the creative use of accountants.

That's part of why I've come to the conclusion that a land tax would be the best tax of all. Basically, you can't avoid it because a) you can't hide land, and b) any "accountant trickery" would be publicly visible (hey -- why is Globocorp's HQ appraised at $0? Then I'll buy it!). It also means you don't have to monitor each and every (easily concealable) economic transaction for tax purposes.

Of course, people like making corporations work through hundreds of thousands of pages of tax law instead...

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[ComradeSnarky]

If you think getting into MIT as an American is hard think how much harder it is for foreign students. I have a friend who went to MIT and she was the only person in the whole country in her year who managed to get in.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[emaname]

First off, I don't think that the airstrip nearby is an extreme of self-indulgence. I imagine they calculated what it cost at other airstrips, travel time between HQ and the airstrip plus other costs incurred, etc. That whole cost-analysis thing. And NASA could use the extra revenue.

But I think what people are reacting to is the excess seen in executive compensation. When the execs are getting obscene bonuses even after being only marginally effect or worse (Home Depot comes to mind), people have a right to be upset. The reason for their frustration is that more costs are being transferred to the employees while the execs get bigger perks. Most employees are contributing to a company's success every day, yet they are getting less and less by comparison. This is bad form.

Another component of the 'American Dream' is the idea of sharing success. Everyone that contributes should benefit in some way. And NOT the old 'you're lucky you still got a job' garbage.

A company cannot exist for the success of a few. It must exist for the success of all employed by that company. Otherwise, it's just another Enron, Tyco, GE, etc. These organizations or morally bankrupt (if not literally bankrupt) [Note re GE: It sounds like Immelt is trying to change that if the board doesn't jerk him around.]

The REAL question to be asked is, "How much money do you need to live comfortably?" At some point the pursuit of money is all about greed. It is not a positive, constructive effort. The more one person gets, the less someone else can have. Instead of taking huge bonuses, the execs should be plowing that money back into the organization to offset increases in medical insurance, etc. Take care of the employees and the company will have long-term success.

Don't misunderstand me. I detest the entitlement attitude as much as you. Maybe even more. That attitude is every bit as destructive as greed. But my experience as a manager has been that most people make a sincere effort at contributing to the success of an organization. They should share in it, too.

But again, without knowing more details, this airstrip thing doesn't sound that bad to me.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

Its not what it would be, if they didn't do all of the legal accounting finaggling.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

Any scheme where you can go bankrupt isn't really earning your money, so much as it is gambling. Of course that does have the potential to make you very wealthy, very quickly, but that isn't the standard model of working your way to the top.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

If "working hard" were the way to become a billionaire, every ditchdigger and small business owner in the country would be rich.

Unfortunately, working hard is only a small part of the equation. Much more important is who you know and who your parents were.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[SRA8]

>> Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

>> That may be true in Hollywood, but it's not the case in the business world. Every rich person I know worked like crazy for years before they made it, and most of them still work sixty hours or more a week because they got rich doing something they love to do.

This is a logical fallacy. Just because all rich people worked like crazy to make it, doesnt mean that all people who worked like crazy become rich.

There are tens of thousands of people who work very very hard, try to make money, but never become rich.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[E 99]

I know plenty of people who worked harder but got no where mostly due to things out of their control.

Important lesson for left-wingers: It's not about how hard you work. It's about what you actually accomplish.

Google didn't succeed because the worked harder than altavista and yahoo. The succeeded because they had a better, more innovative product. Hard work is usually required, but it is only one ingredient. While luck is sometimes an ingredient too, luck isn't what made google better than the other search engines.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

I'd like to see how people that pay tax as if their property was worth $200K would like to live in a place in California that _actually_ is worth $200K. See how much they would object to some rich dudes parking a plane somewhere if that also meant that finally electricity would come to town.

That's an unbelievably ridiculous generalization. Anywhere outside of the few largest cities (eg. the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco area), and 200K will easily buy you a big house and an acre or perhaps two. This isn't in the middle of nowhere (with no electricity), this is most every city in the state of California with the noted exceptions.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[LWATCDR]

No I think having the money for a private jet is cool. But why bother with solar panels on the GooglePlex when you are burring thousands of lbs of fuel in a private 767?
Even a private Gulfstream which is a very nice long rang private jet would burn a fraction of the fuel of that 767.
If they where willing to slum it and fly first class they would then reduce their carbon print by an order of magnatude.

I don't have a problem with wealth. I have a problem whith hypocites.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[e2d2]

It's got nothing to do with lack of dreams, it's got to do with rejecting the idea of what is the "American Dream". See for some of us it's hard to stomach a world where people are dying in mass from war, disease, and just plain lack of humanity. It's hard for us to see something so excessive and say "gee, I wish I could be so excessive, because that would mean I'm successful".

Also, the "little man" in America tends to reap what the elite sow. The elite writes checks and the little man pays the bill. Coming from a very poor background I pray to God I never live so excessively when people around me are suffering. It's one thing to work hard and then enjoy some rewards of that hard work (do they honestly work harder than me?), it's another to live excessively. Particularly in a time where the world's eyes are upon us to "do the right thing". Doing the right thing doesn't mean hoarding wealth. It may be natural but we are no longer barbarians taking all we can, we are supposed to be civilized.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd do just as well to buy a $1 "Power-Ball" lottery ticket as to invest many thousands of dollars (of cash, or your time/service) in some start-up, hopping it'll be the next ridiculously overhyped and unbelievably overpriced stock-market darling.

Actually, you could take a moderate sum of money and plan to invest it in a series of risky 'double or nothing'-like (though, not literally "double") investments. I am thinking futures, options, and penny stocks. So you plan to go something like $10,000 ---> $20,000 (1 in 2 or broke) ---> $40,000 (1 in 4) ---> $80,000 (1 in 8) ---> $160,000 (1 in 16) ---> $320,000 (1 in 32) ---> $640,000 (1 in 64) ---> $1,280,000 (1 in 128) ---> $2,560,000 (1 in 256) ---> $5,120,000 (1 in 512 or nothing). Now, I am sure it doesn't work quite that way and - statistically - your odds have to be less than or no-to-little better than even money (otherwise Wall Street would be doing this). But - big BUT - you have better odds (50% off the top isn't going to fund the local schools) and better tax treatment and the money (after capital gains taxes if any) is ALL yours. Further, you could hedge some of those 'winnings'.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[metlin]

Luck can only get you so far.

Fortune is what you make of it.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[metlin]

Hear, hear.

Well said, sir. Hats off to you.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[roman_mir]

Then again I'm one of those crazy people who think you should just pay whatever your tax is without trying to do a dozen shady schemes in order to avoid it. - you are crazy! You have to pay me this tax I came up with... because I posted a reply to your comment and came up with the idea of taxing you for it before you disagreed. Oh, and I do everything I can to avoid taxes.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[plover]

Hey, since the place is already there, why not just open it up to any commercial flights that want to come in?

RTFA. They still aren't opening the strip to just anyone, and it's not just about the money. Gooogle is also allowing NASA to fly scientific instruments and researchers on the plane.

Translated, that really means "Of course it's about the money, you f*cktards. NASA's got enough planes. Google's got enough money. The whole researcher thing is just there to justify the deal in the newspapers."

After all, it's still Google, and their motto is still "Don't be caught being evil."

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Speare]

Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation.

They, like many others, hit the stock-market lottery. There's enough stupid people that will buy stocks for millions of times what they're actually worth, that early buyers can become billionaires just because they happen to be there.

The jetstream is always moving fast, but you can't catch the jetstream if you don't fill the balloon and cut the tethers.

Brin and Page did "hit the stock-market lottery." I agree with that. But they would not have been able to get there without actually doing some interesting stuff and telling people about it. Yes, there are a lot of people who are doing interesting stuff and telling people about it, yet don't hit the stock-market lottery. But the fact that all this interesting stuff gets done is what advances society.

I think that's what the other posters were referring by the "American Dreamer is dead" sentiment. A dream without action is a fantasy of entitlement and resentment. A dream with action is a goal.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[phoenix.bam!]

It's amazing how all the luckiest people I know are also the hardest working. I wonder why that is.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Tom]

Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness? If you have the money, you can get it. If you don't have the money, work for it. These guys were nobody's once upon a time as well... it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead. The "American Dream" is, and always has been, a scam. The actual number of people who really worked their way up from dishwasher to millionaire are smaller than the number of people who became millionaires through the lottery, and we all learned the chances of that in highschool.

So in short, we stopped following the dream when we realized it's just a dream, and the waking world is run by different rules.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[syrinx]

The more one person gets, the less someone else can have. ....

This is almost entirely false. Minus the almost.

Economics is not a zero-sum game.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Tom]

But reading Bill Gates history, I believe there was a definite element of luck there - right place at the right time - along with some cunning to get where they are at. Having rich, influential and well-connected parents probably didn't hurt, either.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Doctor-Optimal]

So because they have a (wonking huge) jet they aren't allowed to have solar panels? They can't make any attempt at mitigation for ecological or economic (energy is expensive) reasons? That's a pretty bizarre assertion...

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[bannerman]

There are different ways of working hard. I know smart people that work their head off all day at a dead end job when I know they're capable of landing a much better job, but they're too lazy to make the move. No motivation.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[cromar]

The thing is, a lot of us don't want to "become like them." It pisses me off to hear about people throwing around money like this; I wouldn't have the damn plane if I was that rich, let alone a private air strip coaxed out of government officials. (I wonder who they had to puff to make that deal.)

And seriously. Enough with the "everyone can make it if they try" stuff. It's gotten old, and you should know it isn't true.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[radl33t]

There's no such thing as bad luck. *Everybody* encounters bad luck. There is only lack of preparation for disaster and lack for foresight for consequences.

This is ridiculous... In other words, I should have predicted that drunken bus driver go off a cliff while carrying my two children to school. Shucks, because then when the owners of my company stole my pension, bankrupted the company and I lost my job I'd be prepared to pay for the respirators that feed O2 to my brain dead children! Poop on me for not diversifying my investment portfolio while simultaneously saving 2x my annual income in the child coma savings account!

Your kind of absurd anti-social notion is a good reason why individualist societies are festering pits of despair.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[hey!]

Come now. Laziness is, within limits, a virtue. Why do more than you need to to get what you want?

The keys are those other character traits that go with the laziness. I suppose the ideal personality profile for an innovator would be moderately lazy but wracked by unquenchable ambition.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[thegnu]

Do you think Google's accountants are crooked?
I think dealing with the IRS sort of necessitates it. Are their lawyers crooked? I'm sure they can all think crooked, anyway.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[bob.appleyard]

A company cannot push all of its taxes onto it customers, the incidence of a tax depends upon the price elasticities of supply and demand.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Duhavid]

Fortune *is* what you make of it, but
before you can make lemonade, you have
to have some lemons.

Luck is huge in what paths are open
to you. You need to apply yourself, of
course, but the point that hard work
alone will get you to Bill Gates type
status is not supportable. You need
both.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Reality Master 101]

This is ridiculous... In other words, I should have predicted that drunken bus driver go off a cliff while carrying my two children to school.

The context is business, not life.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[ultrasonik]

I dissagree. Making it big is 100% luck. However, the harder you try to higher your chances of getting lucky are.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

So? The same factors apply. Not every company experiences the same set of situations. This is so bleedingly obvious as to essentially be a tautology. Some companies manage to make it through to great success through innovation/diligence/luck, etc. Other companies go straight into the crapper with just as much innovation and hard work behind them... but are subject to some rotten luck.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Bemopolis]

Remember, George W. Bush is rich. A man who couldn't find oil in Texas, and traded away Sammy Sosa. Apparently that last name covers up a LOT of bullshit.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[sethstorm]

Do you think Google's accountants are crooked? I'll just wait to hear them showing up in Aspen in that 767.

It is also notable that corporate taxes are little more than proxy taxes on individuals. They are part of the cost of doing business, like the price of landing strips, and are passed on to customers through the price of goods and services. That does not give them godlike powers over society.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Jeremy Erwin]

What's the market rate for parking a B767 and two Gulfstream V's?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[sethstorm]

That can be fixed, w/o the need of international students....

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[nacturation]

Just to note: There is approx. one billionaire per 4.5 million people in the US.

Lots of people dream that dream, but know it's just that, a dream. The chances of attaining that are insane. Yet many people regularly play the lottery not just for entertainment value, but thinking that it's the only way they'll get ahead. And most lotteries have jackpot payouts significantly smaller than a billion and at significantly greater odds. So, ignoring all other factors (large hand waving here), it's more likely that you'll become a billionaire than win a few million in a lottery.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[EatHam]

A land/property tax is the worst kind of tax. What you've just suggested is eliminating all private property ownership, instead leasing your property from the government.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all well and good when they are spending their *own* money, but perks paid for by their corporations is another story. The sense of entitlement in this example is that the executives feel entitled to give themselves bonuses and perks to the detriment of the company, the shareholders, and the employees. Would these same guys be willing to pay $1.3 million of their own money to park their jets next door?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[JCSoRocks]

noooo... winning the lotto is 99% luck and 1% the "hard work" of buying the ticket. Then they piss away their winnings on beer, cars, and more lotto tickets. Don't fool yourself, becoming a business mogul requires an incredible amount of work. Yes, there's a luck factor, there's a luck factor in everything you do in life. But look at people like Martha Stewart, the woman never sleeps. She works constantly to build / maintain her empire.

Don't fall into the BS trap of "I don't have because I'm not lucky enough". More than likely, you don't have what you want because you're some combination of not smart enough and/or not working hard enough. The person who pointed out that the American Dream is lost on lazy Americans is absolutely right. People need to stop watching HSN or QVC and talking about their "great new product" and just go out and make it. Look at Edison -

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." -Edison.
That's the determination necessary to make a normal person into a great person.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[EatHam]

Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

I agree. And the harder I work, the better my "luck" gets.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[sethstorm]

Universal admissions for citizens and a redirection from existing pork would help solve that "admissions problem". An alternative is to strip the name from the degree and ensure no identifiers can be passed on beyond the university other than you passing in a specific subject of study (e.g. you'd not be able to say where, but the university that gave it would be able to step up and vouch for it- but could not in any way go beyond that by naming where).

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[sethstorm]

If you think getting into MIT as an American is hard think how much harder it is for foreign students. I have a friend who went to MIT and she was the only person in the whole country in her year who managed to get in. There's a part of having your own difficult-to-get-into universities that you have already?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[radl33t]

How can you separate the two? ?

Oversimplification is the key to this delusional disease, aided by a healthy dose of arrogance.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Enzo1977]

Have you ever seen the 1979 movie The Jerk staring Steve Martin?

There's a memorable quote from the film. Steve Martin's character Navin Johnson is hired by the character Harry Hartounian, played by Jackie Mason. Navin is a lowly gas station attendant working for a salty and extraordinarily cheap auto mechanic. Upon getting the job Navin asks Harry for a relatively humble job perk that Harry construes as overly extravagant. To the best of my knowledge and forgive me for any inaccuracy, but in his best delivery Jackie Mason exclaims, "Kids these days, they don't want to climb the ladder anymore to become successful. They want to start at the top, and move to the side!"

For some 1979 wasn't very long ago. But taking into consideration the brat packs of the 80's, 90's and present day, the internet bubble, and subsequent 'market adjustment,' you might find that people have maintained a sense of entitlement no matter what the era. Or you're like Jackie Mason's character, and you're too damn cheap to accept the standard of living has increased. (end sarcasm)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Richy_T]

It's not what it would be if they drove a truck full of cash to Washington each week either. Your point?

Rich

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Alioth]

Having an idea that works in the market is incredible luck. There are lots of really great ideas that fall flat in the market.

Hell, really - if you measure the odds, just being comfortably off is mostly luck - luck in being born in a place where you can make a decent salary, and get a decent eduction. Over 80% of the human population lives in absolute, grinding poverty. So just the luck of being born in a country where you are free to pursue your ideas is pretty lucky to start with.

Take Bill Gates - if he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, with all the contacts his parents had - say he was born to a car mechanic and janitor for parents, where would he be right now? Possibly a manager at a major software firm if he was lucky enough to get a decent education - pulling down a good salary, but certainly not a multi billionaire.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[DerekLyons]

The "American Dream" is, and always has been, a scam. The actual number of people who really worked their way up from dishwasher to millionaire are smaller than the number of people who became millionaires through the lottery, and we all learned the chances of that in highschool.

Purely anecdotal evidence but... I know _three_ millionaires who did the equivalent of working up from being a dishwasher - and no lottery winners. My best friend from high school run an advertising/media company he built from scratch over the last five years and after five years is now pssing into the low six figures in revenue. (With no college education and no starting capital beyond his final unemployment check.)
 
The American Dream is alive and well. But the trick, as always, is to work like hell. Sitting and whining on Slashdot doesn't cut it. (The high school friend I spoke of? He took his first vacation when I flew across the continent, marched into his office, and physically drug him out of it.)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[DeepZenPill]

Who said the dream is to become a millionaire? How about to live a more financially secure and happy life? That doesn't require millions of dollars for most of us.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Merk]

Spoken like someone who doesn't know a lot of MITers.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jadavis]

Anywhere outside of the few largest cities (eg. the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco area), and 200K will easily buy you a big house and an acre or perhaps two

I suggest you look around to see what $200k will buy you in California. If you are within two hours of either of those places, get prepared to pay a lot more than that for "a big house and an acre or perhaps two". Same if you are anywhere near the coast.

You should be thinking more along the lines of $300k for a tract home, unless you go to some fairly remote areas.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[GeckoX]

Actually, no, it's not less likely to win the lottery, unless you only play once.
Your chances of hitting the jackpot in a weekly lottery if you play every week are much higher than 1 in 4.5 million...more you play, higher your odds across the board. Catch being, how much are you willing to pay into it?

Anyways, any person with half a brain knows that gambling of any sort isn't the best way to get ahead. (Caveat: Of course common sense isn't all that common ;)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jcr]

That's not what he said. Try reading it again.

-jcr

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[demi]

Almost everything looks obvious after the fact. The wheel is "obvious", yet very few cultures actually invented it. The fact that Google is *still* the best search engine ought to tell you something about the difficulty.

I think Google's done a great job, but this is entirely the wrong impression. Search engines were not only obvious, they were old hat, the battles already fought and decided, when Google appeared on the scene. And Google has never, by any standard measure, been the best search engine, except for being fast. And it's not the best now, in fact it's worse than when it started.

Google's "breakthrough" was being fast through distributed search, which is something that all the search engines were working on for some time. Google won this by being latecomers to the search game, that is, not having any customers to lose by risking a different back-end architecture; and by being fortunate that the big Internet portals at the time made poor decisions (Yahoo thought directories were better and never committed to search, Excite was consumed by the monumentally misguided @Home). There's no sense in which their founders were smarter or worked harder than the founders of any other technology company at the time.

Now, lots of those founders are or were doing "just fine"--a lot better than me. Hard, smart work definitely counts for something. But the difference between "quite successful" and "super-rich" is luck, not hard work. The google founders weren't smarter or harder-working than a hundred other people. I know a very successful and famous Internet celebrity and multimillionaire, who, quite frankly, isn't smarter than anybody.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jadavis]

Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

Of course those people had some great opportunities that are very rare -- even among the rich.

The reason these guys are successful is because you could give those same exact set of opportunities to a million people, and none of them would make anything out of those opportunities. It might be too risky for their tastes, or they might not be comfortable working 80 hour weeks when it really counts. Or, they might not realize how lucky they are, and wait for the next once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come along.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

99% luck, but don't forget that a lot of these people work hard to be ready for when that one lucky moment strikes. They don't sit around thinking "hmmmm" or "I wish I knew this would happen, if I did, I would have done xxx in advance." They're ready, prepared, and worked hard for it.

I have in no way made it "big". I'm barely worth US$1million. That said, I'm 32 years old, and US$1million isn't chump change at my age group either. My peers don't think I'm filthy rich, but they do envy where I am today. 8 years ago I was making US$23,000 per YEAR. And that wasn't really bad either. They were doing a bit better than I was back then. Today, I'm doing a lot better than they are.

The difference between me and them is that they weren't willing to take risks, or analyze any real or imaginative risks, or prepare for something big, or, or, or... In short, they didn't think they could make it. I KNEW I could make it. I still do. That's really the only thing that separates us. I'm not smarter than them, I don't have a higher education (actually, I have a lower education than a lot of them), I didn't start out knowing people, I didn't start out rich, I don't come from a rich family or a family with a strong business background... I'm still not Bill Gates, and getting that high up in economic status is certainly not something that "trying" alone will obtain, but if you don't THINK you'll make it, you won't. Period. You may try and not make it, but if you don't try, you're guaranteed to never make it.

I agree with the grandparent that more and more people are just pissed off seeing rich people with perks. I look at that and dream, that someday, that will be me. To me, the fact that someone can start from scratch and make it up like that means that there's a chance for me too, and I should start getting my butt in gear and do something if I want to get there someday.

Doing something can mean anything. Increasing skills, working hard on a job and getting results when everything seemed like it was going against you, letting people know what and how you did something that was not mainstream, sometimes it means getting put down a lot. Getting to know people is important too. I'm sure Bill Gates wasn't just lucky enough to know "someone" out of the blue. He met them one way or another. Keep in touch with people, let them know what you're doing, stay on their good side, don't piss them off... You know, like that dumb-ass boss. He may be a dumb-ass and may always be. But he may know people. Other people that aren't dumb-asses.

Making it big sometimes means you need to be polite, and be professional, even in the most damned situations. I think it's about attitude. Got a loser attitude? You'll be a loser.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm - no. Folsom, for example, is not one of the few largest cities. 200k there will get you a very small lot, or a very small house. Most likely both if you don't want a septic tank.

Even Volcano (which *is* the boonies) you can't get a couple acres for 200k with a house AND electricity.

Lived in both places myself - hated it. I'll take my vastly overpriced house in the OC, thank you.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Guppy06]

I did and it is. Show me the part where he said "They didn't work hard."

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[bennomatic]

Similarly, for every gazillionaire who was in the right place at the right time and capitalized, there are 99 people who had similar opportunities and did not make anything of them. Your comment of, "working hard isn't the deciding factor" is probably a fair statement, but to be more accurate, it should maybe be changed to, "working hard is not the only factor."

And, per my addition, "luck is not the only factor."

And for other factors, like knowing the right people, we can see that this does not always make for a complete success...

So our formula for becoming a gazillionaire is something along the lines of this: There is no single factor which guarantees success. A combination of luck, access to resources, insight, motivation, hard work, networking, and possibly a number of others as yet unidentified, is typically required. In some cases, an abundance in one category more than makes up for a deficiency in another, but the greater the weakness in any area, the lesser the chance of success. Because circumstances are always changing, there is no perfect balance of these elements which can be pre-defined, so there is no absolute guarantee of becoming a gazillionaire.

This, of course, begs the question of how we define success. I don't care if I ever become a gazillionaire. However, if someone were to gift me a few million dollars, I would happily live off the interest and remain a contributing member of society through both regular work and creative endeavors. It's a pity that so many people with resources (the Paris Hiltons of the world) choose instead to flaunt and squander; imagine if she were to have given all the money she has spent on cocaine in the last decade to a local homeless shelter... But I digress...

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[absorbr]

People don't need billions of dollars.

Consider this -- the richest 200 or so people have more than 4 BILLION other people. I don't condone taking away and giving to others, or the other things you suggested is the norm for people of today. But something is definitely wrong..

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation.

And that attitude is why you will never be a multi-billionaire, and someone else will be. It may be the stock market. It may be the invention of the telephone, or a light bulb, or an alternative ocean route for shipping... In and of itself, the accomplishment does not GUARANTEE a multi-billion dollar compensation. Nothing is guaranteed. But coming up with an idea at the right time, and knowing how to leverage that idea is everything. You're thinking in a very closed and restricted mind set or time frame. Think about it. I'm not a fan of Bill Gates, but I do recognize his keen sense for what he needs to do. When he took DOS and sold it to IBM, why did IBM let him take advantage of them when eventually it would make Bill rich, and take away the big-bucks from IBM? The key word is "eventually." IBM didn't have the foresite. Pee-cees were just a passing fad. The real money was in mainframes, like it was for years before. Times change, common sense changes, the obvious is often not so obvious. It's only obvious in hind sight.

Don't pretend that working hard will never get you filthy rich. Working hard at the wrong thing may. But knowing what you need to work hard at is another story, and that isn't "luck". Luck is the very small, split second chance you get after working hard to be prepared for (and prepared to know what) that chance.

I say you're the dead American Dreamer. There's a difference between being a dreamer with a flat head, and a dreamer that thinks (s)he will make it big without effort.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Jeremy Erwin]

NASA's got enough planes

NASA doesn't have all that many planes

Alabama:1
California: 17
Florida:5
Ohio: 6
Texas: 41
Virginia: 8

Many of those are small fighter jets, so if NASA needs a way to transport dozens of scientists at a time to high altitude, its options are somewhat limited. The Gulfstream V can transport 14-19 people to 51,000 feet, the Boeing 767 presumably can carry a few more, albeit to a lower altitude. I wonder if either aircraft is configured to allow for a substantial scientific payload, though.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Reality Master 101]

Search engines were not only obvious, they were old hat, the battles already fought and decided, when Google appeared on the scene.

Indeed... which makes their success and utter domination all the more remarkable.

Google's "breakthrough" was being fast through distributed search, which is something that all the search engines were working on for some time.

What? I used a lot of search engines prior to Google, in fact, I still have them bookmarked: AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, MSN, Northern Light, Yahoo, etc. I used to search a variety of them because each one seemed to do better at various results. After Google appeared, I gradually stopped using them all, because Google consistently gave better results.

I don't recall Google being any faster than any of them. They all gave pretty much instantaneous results.

But the difference between "quite successful" and "super-rich" is luck, not hard work.

I might agree that the difference between "rich" and "super-rich" is mostly luck. And certainly some people get rich by attaching themselves to the right people (e.g., become one of the first 10 employees of an eventually huge IPO). But by and large, to be rich, you have to want to be rich and dedicate your thinking to that goal, and take the appropriate risks, and try again when you fail.

The google founders weren't smarter or harder-working than a hundred other people.

The issue isn't necessarily raw intelligence or level of hard work. Take 100 smart people and put them in the same situation as the Google guys. Would they fall into the same riches? I'd say "no". Technology isn't everything! You have to be able to work with people, give up control where necessary, take control when necessary, on and on. For example, Theo de Raadt is a smart, hard-working guy. Assuming he was motivated to do it, could he have created Google? Not just the search engine, the whole enchilada. Not a chance in hell, because he's an abrasive psycho.

Creating a successful company takes a lot of broad skills. There's a reason that 90% of start-ups fail.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Don853]

No, but there are probably people in similar situations to Gates who didn't have the connections, and without those, they're not Gates. I doubt any of them are starving. They're probably mostly multi-millionaires. Still, even with the right drive, brains, and ideas, there's still something to be said for being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[shaitand]

'Well considering they probably have 10 accountants who work year after year on schemes on how to get Larry and Sergey's taxes minimized, it probably is taxpayer money. Then again I'm one of those crazy people who think you should just pay whatever your tax is without trying to do a dozen shady schemes in order to avoid it.'

You know I hear people complaining about this crap in Fortune 500 corporations and it sounds fine and dandy. It isn't until you look at the little guy that you realize why there are so many republicans fighting for these tax breaks.

I am a small business owner. I am incorporated because if anything were to ever go wrong it would basically end me financially ever after if I were not. Every dime I make gets taxed twice. The corporation is taxed, and then I am taxed. You bet I do everything legally possible to avoid taxation because I am paying double taxes! Forget private jets, those tax breaks impact my grocery budget.

This problem doesn't change in a bigger company, just the number of people involved in the scale. All of the profits are paid to employees or shareholders. The employees are taxed and the shareholders are taxed, in many cases the shareholders also invested after-tax money.

The solution is simple, abolish corporate taxes altogether since their profits are either reinvested or paid out to others who have to report them as income. Furthermore the payouts to shareholders should be taxed as income because for your average corporation the one or three shareholders are the owners.

I also think all car expenses, utilities, rent, phone, internet, and food should be deductions on personal income tax.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[LWATCDR]

What is bazzare when you add the idea of "Do no evil" and have a private 767 and talk about using solar energy to save power.
Like I said even if they got a super plush Gulfstream that can fly none-stop from California to Paris they would be saving A LOT OF FUEL.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[nacturation]

Actually, no, it's not less likely to win the lottery, unless you only play once. You're right... I suppose my large hand waving was a tad too large!

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[enomar]

I know luck might have a lot to do with a couple 'big breaks', but the rest of time these guys had to work hard and make good decisions. There are plenty of people that work hard and never get a break, but there are also a lot of people that ignore the breaks they get or fail at taking advantage of them. Don't belittle someone else's accomplishments by calling it luck.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[kestasjk]

The one exception to this I think would be Steve Jobs - that guy could probably make fortunes several times over starting from scratch. Jobs ran into Woz, Woz made excellent computers very economically using very few chips and Jobs marketed them.

Gates surrounded himself with guys like Allen who were excellent coders and geeks, but Gates was always the one with the vision. He was an expert coder and involved himself with everything from writing legal documents to writing bootstraps and Altair emulators, and later on to giving taxing interviews to all the big project leaders to ensure they knew what they were doing as well as he knew what they were doing.
Gates saw the first computer come out and decided to get out of school and into the PC industry, the very moment it was created.

If Jobs hadn't run into Woz you can be sure we would never have heard of Jobs. Gates depended far less on chance bumping into others; he was far more determined and aggressive (for better or for worse) in carving out Microsoft's niche, and he played much more than the marketing&managerial role that Jobs has played.

If you're not familiar with the story of Gates' success I recommend "Hard Drive", which documents it (it's independent of Microsoft and Gates).

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[stonefry]

There's no such thing as bad luck. *Everybody* encounters bad luck.

So, which one is it?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[heinousjay]

A company can only push its taxes onto its customers. Where else would they get the money?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[GeckoX]

Sorry, I do get your point...it's just that I wouldn't consider it a fair comparison to compare a lifetime of striving to attain billionaire status vs playing a lottery once.

Wasn't trying to be a dick :)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that and in many cases managing finances and being aggressive. The CEO may make himself millions by taking a few bucks from everyone else's paycheck... he's not creating money. Of course, that won't get him from the "rich" to the "super-rich".

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[A Non Mouse Cowhand]

"...They had a great idea, they implemented it, and they figured out how to get paid for it."

Actually, if you read the paper they 'published' (I think it was in 1998) "The Anatomy of a Search Engine"http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html, you'll note that the search industry had already figured out how to get paid for it:

Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.

Google still hasn't moved on from the basic model of making money by attracting eyeballs with relevant search results, and then selling additional pixel space on the page to companies who want those eyeballs on their blurb. The key to their success seems to be extremely relevant results, without a great deal of blending of advertising into the default search results - they're still de-marked as separate "Sponsored Links". If I think back to the AltaVista etc days, I recall that advertisers were simply paying up to re-rank the default search results - a model that sucked then, sucks now, and is pretty much gone for now.

Back on the main topic for a moment, my personal view is that this is just more wild success going straight to the head. There's a huge number of NGO's and NPO's in the Bay Area, right around Google's headquarters, that could do far better things with a slice of that $1.3 million they pay for that runway space. To be fair though, I've no idea what charitable causes Google supports and by how much.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[pokerdad]

These days we have super wealthy for no other weather than because they know a guy from college.

This isn't even close to new; it certainly pre-dates capitalism, and probably has been true for as long as humans have used money.

What is new, is the awareness of how often those who have gotten ahead in life did so in ways that leave others wondering "Why couldn't that have happenned to me?" With each new media that has been invented, more and more information has been available to people, and amoungst all that information are ever more detailed biographies of people who once would have just been stared at in awe.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[heinousjay]

Assuming for a second your opinion is 100% legitimate (a big assumption, you've provided no backing), so what?

It's purely luck being born with drive and intelligence and capability. Should steps be taken to hold them down since they didn't earn that? Do we really need to make Harrison Bergeron come true?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[cHiphead]

Whereas in the rest of the world people hear something like that and go "hmm, ok so now like I was saying before, how am I going to put dinner on the table this week" and have more important shit to worry about than a couple of filthy rich jag-offs flaunting their money?

The very core of your argument is based on entitlement... "I want to try and become like this" presupposed that you "want what they have".

The American dream has been hijacked by corporate media and bred into the younger generations that its about getting RICH, either through hardwork and determination or luck. Whereas, the American dream, nay, the Universal dream, is simply to achieve happiness and sustenance without excessive strife.

Cheers.

*Runs off to buy a lottery ticket*

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[TooMuchToDo]

A Gulfstream V doesn't have a huge payload capacity (especially if it's fully fueled, loaded to capacity with people, AND you're putting scientific instruments on board). OTOH, their Boeing should have plenty of capacity for the largest of scientific instruments (as well as supporting flight teams).

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[demonbug]

That's an unbelievably ridiculous generalization. Anywhere outside of the few largest cities (eg. the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco area), and 200K will easily buy you a big house and an acre or perhaps two. This isn't in the middle of nowhere (with no electricity), this is most every city in the state of California with the noted exceptions. I wish. Have you ever actually looked at housing prices anywhere in California? They are high pretty much everywhere - if you can find any house for less than $200k you're lucky, and if you want land with that it is going to be considerably more (except in some very remote parts of the state).

According to this site only one county in CA has (had back in '06, anyway) an average sale price below $200k. That's for an average home - not for a large home with land. Even in remote parts of California you're looking at significantly more to get what you describe.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[ucblockhead]

How many industry transforming technologies have *you* invented?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Original quote: It's because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

That doesn't deny that they worked like crazy and were smart. Remember we're talking about making it big, not just being successful - and even there, unforseeable circumstances can make you or break you.

Why do people who instruct others to reread not do the same thing themselves?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree on why startups fail, having worked in more then a couple up to this point.

They fail because large multi-national companies take years to certify new software. Said startups just run out of money before they can get anyone to buy their software in sufficient quantity to stay afloat. In my current startup every one of the fortune 10 companies in the US is using our software, but in all likely hood we are going to go out of business this year.

Why? Because from the day we agree to the sale of $1m worth of software till the day they buy it is 3-4 years for most of these companies. First you write the software (1 - 2 years). Then you take it to the customers and they test (6 months). Next you fix any issues they have with the software, generally it is a re-architecture (1 year). Then they test again (6 months). Finally they agree to buy and you do a limited rollout, maybe 10 licenses for their technology group (6 months). After that it takes up to three more years to get the full international rollout. So if you look at this timeline you've got seven years from concept inception to actually being cash-flow positive.

None of the VCs I've meet will actually fund you that long without a firm exit strategy. Barely being cash-flow positive is not enough of an exit strategy for them. So even if the company would become profitable on a long term scale the startup is actually dead.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[amohat]

Resources are not infinite.

There are limits, and so despite some magic-wand macro-economic wacko theories, for one person to become rich (say in land or oil or water, etc) others must be deprived.

To say otherwise is silly. And no, printing more money does not change this. There are special circumstances that might seem that "the tide lifts all boats" for awhile but in the end, all told, yes it's a zero sum game.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Doctor-Optimal]

That's not Bazaar, that's Cathedral!

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[sethstorm]

Economics is not a zero-sum game. It gets quite close and when you account for ethical conduct(or the lack of it).

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

The interresting thing is that most self made millionairs, if they lost it all today would soon have it all back. Its a way of thinking not luck. Remember, you get what you expect, not what you want. Most people want a million dollars, but few actually expect to get it and put their creative minds to work to figure out how to accomplish it.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Jeremy Erwin]

Apparently the NASA Gulfstream-II is used to train pilots to land the shuttle. The Gulfstream III is described here.

The Gulfstream V's payload with maximum fuel is 726 kg. Considering that its range is 12,000 km, it will probably prove versatile enough, at least for short duration flights.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Supergood-ape]

"Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work"

That's the mating cry of the "yellow bellied loser".

Successful people don't pretend their failures are due to bad luck like you do, they make critical adjustments and try again. You complain about making it big being "99% luck" not because it is, but because you're not good enough to make it.

It's pretty sad that you're so jealous you'd ascribe to luck what you don't have the skills and talent to get for yourself.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[mfrank]

It's not investor funded. The plane was bought with their own money (likely made when they sold Google stock after the IPO). The 1.3 million a year is coming out of their own pocket too, not Google's.

As far as Warren Buffet goes, his company (Berkshire Hathaway) invested heavily in the "time share" business jet business a few years ago. That is probably what they use when they fly.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Eivind]

Actually, the world was always like that. Most places and times where *more* like that than USA in the 20th-21st century. The most common way of being well-off is simply having parents that where well-off.

The odds that you'll have your first million by 30 are a lot better if your parents are rich than if theire poor. It's not just the cash. It's living in the right neighbourhood. It's being surrounded by the right people. It is being able to afford going to the right schools. It is getting invited to the right parties. A thousand little things.

It adds up. It's possible to beat the odds and come out on top even if you start at the bottom. But it's a lot easier to stay on top if you always started out at that position.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Eivind]

Actually, *every* business carries with it the risk that you'll go bankrupt. Nothin in life is risk-free.

If we're talking investing though, the correct statement is that you have to have a positive expected future worth for something to be properly labeled an investment. It is possible, afterall, to earn a million by playing the roulette. Doesn't mean that betting on the roulette-wheel should be seen as an investment.

But even high-risk ventures can be legitimate investments, if the payoffs are worth it. A venture that has 90% chance of going bankrupt, and 10% chance of earning 100 times the initial investment is a good investment -- assuming the numbers hold up. Just as if I offered you 7 times the bet if you correctly guess how a dice will land it's smart of you to bet (assuming it really is fair and no cheating)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[TooMuchToDo]

Does that 726 kg take into account passengers/crew?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[crabpeople]

A million dollars and thus millionaire status is very attainable. Consequently, a million wont buy a hell of a lot now adays. But having said that, selling your soul into the worst field imaginable (advertising/marketing) is kind of like getting a million dollars for randomly stabbing people in the eyes. I would agree with bill hicks in encouraging him to kill himself.

I know several millionaires as well. All also have rosey, self made stories. In fact, I have never met a rich person who didn't come from "da streets". I would submit that time glosses over the luck and masages the ego into thinking life was really hard back in the day. For example, if I ever got rich, I could easily look back to a time in my early twenties when I ate canned soup every day for months completely missing the part where I had 3 square meals throughout my entire childhood.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Eivind]

It is very easy to have profits grow exponentially. Recipe:

1) Put money in the bank.

2) Wait.

The growth is exponential, the problem is that by the time you're a billionaire, you'll be long dead.

If you start with $100K, at age 30, and want to make a billion by age 50, that's equivalent to growing by a factor of 10.000 in 20 years, which requires you to make on the order of 60% profit every year, even ignoring taxes and inflation.

That's not possible without insane luck. Plain and simple. Average decently good luck will however turn the 100K into $1.5million by the time you're 60, and that's no bad either. It's not enough to be rich, but it's more than enough to enjoy a comfortable life.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[rtechie]

It's not about luck and it's not about hard work. As others have pointed out ditch diggers work hard. And while luck plays a significant part, the real secret is about social networking.

In other words, most rich people got rich because they were either born rich or did a good job schmoozing with rich people. It's not about how hard you work or what you know, it's about WHO you now. The richest people in our society are generally older white men with good social networking skills because they are in the best position to take advantage of the "old boy" networks that run everything.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

"Translated, that really means 'Of course it's about the money, you f*cktards. NASA's got enough planes. Google's got enough money. The whole researcher thing is just there to justify the deal in the newspapers.'"

Any chance you'll back up your unsubstantiated allegation with something resembling facts?

Or does an unfounded accusation against a large company genuinely merit an "insightful" mod these days?

This fucking guy did nothing but call them liars and openly accuse them of something with no evidence, and you idiots modded him insightful.

Then he threw in some flamebait at the end and you ignored it in your rush to crucify Google. You people disgust me.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[king-manic]

A land/property tax is the worst kind of tax. What you've just suggested is eliminating all private property ownership, instead leasing your property from the government.

Considering every place in the western world has some form of property tax and think your objection is extremely late.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[sethstorm]

That idea, "I want to try and become like them", is still firmly an American idea. The vinegar-pissers would be more at home in a country with socialist influences, like my Netherlands. Much as I tend to like it here, the attitude that people who made it big somehow should don't deserve it is not conducive to entrepeneurialism (not sure that's a word, but you know what I mean). In fact, it's leading to an emigration wave of even mildly financially successful people. Maybe the folks behind Jante Law were on to something.

I also find myself occasionally thinking "It's not fair", but I have a functioning brain, so I get over it. Probably not the best investment they can make, and it's showy, but hey, it's their money and they worked for it. Then they can just build their own field, and not waste taxpayer resources. The field could be demolished for housing and office space for not-so-exclusionary entities, similar to Building 26 of NCR.

Now if there was a bill that would shut Google out of it and do just that...

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Supergood-ape]

Then find some. Find some houses that meet the criteria, or admit you're talking out of your ass.

I have no idea what housing prices are in California, but others who seem to have suggested you're full of shit. Put your links where your mouth is sister.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[mav[LAG]]

That was a small price to pay for a) allowing ordinary people to buy shares in the auction instead of just institutions and b) telling the inbred and sleazy Wall Street system to go take a flying leap.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Umuri]

Citation please.

Seriously, all i am hearing is a bunch of bs and naysayers who are pulling numbers out of their butt.
Either cough up numbers or shut up. There are not that many lottery winners compared to people who work and become millionaires. Heck, if you are part of the current generation, you will probably be a millionaire at some point before you die. It's not just about money, it's about assets, which include retirement.

The first million is not hard to make, all you need is some smarts and a little hard work, and a little frugality. In fact there are many places that can give you basic guidelines that w/o playing the stock market, if you start living decently and investing a little at age 20, you can hit a million before retirement. I think it was like 2k a year at most if you only invested from 16-30.

Most people just like to complain without being realistic.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Tom]

Heck, if you are part of the current generation, you will probably be a millionaire at some point before you die. It's not just about money, it's about assets, which include retirement. Where I live, we consider someone with money, or at least liquid financial means, of > 1 mio. to be a millionaire, not everyone who owns a house and two cars, but if our definitions vary, let's shoot for the super-rich, which TFA was about anyways.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Jeremy Erwin]

I dunno. But it worked for the aurigid MAC mission

Two privately owned Gulfstream GV aircraft are made available for this mission, providing a total of 21 windows to the shower for 24 participating researchers and volunteers.

Maybe this is their plane ANy body know what the livery is supposed to look like?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting idea. Not sure what problem you think it solves, though.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Moderatbastard]

First you write the software (1 - 2 years). Then you take it to the customers and they test (6 months). Next you fix any issues they have with the software, generally it is a re-architecture (1 year).

What the heck are you writing, the sequel to Duke Nukem Forever?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Moderatbastard]

His point would appear to be "Waaaaagh! It's not FAIR!".

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Software]

To paraphrase John Belushi as Bluto Blutarski in Animal House: was it luck when the Germans invaded Pearl Harbor?

(Page and Brin went to Stanford, not MIT.)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

For some people, the American Dream is considered to some as being able to have a job to provide for their family and live without poverty, or to escape the government pressures and violence of other countries. I think the American Dream is doing very well.

As for those lucky gentlemen in Google, they deserve to relish in their spoils. They were able to take a great idea, create a solid and prosperous company, and keep in contact with the right people to get where they are. Welcome to Capitalism.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely disagree. I'd say smarts (notice smarts, not hard work) plays about 99% of the role, with luck at a meager 1%.

Luck is what puts you in a situation that allows you to capitalize on it. The problem, however, is most people are too lazy to capitalize. They cannot think outside the box, and are afraid to ask questions. It really all comes to networking, which only happens if you talk to people.

I'll give you an example: I started working for a company packing boxes to make extra money while I was in school. Box Packer was my job title. Yes it's hard work, and no, I could never make a living out of it. To most people who would get that job, Box Packer would be it. They would do their job, go home, and that would be it.

I got to talking to the guy that owned the company, learned he was transitioning to an e-commerce company. I, knowing this piece of information, and also having a web development company on the side, tried to sell website services to him. Long story short, three years later I'm now a partner in a million dollar (and growing) a year company.

Do I attribute this to luck? Partly. Luck was seeing the job posting for packing boxes, but what I did with it afterwards was all a conscious effort on my part.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[couchslug]

Sorties ARE quite expensive (JP-8 isn't cheap), so that probably does work out to be a bargain for NASA.
Just because it's a government agency doesn't make it flush with cash at all levels.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation.

I bet you're a wage-slave, because off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen things one man or woman could do that would be worth more than a few billion dollars (or a dollar per person in the world).

I bet if you try thinking a little harder, you can think of what YOU could do that would be worth a YEAR of work to every person on Earth. Yes, every person on Earth would gladly work a year to have what YOU could give them - and if you think for just a little while, you too can think of half a dozen things that this could be.

Half a dozen!

Now, I'm not saying you are in a position to actually work to produce those things. I'm just saying your statement "Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation." is utter bullshit.

The World GDP per capita is $10,200.

"World GDP - Per Capita (PPP): $10,200 (2006 Est.)"

There are 6.6 billion people in the world World Population: 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.)

So, that means, if you WORKED for something worth A YEAR'S work to everyone (or, in the course of a 36-year career, 1/36th of a year's paycheck, ie one third of a month out of the year) then that would be worth 6.6 * $10200 = 67.32 trillion U.S. dollars to the world.

6.6 billion * 10 200 U.S. dollars = 67.32 trillion U.S. dollars

That's worth 67.32 trillion U.S. dollars. 2007 U.S. dollars.

Let's say you're very modest, and would bust your ASS for just 9% of what you're giving the world, the same as a Hollywood agent takes. That means you accept a paltry $6.03 trillion.

I can think off of the top of my head of half a dozen things you can do that is worth $67.32 trillion dollars to the world and for which $6.03 trillino dollars compensation is downright humble. Think a little bit and I'm sure you can think of a few yourself that are worth several billion. It doesn't mean you'll do it, maybe you're happy making $17-$25 dollars per hour forty hours a week, never trying to give the world ANYTHING.

But don't act like it's absurd.

Here's a challenge. Think about it hard for fifteen minutes, drink a strong coffee first, and then reply that you still believe
"There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation."

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Guppy06]

"Similarly, for every gazillionaire who was in the right place at the right time and capitalized, there are 99 people who had similar opportunities and did not make anything of them."

Doubtful; wealth begets wealth. 99 missed opportunities for more money, perhaps, but not 99 more individuals given opportunities.

"And for other factors, like knowing the right people, we can see that this does not always make for a complete success..."

This isn't about success so much as opportunity. One need not succeed even with the right Rolodex, but one will likely not have the opportunity to try without it.

"Because circumstances are always changing, there is no perfect balance of these elements which can be pre-defined, so there is no absolute guarantee of becoming a gazillionaire."

Oh, it's easy enough to hazard a guess at the balance: resources, networking, insight, luck, motivation, and hard work, in that order. With resources, people will come to you, making networking a non-issue. Members of your network can provide insight where yours is lacking, which is necessary in recognizing that you have an opportunity to roll the dice. Only after you have what you need and who you need, recognize an opportunity and decide that you want to take it does "hard work" become an issue, and by that point it tends to be fait accompli (hence the 99:1 ratio bandied about). I'd also propose that each factor is an order of magnitude more important than the next, as this would fit the observed data of tens of millions of working poor who struggle to make ends meet versus a paucity of vapid heiresses who never seem to be able to run out of money (a situation helped by keeping wages of the employees of the family business low).

Some days it's hard to tell the difference between socialism and plain ol' cynicism.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[bennomatic]

Doubtful; wealth begets wealth. 99 missed opportunities for more money, perhaps, but not 99 more individuals given opportunities.

I don't know if I agree. You know the story about how Gary Killdall skipped a meeting with Gates and IBM to discuss licensing QDOS in order to go surfing, and Gates, pissed at being flaked on, capitalized by buying it outright for $25K, making a HUGE killing? GK had a huge opportunity and didn't recognize it or chose not to take it, for whatever reason. I'm sure there are lots and lots of stories like that, on varying levels.

Maybe 1 to 99 is incorrect, but chances are that wherever one person has HUUUGE success, there are at least a handful of people who have just barely missed the boat.

Oh, it's easy enough to hazard a guess at the balance:

I agree in broad strokes with your statement, but since not all of these attributes are available to all people (i.e. resources) some try to find a formula where if you plunk down X amount of work and Y amount of networking, you're guaranteed to win. Since every situation is different, the threshold of a given attribute in combination of others required to get a win is difficult to predict.

Heck, even with all the resources in the world, it's still possible to F things up. I mean, couldn't Microsoft have done anything better than the Zune? The Zune might be a fine music player, but they of all companies have to understand that in order to tangibly change a firmly entrenched market, they've got to come up with something ground breaking. Brown and semi social are just not going to do it.

this would fit the observed data of tens of millions of working poor who struggle to make ends meet

Yup. Ronald Reagan justified his tax cuts saying that a rising tide carries all boats, and someone--I wish I could remember who--responded something on the order of, "not the ones that are below water".

There is an issue of thresholds in our society. I agree with you that once you get to a certain point, it's hard not to do well, but it's extremely hard to get to that point. That's why I think we should tax the hell out of those bastards. You made 100 million dollars this year? 90% goes to taxes to pay for social services. Don't like it? Pay your employees better and take a smaller cut for yourself. Or donate to causes you believe in. Or something.

But I've gotten off-track here. Anyway, if you're interested in discussing the merits of theoretical capitolism vs. socialism, and both of those versus American captialism and European socialism, I'm happy to engage. I've got opinions which, while strong, are open to discussion.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[rossifer]

Looks like you don't quite understand what "real estate" actually is. You can never own land in the same way that you own a sandwich or a gun. Sovereign nations possess land, and make the rights to use that land (for construction, storage, residence, etc.) available to people*. This arrangement is sometimes called ownership, but in reality, that word is being improperly (and sometimes dangerously) used.

These real estate rights that you have exclude others from simultaneously exercising the same rights, are mostly transferable, and not only cost money to acquire, but cost money to keep. In the form of property taxes. Fail to pay those taxes and the rights will be revoked. You'll be kicked off "your land" by the actual owner, the government.

This is also how forced easements and most eminent domain seizures happen. In most states, if the only way from the road to my property is through your property, I can go to the government and get permission to make an access road right through your property. Just because you own development rights to that land doesn't mean that you own exclusive rights to that land. No matter what terms are in common use, people don't own real estate, and never will. Land is a fundamentally different kind of property from other things.

When people forget this, or choose not to admit it, you end up with another bunch of kooky separatists in Montana locked up in four trailer homes pretending that they can keep the federales off "their land". It just ain't so.

Regards,
Ross

* person and people are funny terms, too. Their legal meaning is substantially different from what you and I mean when we say "people" or "a person".

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[msouth]

If Jobs hadn't run into Woz you can be sure we would never have heard of Jobs.

You can probably also be sure we would never have heard of Woz.

But I would say that it's very, very hard to do "what if" with any level of certainty. What if the cpm (punctuate to taste) people hadn't been so unsure about signing over everything to ibm, which sent them looking for someone who would give up everything? Without that one break Gates might have not had the position to be able to do what he did (and I'm not denying that he did what he did well). It's just very, very hard to say what would have happened.

Without the anti-war media we might have a prosperous, happy South Viet Nam. But it's really hard to say. There are many, many stories where one little thing happened that tipped the scales and started a landslide of consequences (or maybe that stuff was probably going to happen anyway).

One thing I can say, though, is that I think the people who act like "if you work hard you can be a billionaire just like these guys" are in fact fooling themselves. Sometimes the better products fail, sometimes the harder workers just happen to be working in the wrong direction, sometimes someone like Microsoft engages in unfair/illegal business practices and kills your business model. I'm not saying that you shouldn't work hard, but I think we have to acknowledge the fact that outliers are outliers, and they are the hardest to model.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for the reading tip (what does your parenthetical statement "it's independent of Microsoft and Gates" mean? I can't parse it.)

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how things are in the States, but in the Netherlands, (corporate profit tax + tax you pay on your gains as a shareholder) highest income tax bracket for individuals, so if you earn your money through your company's profits you come out ahead.

If you don't like it, make your company pay you a salary. You'll pay income taxes, but the salary is deductible from the corporate profit tax, which you won't pay then over that amount.

No double taxation, therefore, unless you mean you twice pay less than half.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

If you are within two hours of either of those places, get prepared to pay a lot more than that for "a big house and an acre or perhaps two".

First of all, the point was that those places make up a tiny fraction of California, and most places, even large cities, aren't remotely as bad (nor within 2 hours drive).

However, I am well within a 1 hour drive of much of Los Angeles, and just recently sold my previous house on a 1 acre lot for $150,000, just before the housing bubble burst. It's very, very easy to find homes in the area for much less.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

I believe that people should pay their taxes without the finaggling and that when they don't they cheat society from their tax money. Therefore the above posters assertion that the use of the airfield isn't being done with taxpayers money is an assertion I believe to be incorrect thanks to Google's games when it comes to taxes.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

Have you ever actually looked at housing prices anywhere in California?

I've bought and sold two homes within the past 2 years. You, however, seem to know nothing of housing prices, outside of LA/SF.

if you can find any house for less than $200k you're lucky,

That's complete nonsense. Median price means very little. You can have half the houses selling for $50,000, and the other half selling for $500,000, and the median price will be apparently high, but the $50,000 homes still exist. With a large number of relatively rich people in California, that's very much the case.

And even more, the median housing prices are being averaged out over such huge counties, with both smaller and very large cities included, heavily biases the numbers towards the large cities with high prices. eg. See San Bernardino county, with ridiculously high housing prices in Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino, Ontario, etc. and an extremely large number of people and homes in that area, despite homes in most the rest of the county being extremely inexpensive.

and if you want land with that it is going to be considerably more

That's also nonsense. This isn't LA/SF. Once you get outside the biggest cities, you practically can't buy a house without 1/4 acre or so, and most have significantly more. Maybe right on Main St. houses won't have much land, but everywhere else, it's very cheap.

You need to actually go look at housing prices before making idiotic assertions. It's clear you've lived in SF/LA your entire life (or perhaps don't live in the state at all).

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

The point is that reaching the heights of "success" that the Google founders have isn't possible for the majority of people no matter how much they try. So the thought "I'm going to become like them" is a futile and unrealistic one for the majority of people.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[speaker of the truth]

You bet I do everything legally possible to avoid taxation As the anonymous coward said, this isn't necessary.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for the reading tip (what does your parenthetical statement "it's independent of Microsoft and Gates" mean? I can't parse it.)

It must mean that it's written by an outsider, not a chum of them.. i.e. it's warts and all.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Stormcrow309]

a) Ordinary people can buy into any IPO. b) Actually the SEC protects us from the inbred and sleazy Wall Street system. Remember, not wanting to make normal filings is a BAD and EVIL thing.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as bad luck. *Everybody* encounters bad luck. There is only lack of preparation for disaster and lack for foresight for consequences.

Cute phrasing, total bullshit.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[TechForensics]

Salaries are deductible to the corporation and it does not pay tax on them. Corporate tax is on retained earnings. If you pay out all above your cost of doing business in salaries, the corporation pays only a nominal minimum tax.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

The term "hard work" is confusing. Most people equate that with... well... hard work. By that I mean long hours, heaps of study, meetings galore, whatever, but lots of it and no fun.

I heard this one somewhere a while ago: "work smarter not harder".

Keep in mind, "smart work" != luck.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[Mista2]

The main reason I still use google is that the search results usually come up with what I was looking for, not what some advertiser wants to sell me. Sometimes I'm still caught by surprise on a fresh IE7 install using its search window, trying to work out why the results of the searches I'm making suck, until I remember to change the default search engine. It's not a tiny difference, it is a big difference. Go google!. Do I think they should have the stranglehold on the worlds information, I hope not. That much power is too much even for an organisation that tries to be "not evil"

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jadavis]

the point was that those places make up a tiny fraction of California

But they make up a large fraction of the population, and a large fraction of the total dwellings.

However, I am well within a 1 hour drive of much of Los Angeles, and just recently sold my previous house on a 1 acre lot for $150,000

So, you can commute to/from downtown LA during rush hour in less than 60 minutes, and you live on one acre, and it's only worth $150k?

By "within an hour of" I didn't mean 60 miles from the outskirts of the greater metropolitan area.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[protohiro1]

Oh give me a break. Are you seeing more in this than there is? The guy complained about commercial airlines and lamented that it must be nice to have a private jet. He didn't ask to be given one.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

But they make up a large fraction of the population, and a large fraction of the total dwellings.

Yes, well if you ONLY want to talk about SF/LA, then say so. Don't say "California" to refer to just those two areas, and more than that, definitely don't IGNORE the fact that I specifically excluded those areas, to talk about property values in the rest of the state.

So, you can commute to/from downtown LA during rush hour in less than 60 minutes, and you live on one acre, and it's only worth $150k?

Downtown L.A., during rush hour, in 60 minutes... No. But I would make it very easily under your "2 hour" mark.

And it doesn't sound like you've been to L.A. The "outskirts" of L.A. happen to include huge cities like San Bernardino and Riverside.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jadavis]

http://www.realestateabc.com/graphs/calmedian.htm

I don't see how you can say that an acre or two and a big house for $200k is representative of California with median home prices what they are. I certainly don't think it's representative of the people in California.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[shaitand]

'Salaries are deductible to the corporation and it does not pay tax on them. Corporate tax is on retained earnings. If you pay out all above your cost of doing business in salaries, the corporation pays only a nominal minimum tax.'

It's not that simple. At the end of each year you figure out the optimal amount to pay as salary vs the amount paid as dividends but the IRS puts a percentage cap on it to prevent you from avoiding corporate tax on all of it. Furthermore, why should you have to pay taxes on money that is still invested in your business? You haven't actually made any profit until you pay yourself.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

Already explained this point in detail:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=296423&cid=20597657

Furthermore, when I was growing up, we lived in a medium sized $40,000 house on half an acre... Which just happened to be directly across the street (overlooking the tennis court) from Roy Rogers'/Dale Evan's multi-million dollar home. The ridiculously rich with extravagant homes may push the average price up, but that doesn't change the facts that low priced homes are out there. In fact it's pretty patently ridiculous to claim housing prices in CA are all hundreds of thousands of dollars, where there is such an unimaginably huge section of completely and totally land all across it. High prices demand scarcity, and there is sure no lack of land in CA... just in SF/LA.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

Oops:
totally EMPTY land all across it.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[heinousjay]

So? I don't get why that's a problem. Is it wrong to have dreams, or is it wrong that they don't all come true?

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[bobcote]

The reason for these cynical comment is not that rich guys are rich, but because they are using their money to buy privileges that should not be for sale, such as the use of a military airstrip. Such use of ones money may be construed by some as "evil"

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[cnystrom]

The solutiuon is simple: The FairTax ( http://www.fairtax.org/ ).

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[TechForensics]

Real good reason to go Subchapter S. I can only wonder why the GP poster did not.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jadavis]

The ridiculously rich with extravagant homes may push the average price up, but that doesn't change the facts that low priced homes are out there.

The median is not the mean. "Rediculously rich" people don't drive up the median anything at all.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

Fine, fine... Not relevant. My mistake. However, everything else I said stands.

A very large number of relatively rich people in CA does drive up the median.

Averaging prices across large areas that include both both very big cities with expensive housing and less dense, less expensive areas does drive up the median.

Lot size (within reason) is not a strong factor in determining a home's price.

etc. etc.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[jadavis]

A very large number of relatively rich people in CA does drive up the median.

The reason median is a useful statistic is because it represents an "average" (you might say "typical") player within the group. If your argument is that a "typical" Californian home purchaser paid $200k, then I think the median of ~$450k refutes that.

You seem to be measuring in kind of a strange way (not wrong, just not a number that most people deal with). What it seems to me that you mean is: if you throw a dart at a map of California, and buy an house on an acre there, how much will it cost? If that's the question you're asking, I'm willing to believe your numbers.

Re:Larry's had that for a while

[evilviper]

If your argument is that a "typical" Californian home purchaser paid $200k, then I think the median of ~$450k refutes that.

I've made no arguments about what is typical. In fact I'm specifically excluding the majority, by only talking about the areas outside of SF/LA, where there are far fewer people.

not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

they dont seem to care about their carbon footprint, i dont see that going hand in hand with being not evil.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[wwwrench]

Yeah, I agree. Even a singleeconomy ticket on a transatlantic flight uses about a ton of CO2, which is far far more than you should be using all year for all your needs. Once the effects of high altitute emmission of the CO2 is taken into effect, the airline industry contributes 13% of our emmissions here in the U.K. and it is the fastest growing source of emmissions, effectively cancelling out all our other efforts. What is more, the airline industry is heavily subsidised, and jet fuel is not taxed. Emmissions from airlines are not even included in our EU limits here. We just had a Camp for Climate Action here at Heathrow protesting the expansion of the airport. Private jet flyers and short haul flights should just be stopped completely, there is absolutely no reason for them, and it will kill people, plain and simple.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Gordonjcp]

Well, let's compare - a Boeing 767-200 burns (on average) about 5 tonnes of fuel per hour, or about 1500 gallons of Jet A-1. That would be enough to run my (not terribly fuel-efficient) car for around 50,000 miles.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[JonathanBoyd]

Private jet flyers and short haul flights should just be stopped completely, there is absolutely no reason for them, and it will kill people, plain and simple.

That's just being silly. There are reasons. You may not think they're good enough, but it doesn't stop them being reasons. For example, flights from Belfast to London could be considered short haul as they're round about an hour, but there is nothing else that can get you there in a comparable period of time because of the Irish Sea. Short haul flights are very useful for students, businessmen and people who have friends on the other side of the Irish Sea.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[AndyboyH]

I bet your car can't carry 290 people though.

http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=103

In all fairness though, I bet their jet rarely carries more than 10-20 people.

For such a technologically advanced company as Google - can they not apply technology to meetings and avoid world travel (i.e. teleconferencing, whatever) rather than using a jet?

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[JoelKatz]

"Private jet flyers and short haul flights should just be stopped completely, there is absolutely no reason for them, and it will kill people, plain and simple."

Absolutely! Also, skiing and car racing. There's simply no reason for these things, and they kill people.

Oh, also driving. I mean, you can always walk or ride a bicycle. No reason to drive, even though it's more convenient. Heck, you can live closer to where you work.

Perhaps people should have to prove that their need to drive someplace outweighs the harm done before they're allowed to start their car.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

"they dont seem to care about their carbon footprint, i dont see that going hand in hand with being not evil."

Man the requirements for being evil is really slack now.

I remember when you used to have to have a white cat and wear a metal gloves, or build a "laser" on the moon...

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[evilviper]

Fools like you give environmentalists a bad name.

Even a singleeconomy ticket on a transatlantic flight uses about a ton of CO2, which is far far more than you should be using all year for all your needs.

Right... People shouldn't be allowed to travel. No.

Your alternative option is what? Row a canoe across? If not for airplanes, expect people to travel on big, heavy, inefficient cruise ships that are sure to pollute even more.

Once the effects of high altitute emmission of the CO2 is taken into effect, the airline industry contributes 13% of our emmissions here in the U.K.

And how much of that is greenhouse effect is canceled out by the cooling effect of contrails?

Private jet flyers and short haul flights should just be stopped completely, there is absolutely no reason for them, and it will kill people, plain and simple.

That's bull. Sea levels have risen before, and significant numbers of people didn't die from it. There's no reason to believe slightly faster rise will be any different.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[revengebomber]

Pfft. How can you have a footprint if you're flying? Answer that one, Mr. Science.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Gordonjcp]

I can carry nine people ;-)

Ok, continue the comparison - 1500 gallons of fuel to carry 290 people around 570 miles at a 767's average cruising speed gives us about 165,300 person-miles.
Let's assume I leave the rearmost seats alone and have a five-person configuration plus some luggage - that's still 250,000 person-miles albeit at around 1/6 the average speed.

Whichever way you slice it, it's more juice than I'm going to burn in two years.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely!

What a shame it is that Global Warming has just been found to be an artifact of badly maintained surface weather stations. See Climate Audit. The first figures have just come in, and they're wondering how to present them to the world.

Looks like the Global Warming scare is well and truly over!

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[asc99c]

Unfortunately all your counterpoints are pretty arguable also. There was no argument for stopping transatlantic flights - only pointing out the implications of taking one. The cooling effects of contrails are not yet understood - studies have differed in opinion as to whether they warm or cool the earth - currently Wikipedia says they have a warming effect which is my recollection of the balance of opinion. And as for causing deaths, events made more likely by climate change are already causing deaths.

The science of climate change is no longer under debate in peer-reviewed articles. The predictions of global warming are built on firm theory and well understood mechanisms. They are well supported by measurements of the increasing global temperature. It's pretty clear that the ice caps are going to melt and raise sea levels, at the current rate.

A lot of people live in fixed coastal cities. When the sea levels rise, they'll build dams to keep the cities safe. I'd certainly not bet that every one of these dams will hold. There's plenty of other ways that people can die as a result of climate change anyway.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I agree. Even a singleeconomy ticket on a transatlantic flight uses about a ton of CO2, which is far far more than you should be using all year for all your needs.

You are aware that breathing produces a couple Kilos a day of CO2, right? Say, a fair fraction of a ton of CO2 a year just to keep you alive. (figures vary, depending on source, between just under 1 and a bit over 2 Kg per day for an average human)

So unless YOUR needs consist of laying in the sun and photosynthesizing like a plant, you're basically pulling numbers out of your ass.

We can all dig being kind to the environment, but at least try and think before you speak, mmmkay?

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[UbuntuDupe]

Actually, it doesn't matter how much CO2 you emit, as long as you sink out a sufficient amount that your *net* CO2 emissions are sufficiently low. So really, instead of trying to come up with a laundry list of things people can't do because it's (in your opinion) wasteful, all that's really needed is a carbon tax sufficient to pay for the costs of sinking the emitted CO2.

Wait -- that's under the assumption that you're actually interested in protecting the earth, and not merely coming up with the most plausible pretense for banning behaviors you don't like.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[evilviper]

When the sea levels rise, they'll build dams to keep the cities safe.

No they won't. With few exceptions, they will move, to higher ground.

People that haven't been living behind a levy, certainly won't want to see one going up in front of them, destroying their view, and the beach.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[teslatug]

They seem to make up for it a little by global cooling due to the jet trails they leave behind. The constant cloud created around where air traffic is dense cools by a few degrees (according to someone I saw on TV who studied it during the post September 11, 2001 days when no airplanes were flying). I don't know which effect is more frighting.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

> but there is nothing else that can get you there in a
> comparable period of time because of the Irish Sea.

Well I live in Belfast and to get to London I take
the HSS ferry to Stranraer and the overnight sleeper
train down to Euston. I arrive fresh and ready for
work and my carbon footprint is a fraction of that for
flying. Plus, I take my bicycle to get around London.

There is only ``nothing else'' if you only live for the
minute. Plan ahead and there are plenty of alternatives.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[ErikZ]

This is the only time it's been painful not to have mod points.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

They could do like Algore does with his 20X energy burning house, and buy carbon offset credits from themselves.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[zippthorne]

Though neither you, nor your car are ever at full capacity, the plane is going to be fuller in general. An airliner is going to average over 60% for the simple reason that if it averages below that, they'd either switch to a smaller plane or fewer flights for that route.

You're going to average less than 40%. Probably quite close to 20%.

But it all goes out the window for considering private 767s, of course. There's no way that it'd be outfitted as a commercial airliner with full seating capacity for use as a corporate jet. I'll bet it has closer to 30 seats and resembles a luxury yacht more than anything else.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Guanine]

a single economy ticket on a transatlantic flight uses about a ton of CO2

This is Slashdot - why hasn't anyone called BS on this yet? One ton? Per passenger? The source of this carbon has to be the fuel... which means the commenter is implying a plane carries over 200 TONS OF FUEL converted directly into CO2. This is wrong. Judging from this document, a large jetliner could carry 40 short tons of fuel at the most, all of which does not produce CO2 on anything like a pound for pound basis. CO2 is most definitely emitted in non-negligible quantities - but please provide some facts.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[UbuntuDupe]

Not to defend an environmentalist talking point, but...

I think the above claim *really* means to say that the exhaust contains one ton of CO2 per person. But its exhaust doesn't merely come from what's on the airplane. In its combustion process, it takes O2 from the atmosphere, and combines it with the C in the fuel. (C + O2 -> CO2) So that figure includes not just stuff in the fuel tank, but also O2 that was taken from the atmosphere and then returned in the form of CO2. The fact that the fuel tank can't carry that mass, doesn't mean it can't emit that much CO2.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[vrai]

Bicycles are constructed of rubber, plastic, metals and composite materials. The mining, refinement and production of said materials, combined with the construction of the bicycle produce unacceptable levels of pollution. Clearly these machines of death should be banned; if you want to get somewhere you can run or walk.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Running shoes are constructed of rubber, plastic, metals and composite materials. The mining, refinement and production of said materials, combined with the construction of the running shoes produce unacceptable levels of pollution. Clearly these shoes of death should be banned; if you want to get somewhere give up being green.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[TooMuchToDo]

How about someone keeps commuting if they want to via [insert-high-carbon-output-high-speed-transit-method-here] to save their valuable time, and simply offsets the carbon output with a carbon credit?

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[JonathanBoyd]

The trouble is that it takes a lot longer. Planning ahead doesn't change the journey times and when you have limited time available, flying is far and away the better option. I'd also like to see you get around London on a bike with a suitcase and camera bag/laptop.

As it stands, increasing the price of short haul flights disproportionately affects people living over here (or wanting to travel here from Great Britain for that matter) and we're one of the poorest regions of the country already! Now, if someone built a tunnel under the Irish and found a way to make it both cheap and economically viable (not much chance, I know) and you could get a train from Belfast across, then I wouldn't have any case for objecting to flights going up in price. In fact, I think I'd enjoy a train journey from Belfast to London more than a flight, given the absence of waiting in queues, more comfortable seating and not having to spend have the journey with electronic equipment switched off.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[demonbug]

But it all goes out the window for considering private 767s, of course. There's no way that it'd be outfitted as a commercial airliner with full seating capacity for use as a corporate jet. I'll bet it has closer to 30 seats and resembles a luxury yacht more than anything else. 50 seats according to that article or another, iirc.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[rossz]

When the leaders of the global warming craze start acting like it's a problem, then I might pay attention. At the moment, however, they are too busy flying around the world spreading their gospel to bother acting like it's a problem.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Don853]

Your car seats 9 and averages 33mpg going 95mph? Wow, I want one. :)

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[RESPAWN]

OK, so how often do you actually drive around with 9 people in your large van/SUV/people carrier? If you're that worried about fuel savings, why not trade in your large vehicle and get a smaller, more fuel efficient car. I'll bet that a Prius would carry your typical five people plus luggage pretty easily.

Leaving that aside, could you drive your people carrier to, say, the North Pole. (OK, these guys did it so that's a bad example.) Could you drive your car to, say, Japan?

Whichever way you slice it, it's more juice than I'm going to burn in two years. Bet you could burn less in a Civic Hybrid.

C'mon! Either be a true environmentalist or just willingly admit that you're a red-blooded American who likes his large vehicles just like the rest of us. I'll bet you'd have your own jet too, if you could afford it. Or do you just plan to never venture outside of North and/or South America in your lifetime?

I guess we could save some C02 by reverting to sailing ships. They are green, but they also travel at about 1/6th the speed of your car.

I say, enjoy your large vehicle and don't worry about how much you or anybody else is polluting. That's what our kids are for!

(For the record, I drive a Civic that averages about 33 mpg during regular driving. I don't drive it to save on emissions, though. I drive it because I'm cheap.)

***Note: for any mods with a stick, this post was mostly meant in jest. Mod me down if you want -- I've got the karma to burn -- but I'd also suggest reviewing the guidlines where they suggest not modding down somebody just because you don't agree with them. :-D

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[sethstorm]

Also, skiing I believe there would be someone that might take issue. ;)

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[sethstorm]

They'd make Al Gore look saintly clean given their record on China.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[RealGrouchy]

Not only that, but the airfield only brings them four miles away from their office. They still require a seven-minute drive to the Googleplex (okay, okay, I know the average US commute is over a masochistic half an hour each way).

My daily commute is a quarter that distance.

- RG>

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Gordonjcp]

OK, so how often do you actually drive around with 9 people in your large van/SUV/people carrier?

I said car, I mean car. It's a fairly large car, a Citroën CX Familiale. Mine actually has eight, not nine seats, but it's a simple matter to change rear benches.

Bet you could burn less in a Civic Hybrid.

Doubt it. Hybrids are pathetically thirsty, and so far only available with wheezy gutless petrol engines. My now-nearly-25-years-old engine will run on anything oily and runny enough to pour, from Jet-A1 to waste fryer oil. Run it on veg oil, and you are entirely carbon-neutral. Furthermore, your hybrid will take far more energy to make that it (or any other car) will ever consume in its operational lifespan.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Gordonjcp]

Your car seats 9 and averages 33mpg going 95mph? Wow, I want one. :)

Big old diesel Citroën. You didn't really get them in the US, or indeed many other French cars. That's a pity, because they've been making the best diesel-engined cars for a very long time.

Do you think it's just co-incidence that the only practical diesel piston engine to be fitted to light aircraft is the PSA XUD, as fitted to Peugeots, Renaults, Citroëns and Volvos for very nearly 20 years now?

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[martinX]

On July 31st The Climate Group convened a 'Climate and Energy Roundtable' bringing together 14 CEOs, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to discuss how business and government could accelerate the deployment of clean energy and clean technologies and facilitate the necessary transition to a low carbon economy. With BP as the host, the historic event took place in a large tent cooled using biodiesel fuel at a BP facility at the Port of Long Beach.

Those seated at the table included Lord Browne, BP; Chad Holliday, DuPont; Tom King, PG Richard Branson, Virgin; California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, Mike Morris, AEP; Sergey Brin, Google; and James Murdoch, British Sky Broadcasting.

http://knowledge.allianz.com/nopi_downloads/downloads/Leadership%20Statement%20on%20Climate%20Action.pdf

Just another hypocrite.

Personally, I'm an Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptic, but I see this as an opportunity for the little guy to get screwed again. Let's just wait for a 10% carbon tax to go on plane tickets. Private planes - no chance of a tax there...

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[isorox]

they dont seem to care about their carbon footprint, i dont see that going hand in hand with being not evil.

Of course they do. They used to drive 20 miles to the airport, they now drive 4, it's a shorter trip, therefore saving the planet.

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[RESPAWN]

First of all, let me say that I love old Citroen's. I covet old SMs, but am afriad to actually own a car with a hydropneumatic suspension. You don't see a lot of Citroens in the US, and I don't think I've ever seen one at all anywhere near where I live now. Which brings up another question: are you in the US? I did a quick Google search, but couldn't really find any information as to whether or not that particular model was ever imported here. Whether you are or aren't, I do apologize for making the assumption that you were the typical American who would never be caught dead driving an estate and for whom 9 passengers typically means Minivan, SUV, or Crossover.

To get even more off topic and assuming that you're in Europe, have you considered upgrading to a new C6? I really appreciate the looks of that car and wish that it were imported to the US.

Getting back on topic...

Out of curiosity, what kind of mileage do you actually get in your CX? I tend to think that my (non-hybrid, mind you) Civic is on the upper range of things with a regular-driving average of ~33mpg. On long freeway trips I'll see 38 - 39.

Also, how much hydraulic fluid do you use every year? ;)

Re:not evil? how about global warming?

[Gordonjcp]

covet old SMs, but am afriad to actually own a car with a hydropneumatic suspension.

The suspension is easy. I've only ever once had a serious hydraulic problem. Far more common is the bits that *always* go in car suspension, like ball joints. It's worth noting that unlike most cars, older Cits use taper roller bearings as suspension pivots instead of rubber bushes, giving a surprisingly taut ride considering the soft springing. With an SM, I'd live in fear of the timing chains rather than the hydraulics.

You don't see a lot of Citroens in the US, and I don't think I've ever seen one at all anywhere near where I live now.

There were a few hundred CXes imported, and a couple of dozen XMs. There were quite a few DSes and 2CVs too. I don't think there were any (or more than a handful of) BXes, Xantias or anything newer. I'm not in the US.

To get even more off topic and assuming that you're in Europe, have you considered upgrading to a new C6?

Maybe. In a year or two when the price comes down ;-)

Out of curiosity, what kind of mileage do you actually get in your CX?

For the diesel (it's actually sold now, but when I had it), about 35mpg at normal motorway speeds (say averaging 85-90mph). For the Series 1 2.4l petrol break, about 25mpg but I think the thirstymatic gearbox has quite an impact on that. For the Series 2 (1988) 2.2 litre petrol saloon, about 32mpg at a steady 85mph. All gallons are UK gallons (4.5 litres), not US gallons. I change the hydraulic fluid about once a year in each car, which is about 4 litres apiece. It's thin enough to run a diesel engine on; disposal isn't a problem.

Question

[eclectro]

So the experiments they are gonna do for NASA, are they with the nurses or on the nurses??

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

And if it involves the nurses' landing strips, sign me up.

Re:Question

[ion]

What if it involves ncurses?

Re:Question

[martin-boundary]

Technically, here's no "up" or "down" in space... Uhm, never mind, it seems that sex in NASA vehicles is an urban myth... But now I have a mental picture of Adam and Jamie strapping in the next shuttle to test it :(

Re:Question

[Seraphim_72]

OK, I might be having a mental break, but still. If I was shot into space with a member of the opposite sex I would certainly sit my spouse down and have a heart to heart. A spouse might be the jealous type but I hope they are a logical being. To be the first - or any person to have sex in space??? How could you not?

Sera

Money! Money! Money!

[superash]

Money can buy anything! Such is the pathetic state in this world right now! Or was it like this always?

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[Carewolf]

Well usually money gains access to stuff when you spend them. The news is that now a days you get free stuff from the federal governement if you have enough money, and not just trinkets, but free stuff in the order of $200,000,000 dollars a year.

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[Silver Sloth]

Well usually money gains access to stuff when you spend them. Not if you have enough of it. Not only does money always fall on the biggest pile but the super rich have always enjoyed freebees that us mere mortals can only (wet) dream of.

As an example from history, when Queen Elizabeth the 1st of England went on her travels it was expected that the local gentry would provide accomadation for free. This was a double edged sword for the provider - staying in the queen's good books was important but putting her up could cost as much as six month's worth of the typical income for the provider. So the queen, the richest person in the land, was getting freebee board and lodge, and at the highest posible level.

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was $200,000, not 200 millions. There is a difference.

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[_Shad0w_]

Actually, historically speaking, English monarchs typically weren't all that rich, or at least didn't have much in the way of what we would call disposable income. Everything they needed to pay for came out of the royal treasury - that included paying for things like ships and armies, as well as their own personal expenses.

The state of Pennsylvania exists because Charles II needed to pay back a large debt owed to William Penn's father (Admiral Penn) - the only way he could pay for it was by forking over a huge amount of land. He'd never be able to raise the money to pay it back.

Elizabeth II, on the other hand, is loaded. Mostly because of the amount of land she privately holds (as opposed to holds by right of being the crown).

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[Notquitecajun]

Not just that, but it was a GREAT way to get at an opponent...go crash with them for a bit, and you could hamper their incomes.

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why mod this informative? It completely misunderstands the nature of the feudal contract. Mind you, Americans have never understood the concept anyway!

feudalism is a way of organising a warrior band so that you can hold large areas of land - up to country size.

It works through a set of allegiances. You join a band and owe the leader. He then leads you in battle, wins some land, and splits it out between you to run, as his vassals. In theory, he owns all of it, but you run it for him.

He may pay fealty to another leader, in which case that leader becomes top dog, and owns everything. Of course, he would only do that if together they were likely to own more land than individually.

This hierarchical system operates all the way up the tree, with everyone running things on behalf of a local leader, and the local leaders running things on behalf of the national leader, who 'owns' everything. It's the basis behind most successful organisation - even the US runs something like this.

In the UK the Queen, in theory, owns everything. All UK subjects own land, not absolutely, but as 'freehold' from the Crown. But that doesn't mean the Crown is unbelievably wealthy in practice. It is all administered by other people, who take the profit. The Queen happens to be a rich person in her own right, but equally well she could be poor, and 'owning' all of Britain would not make her rich in reality.

In earlier times wars were paid for personaly by the Crown, who then tried to get money back through the war, and from the Dukes. Eventually this turned into a system of taxes, which kicked off the Civil War in 1625, and which the US pretended to complain about in 1776 (late, as usual). But the taxes would never be FOR the Crown, they would always be for a state purpose.

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[Silver Sloth]

My history is a little rusty - it's forty odd (very odd) years since I was in school but...

The feudal system had long broken down by the time of QE1, and QE2 does not own everything either in theory or in practice.

The English Civil War was not about taxes but about whether Parliament or the Monarchy had ultimate power.

It doesn't detract from my original point which is that the super rich tend to get given things by those who wish their patronage. At one point I worked in the entertainment industry and, although this has more to do with fame, rather than wealth, the bigger the star, the less they paid.

Re:Money! Money! Money!

[mikee805]

the super rich have always enjoyed freebees that us mere mortals can only (wet) dream of. I heard an interview with Donald Trump saying that he never carries cash and has never had the need to pay for anything. If it ever came up would not be able to. He then went to say that he has had dinners for dozens people without paying a check. Just boggles the mind.

all they need now ...

[weighn]

is a green-light passage for their bomb-proof motorcade and they can join APEC ... cop THAT India!

Link and Driving Directions

[giafly]

Link

Start address: 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
End address: 37.414243, -122.048793

Start at: 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

1. Head west on Amphitheatre Pkwy toward Garcia Ave - 0.6 mi
2. Turn left to merge onto US-101 S toward San Jose - 1.8 mi
3. Take exit 398A for Moffett Blvd toward NASA Pkwy - 0.1 mi
4. Turn right at Moffett Blvd - 0.3 mi
5. Turn left at Moffett Blvd/Rte Jones Rd - 0.3 mi
6. Turn right at King Rd - 0.4 mi
7. King Rd turns right and becomes Severyns Ave - 463 ft
8. Turn left at Bushnell Rd - 489 ft
9. Turn right at Exegesis St - 0.1 mi

Arrive at: 37.414243, -122.048793

Re:Link and Driving Directions

[browman1]

That 15 minute ride from San Jose must be a bitch...

Perq, not perk

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 'perq', short for perquisite, not 'perk'.

Re:Perq, not perk

[weighn]

It's 'perq', short for perquisite, not 'perk'. perhaps they mean perk

to act, or carry oneself, in a jaunty manner, Origin: 1350-1400; ME perken; perh

They're carrying themselves, since its their aircraft, see the def. of jaunt for the rest

Re:Perq, not perk

[Larry Lightbulb]

If they can teleport then why do they need an aircraft?

unimaginative

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were in Googles position I'd have bought a long range bomber and be flying regular (and fully laden) recon missions over Redmond.

Rumours involving death threats and office chairs need to be taken seriously if we're going to win the war on terror.

Re:Nice one

[zig007]

I believe you just set the new fanboi standard for years to come.

Or at least that's what you thought you did.

Because I think they are so great, that they should have a private space shuttle and launch facility to dispose at their will.
For free of course(i won't mind). And with blow jobs happening by default, so they don't have to demean themselves by having to ask for it.

doesn't seem like that big of a deal

[yanyan]

They'd still be subject to reality when travelling to other places. If they manage to get that kind of special treatment with any airport, that would be something indeed. For now, it's 1) travel to some other state or country, 2) land in the same airport as everybody else, 3) commute to and from their plane just like everybody else.

Re:doesn't seem like that big of a deal

[butlerdi]

Not likely. They will land at the general avaition terminal, clear through private customs and then either get a helecopter to their destination or be collected directly from the GA terminal. Not quite the same.

Re:doesn't seem like that big of a deal

[jshackney]

That's what I don't understand. Normally, the whole idea of having access to a corporate/private shuttle is to have the ability to fly to the airport that is closest to the meeting. That way you don't have to fly to the huge metro field then drive across town. A decent sized Learjet will be able to takeoff and land at a field as short as 4500 feet. This opens up a lot of options. Seems to me that the 767 would 1) not allow you to go to those smaller airports due to runway length requirements, and 2) the services required would be mostly found at the larger metro fields negating the advantages of going to the more conveniently located fields.

But hey, if it's just a party plane, who cares? You can probably find better clubs at KMIA than at KTEW.

By the way, the request for hammocks seems lavish, but is far from unusual. Duncan Aviation (and I'm sure others as well) have installed (or have been requested to install) all kinds of crazy things such as gold (yeah, Au) fixtures, trim, etc. Some folks from the Middle East has requested chairs that would always face Mecca regardless of the aircraft's position in space. And believe it or not, installing a DirecTV dish in the tail of a Citation X is more challenging that it may seem. These guys are hardly the first, but what strikes me as odd is that they are so blatantly (or, seemingly so) not using the aircraft to further their business. I could be wrong, but I think any broker would have recommended a more economical aircraft. One could operate a fleet of GIVs, Vs, Challengers, etc. for about the same as a 767 and those smaller aircraft would have more utility. However, probably not enough room for hammocks.

wal-mart

[skammie]

At least they didn't lobby for one to be built nearby. Wal-mart did this in the mid to late nintes.

Nice one, NASA!

[Aladrin]

I expected to see a ton of 'that's not fair!' posts here, but maybe those people don't wake up this early.

Anyhow, good on NASA for earning another $1.3mil per year using something that they already had. I'm sure they have all kinds of stuff in the contract that prohibits Google execs from using the strip when NASA projects are actively going on, which probably happens pretty seldom. I'm sure someone will say 'drop in the bucket', but that's $1.3mil that didn't come from taxes... And that's a lot of taxes.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[Poromenos1]

You mean you aren't paying your Google Tax?!

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[bjourne]

I expected to see a ton of 'that's not fair!' posts here, but maybe those people don't wake up this early.

Alright, but we're also missing a "I'm morally superior to you" post. And here it is:

I also make lots of money. Not as much as those guys, but still enough to make a decent living. I don't own a car and never will. Taking the bus or train when you want to go somewhere is simple, and costs less. Cars pollute and driving them, is according to most research, the primary cause of global warning. So if just a few more people would be as responsible as we, the mass transit users, our planet wouldn't be in this fucking mess that it is in right now. Believing that you actually need a private landing strip and your private jet tells me that you are an egoistic unresponsible sob with an overinflated ego. I'm more envious of Bill Gates then who through his foundation has managed to put his wealth to good use. All without needing a private jet afaik.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[Aladrin]

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/bill_gates/index.html?offset=120&s=oldest&inline=nyt-per

New Jet Eases Travel Hassles For Bill Gates
By LAURENCE ZUCKERMAN

Microsoft Corp's chairman, William H Gates, buys $21 million private jet with his own money; Gates has long been known for flying coach and barring his employees from flying first class
October 27, 1997 Technology News

A study has shown we produce as much carbon dioxide walking the same distance as driving a car. I hope that's not the pollutant you meant.

While it's quite obvious that smog isn't natural, and is unhealthy to us, there's still no definitive studies to say we are killing the planet. Most 'save the planet' campaigns still rely more on 'common sense' (which is just about non-existant, imho) instead of scientific proof. I used to believe all that rot. But then I started asking questions instead of just taking what they say as gospel.

If it were safe, convenient, and cheap, I'd take public transportation, too. It's none of those things in my area. (Safe could be debated, I suppose.)

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[jollyreaper]

I expected to see a ton of 'that's not fair!' posts here, but maybe those people don't wake up this early. Or maybe they aren't goofing off on slashdot.

Whenever I hear stories about shit like this, I always wonder about what's getting neglected to pay for this kind of insane luxury. When that asshole from Tyco was having his multi-million dollar anniversary on that greek island complete with vodka-peeing ice sculptures and Jimmy Buffett, he was using the company's coffers as his own private piggy bank. The day Enron cratered, the biggest thing on Ken Lay's plate were the fabric swatches for the new private jet.

The whole "hard work gets you somewhere" thing is just a Horatio Alger fantasy. Yeah, playing the lottery might make you a million but it's not a sound strategy to base your life on. Ok, so people used to think "I work hard for a company, I make pension, thus I've paid my dues." But then the pension goes away when the company's new owners perform some bankruptcy jujitsu. "Ok, but I'm paying into social security, I'll get back what I'm owed." Fat chance, it'll go bankrupt before you retire, so sorry. "Then I'll open my own business and pay for everything myself." Nice try, but if the economy tanks, you're going with it. Sisyphus is busting his ass, too.

For the average white kid, sitting there and dreaming of becoming the next Bill Gates ain't gonna fucking happen. He may as well be like the black kid dreaming of becoming the next Michael Jordon. But hell, the kid dreaming of a comfortable middle-class lifestyle may as well join them, cuz with trends the way they are, that's about as unrealistic.

I'm not bitter but I play it on TV.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[Andy Dodd]

From TFA:

NASA also gets free flights to put instrumentation on, for which aircraft maintenance and fuel are paid for by someone else (Google).

Part of the agreement is that NASA is allowed to put scientific instruments on Google's aircraft for data collection.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[everphilski]

Cows are among the top contributers to global warming

A single moose contributes the equivalent of over 2 tons of CO2 each year - more than my car does.

So unless you are a strict vegan who does not eat any dairy or red meat, and you do not enjoy wildlife, you too add to the global warming problem. Thanks buddy.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[TheLink]

"A study has shown we produce as much carbon dioxide walking the same distance as driving a car. I hope that's not the pollutant you meant."

I bet that study is flawed.

1) A lot of that depends on what you eat and drink.
2) If you look as "deep" into the costs of the car as they did for the cost of the additional food required, then I bet the car will cost more.

I'll still drive a car though. I wouldn't mind taking public transportation to/fro work, but it's going _elsewhere_ after work that's a problem.

As for billionaires spending their money like this, hey it's better than them hoarding it, or using it in dubious ways just to make even more.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[LotTS]

As someone who once worked at Moffett Field, I'm also surprised no one else is saying "That's not fair," because it's not fair on so many levels. Where do I begin?

The airfield is underutilized, but so are a lot of other facilities at Ames. A lot of the facilities are used for physical simulations such as wind tunnels and such. As a taxpayer, I'd rather see underutilized govt property be given back to the public in a fair and open manner. The fact that only one company has such an arrangement is not fair to other companies who could use the convenience of the airstrip but don't have the "sex appeal" of Google. I mean c'mon, this is Silicon Valley - by default, every homeowner is a millionaire there. Money is not an issue.

Also, the fact that they are using their "party plane" is just plain wrong. While the commoners use public roads and airports, these privileged folks get to laugh at the rest of us while they use federal property for their own private use. I'm expecting a quote saying "Let them eat cake!"

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[Anonymous Coward]

> And that's a lot of taxes

Bullshit. It's less than ONE CENT per taxpayer in the US.

I have a problem with this. If the federal government is going to lease out public property, they need to do it for far more significant amounts of money (like billions), and have it make sense for the people in the area or the country. Whatever happened to public works in the interest of the public good?

Now the people of Sunnyvale now have to put up with hearing a 767 land over their house. For what? So Larry and Sergey don't have to drive to San Jose or SFO? Boo Fucking Hoo for them. I think they can afford a limo. I've lived in Sunnyvale and had to listen to the President's 747 when he landed to visit Chelsea at Stanford. There's a reason that base was generally closed and given to NASA, and it is NOT to rent it out to Dot Com guys. This isn't why NASA has that property AT ALL.

Oh, and please save the "we've put research instruments on their plane" fucking bullshit, NASA.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[Don853]

Even if it's not flawed, it's totally asanine. No one walks 12000 miles a year - it would be almost impossible. AFAIK that's the average for USian drivers.

Re:Nice one, NASA!

[mfrank]

The carbon dioxide you breathe out is ultimately derived from plant material, which get their carbon by drawing it out of the air. When you start eating foods based on fossil fuels, you may have something resembling a point.

As a shareholder...

[Chriscypher]

This expense is most likely not being paid out of their personal pockets, but by Google.

As a shareholder, I see this as an egregious waste of company money. Sure their time is valuable, but so is my investment.

I am sick of corporate executives who act like little kings. Like the Tyco execs company-funded baachus birthday party for a wife / orgy in (Athens?), it is hard for me to see the value of supporting these execs excessive lifestyle choices and to see their contribution to the company's future success outweighing personal advancing, parasitic decisions.

Thanks for designing a great search engine, you've been well rewarded, you are irresponsible, and there's the door.

Re:As a shareholder...

[Loke the Dog]

So let your money talk: Sell your shares. Oh thats right, you cant, because these people make you lots of money.

Re:As a shareholder...

[Anonymous Coward]

But what these guys have now is the reward for making something like Google. If the eventual reward for such a major contribution to technology and business is just a normal salary, then why bother trying? Why not just get an ordinary job?

It's not just the American dream to end up like these guys. It's the capitalist dream. You get to be a demiking because you earned it by coming up with a really good way to make money.

Re:As a shareholder...

[jcr]

This expense is most likely not being paid out of their personal pockets, but by Google.

They bought the plane out of their own pockets. Why would you assume that Google is picking up the ramp fees?

Thanks for designing a great search engine, you've been well rewarded, you are irresponsible, and there's the door.

Hey, you want to fire them, all you have to do is buy 51% of the shares. That will run you about eighty-one billion dollars. Let us know when you're ready to put your money where your mouth is.

-jcr

Re:As a shareholder...

[hanssprudel]

Hey, you want to fire them, all you have to do is buy 51% of the shares. That will run you about eighty-one billion dollars. Let us know when you're ready to put your money where your mouth is.

Actually, no. Most outstanding shares for GOOG are non-voting (or at least reduced voting). Page and Brin retain a majority of the votes, no matter how many shares he buys.

A better way is "fire" them from managing his money by simply selling his shares. I'm sure they will cry many tears.

Re:As a shareholder...

[Anonymous Coward]

hi! I are ignorant of how teh stock market werks and wanted the whole world to know it! You don't get any money from GOOG until you sell your shares. And then you're not getting money from Google, you're getting money from some poor sap who thinks he's going to be able to find some other poor sap to sell to at an even higher price.

Re:As a shareholder...

[LeadSongDog]

Seems to me that the owner of even one share has recourse. Wasn't that the whole point of Sarbanes-Oxley?

Re:As a shareholder...

[sethstorm]

This expense is most likely not being paid out of their personal pockets, but by Google.

As a shareholder, I see this as an egregious waste of company money. Sure their time is valuable, but so is my investment.

I am sick of corporate executives who act like little kings. Like the Tyco execs company-funded baachus birthday party for a wife / orgy in (Athens?), it is hard for me to see the value of supporting these execs excessive lifestyle choices and to see their contribution to the company's future success outweighing personal advancing, parasitic decisions.

Thanks for designing a great search engine, you've been well rewarded, you are irresponsible, and there's the door. At least we know where they'll be should they follow Ken Lay of Enron up to Snowmass. Until then, you can only hope that the thunder is taken out of their hands soon, and not due to someone else being the same way.

No Ad link

[jsse]

Click here for no ad link.

BTW, even Bush could find this link in the article easily, so please don't mod.

Just a 767?

[Toreo asesino]

Lame!

This guy's got the right idea - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6768237.stm

Ok, ok, so it's not like you can take the kids to the park with it, but why goto a park when you can just have your own built on-board?

Party airplane

[pQueue]

While being jealous of a wide-body "party airplane" landing right across the street from their office, I think this might be a good thing for NASA and Moffett Field. NASA could certainly use the money.

I worked at the base a few years ago and the runway wasn't being used most of the time, except by the 129th rescue wing of the Air National Guard and the occasional astronaut trainer jet. The base doesn't really have any residential neighbors but that noise would carry a long distance I assume.

If you work there and fly a private plane you can already fly to work (at least that's what I heard when I was there). But of course large commercial size jets is a different story entirely.

Re:Party airplane

[DerekLyons]

While being jealous of a wide-body "party airplane" landing right across the street from their office, I think this might be a good thing for NASA and Moffett Field. NASA could certainly use the money.

NASA doesn't get the money - all funds 'earned' by federal agencies, by law, go into a central pool and are disbursed by Congress.

Re:Party airplane

[sethstorm]

...which comes back to Google in the form of laws allowing them to act like they're $DEITY.

Re:Party airplane

[hauntingthunder]

Quite its helping NASSA with its budget - and its not uncommon to have rnd establishments on airfields Cranfield had a ton of rnd companies - and they had a company that rebuilt spitfires as a sideline watching the mkIX go out for a test flight was one of the coolest things ever - we all went out and watched from about 50 foot when they refuled it and wathed the oiks jump on the tailplane just like in WW2.

If a lot of the big DC's are lights out they could use the jet to ship in new computers and techs to them which could cost in - when I worked on the campus at CIT it costed in to hire a light plane when we went of site having 4 or 5 expensive guys sitting in a van driving the length of the country.

It's collecting information

[simong]

So it's still doing Google stuff. And it's going to have a portable Googleplex built in.

*incredibly loud jet sound*
*knock on door*
"Hi, I'm Larry, and this is Sergei, we heard that you were having a party. We brought, well, er, the contents of the local Walmart's liquor counter."
"Well, that's very nice... say, how did you find out about the party?"
*shifty look*
"You sent out invites through gmail..."

Re:It's collecting information

[icebrain]

Liquor at wal-mart? Where do you live?

Re:It's collecting information

[orkysoft]

My guess is the GP lives in the UK (look at his homepage fqdn), where the supermarkets actually carry liquor.

Or maybe the joke is that they're very stingy, and brought nothing :-P

Re:It's collecting information

[simong]

Yes, I'm British. We have Walmarts here now (well, they're called ASDA), and if they didn't have liquor counters there *would* be riots.

Re:It's collecting information

[yermej]

Wal-Marts (and other supermarkets) here in fly-over land USA have plenty of liquor. Keeps the proles from banding together, rising up, and demanding culture or decent food. Nothing like picking up a cheap case of Stag along with your Hot Pockets, Doritos, and whatever the latest Will Ferrell DVD release happens to be. I don't care who you are, that right there's the perfect Friday night.

Re:It's collecting information

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you'd probably get strange looks from wallmart employees in the UK if you asked where they have weapons and ammunitions. I'd think they make lots more money from liquor.

Yeah! You kick em out!

[Colin Smith]

Get someone in who can extract more shareholder value from the company.

Of course, this is exactly how visionary market creating companies turn into, well, HP. I suppose it's inevitable, they decided to float on the markets, you have to expect those results.

Re:Yeah! You kick em out!

[TooMuchToDo]

That's why Google stock is structured in the manner it is. Anyone can buy in, but only few have full control. As a Google stockholder, I have no problem with this. If I did, I wouldn't have bought the stock.

Re:Yeah! You kick em out!

[sethstorm]

Y'know, it only takes a single regulation to kill that advantage, and prevent another HP takeover.

Just as an FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

The gas milage on that plane is rated in units of gallons/hour. And the unit is in the 100's.....

Re:Just as an FYI

[dotgain]

Thanks, AC. I'd have otherwise had no idea that a jet liner used more fuel than your average sedan.

Re:Just as an FYI

[SmlFreshwaterBuffalo]

I'd have otherwise had no idea that a jet liner used more fuel than your average sedan. ..but still less than your average Hummer.

*ducks*

worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[Chapter80]

As a shareholder, I see this as an egregious waste of company money. Sure their time is valuable, but so is my investment.

Let's keep this in perspective.

Google has 312 million shares outstanding. $1.3 million dollars per year, spread over 312 million shares, is only 4 tenths of a cent per share. As a shareholder, if you are worried about that, you have taken your eye off the ball.

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[tehdaemon]

Or better yet, the 767 itself cost around $130 million. 100x the cost of the parking spot.

T

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[kjndev]

Well, it is a symptom of a corporate culture where money is waisted. In the same manner they will be waisting tens or even hundreds of times the same ammount on other stuff. That quickly ads up.

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[Poromenos1]

Hey! 4/10 of a cent is still money! Being wasteful never made anyone rich (apart from these guys, apparently)!

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[Chapter80]

You imply that it's wasteful. I am neither agreeing or disagreeing.

I said that if you're watching 4 tenths of a cent on a $520 stock, you have taken your eye off the ball. First, I have yet to be convinced that this was a company expense. Second, this and other items that people consider to be wasteful are often investments in employee productivity (helping the executives be more efficient with their time), customer satisfaction (keeping other company's executive passengers efficient and impressing them), and employee satisfaction (perqs).

How do I measure the benefits vs. the cost? *I* don't. What I am really concerned about, when investing in a company, is whether the company is doing the right things to increase shareholder value for the long haul. And I don't do that by examining every 4 tenths of a penny, with an eye purely on the cost side of the equation.

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has 312 million shares outstanding. $1.3 million dollars per year, spread over 312 million shares, is only 4 tenths of a cent per share. As a shareholder, if you are worried about that, you have taken your eye off the ball.

I think the problem is not the one instance, but the implied culture of waste that goes with it.

For example, if a corrupt contractor in Iraq bills the taxpayer $20,000 for a hammer, that's only a fraction of a cent out of my pocket - but the implication is that contractors have no ethics and are scamming the taxpayer. It's not the one instance of waste we know about, it's the thousand instances of waste we don't know about.

That said, if the google founders are paying for it out of their own pocket, it's their money, they can do what they like with it.

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[Poromenos1]

I was just kidding :P

Re:worth 4 tenths of a cent per share?

[sethstorm]

Since those two worshippers of avarice have structured it to have 66% in their holdings of 10:1 shares, you as a class A shareholder can do nothing.

Not really a special deal.

[lancejjj]

For those who are not familiar with the operations of Moffett Field:

Moffett has fairly extensive facilities that are not nearly as heavily utilized as they were during the cold war and WW2, and it is in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Moffett is no longer a military base, but a federal facility that is used for many purposes - mostly but not exclusively centered around technology.

For perhaps a decade, NASA has been leasing out commercial space to private enterprises at Moffett for not only NASA-related research operations, but for general, business operations of private institutions. In additional, there are private educational institutions at Moffett.

not really the first

[djupedal]

John Travolta gets to pull his jets right up to his house in Florida. One is a big 250,000lb, 1964 Boeing 707-138B airliner, and the other is a Gulf Stream. The garden is actually a heliport.

The actor, according to a local newspaper, "can walk out his door, under a canopied walkway and into the cockpit [of his Boeing], open the long mechanized gate [giving on to the runway] and be airborne in minutes."

Re:not really the first

[JoelKatz]

There is no comparison between John Travolta using his own money to build an airstrip on his own property and Google using company money to rent space at a government-owned airstrip. Where's the similarity?

Re:not really the first

[Aladrin]

You've got some proof that Google pays for this, do you? The plane isn't owned by Google, why would Google pay for it?

So turn that around and... Where's the difference?

Re:not really the first

[djupedal]

...h e l l o

Travolta, like many top level actors, IS a company - JTP Films.

Re:not really the first

[turing_m]

"and be airborne in minutes."

Oh come now. Surely it has to take at least an hour or two to charge up the Thetan deflector shields. A clear can't be too careful these days.

Re:not really the first

[Guppy06]

"One is a big 250,000lb, 1964 Boeing 707-138B airliner, and the other is a Gulf Stream."

What, no DC-8?

Re:not really the first

[e2d2]

The actor, according to a local newspaper, "can walk out his door, under a canopied walkway and into the cockpit [of his Boeing], open the long mechanized gate [giving on to the runway] and be airborne in minutes." .. And fly straight into space to meet Xenu.

Re:not really the first

[djupedal]

Travolta's son Jett's bedroom is modeled on the inside of a DC8, which as we all know is modeled on the space planes that...

Re:not really the first

[frank_adrian314159]

John Travolta gets to pull his jets right up to his house in Florida.

Yes. But then John Travolta adds so
much to our economy, both cultural and monetary...

Re:not really the first

[djupedal]

Ok, I'm gonna dodge that one...

Re:not really the first

[jon_anderson_ca]

Yup, and .

private airstrip

[MindKata]

"just open it up to any commercial flights"

You can't open it up to commercial flights. Everyone who's seen a bond film knows the bad guys need their own private airstrip.

This ...

[FonkiE]

... is the end of the innocent.

Where's the problem?

[palemantle]

"Two private aviation industry executives said that parking two Gulfstream Vs at San Francisco or San Jose airports would cost $240,000 to $360,000 a year, or more"

They get to park the Gulfstreams AND the wide-body Boeing 767-200 right next door for an extra million or so. NASA makes a nice pile and gets to run some experiments. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Re:Where's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is the taxpayers own and pay to maintain this airport, but only a couple of rich b*stards get to actually USE it. Make it a public airport, or shut it down.

welfare state

[Anonymous Coward]

you gets what you pay for.

misuse of a public resource

[m0llusk]

For those who are not familiar with the operations of Moffet Field, it is adjacent to some very dense populations. Because of this there have been ongoing campaigns to limit use of the field to noncommercial aircraft and focus on development of research facilities there. This usage of the airfield by Google is in direct conflict with the long stated desire by the community to have commercial aircraft use commercial aviation facilities. Negative reactions to this have nothing to do with jealousy, but rather are about appropriate use and regulation of land and airspace. In this case a resource that has been constructed and maintained by the public at great cost is being use in a manner that the surrounding community has repeatedly strongly rejected.

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Anonymous Coward]

Negative reactions to this have nothing to do with jealousy, but rather are about appropriate use and regulation of land and airspace. In this case a resource that has been constructed and maintained by the public at great cost is being use in a manner that the surrounding community has repeatedly strongly rejected. Sucks for you that your million dollar house was built on rural farmland in close proximity to a traditionally huge and very busy air field. And it sucks for you that a few other million people built houses on the same farmland, resulting in a very dense urban area that surrounds a much older, large, and capable resource.

Moffett has much less air traffic now than it ever has, and much more quiet at that. It was traditionally surround by dumps and sewerage treatment, swamp land, rail road, farms, and more recently, industry. Yet the wealthy local (and not so local) home owners still complain about a 767, a modern, relatively quiet jet, on a field that has been (and could be better) utilized for the heaviest of industrial and military airfield operations.

Welcome to urban living. You moved there; Moffett has been there longer than you have - unless you own a farm. And given that there are zero farms are left in town, that's quite doubtful.

SFO and SJC - two other substantial nearby air operations - continue to grow. Clearly, another two examples of the price you pay for living in a wealthy, thriving urban area.

So although Moffett certainly isn't growing, and it perhaps 10% of what it was in the 1970's - the whiners still manage to whine about "the growing issues at Moffett". Weird.

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Nimey]

Yeah, I've never understood fuckwits who move next to something loud, smelly, or otherwise obnoxious and then start complaining about the thing they *chose* to live next to.

Some people are a waste of oxygen.

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Chris Mattern]

For those who are not familiar with the operations of Moffet Field, it is adjacent to some very dense populations. Because of this there have been ongoing campaigns to limit use of the field to noncommercial aircraft and focus on development of research facilities there.

So they built houses near the airfield and then are shocked that they have planes going back and forth? Yeah, "dense" is fair description...

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Sparky McGruff]

For those of you not familiar with the politics, a few years back, San Jose wanted to close Reid-Hillview airport, a small general aviation airstrip, because of "safety concerns" and complaints by the neighbors. Part of the plan was to free up space at SJC by annexing Moffett field and moving the air freight operations there. A great deal for SJC, they get to run air cargo planes in the middle of the night. A great deal for San Jose, because they'd get to collect the tax revenue, and the noise wouldn't bother any San Jose residents. A bad deal for the residents of Mountain View and Sunnyvale, because they get all of the noise, and they'd have absolutely no say in the operation (as it would be owned by San Jose). Strangely enough, the residents of Mountain View and Sunnyvale thought it would be a bad deal.

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is not insightful NOR informative. GTFO.

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Fishead]

Hey, I just bought a house next to a "water reclamation plant" and those jerks in city hall UPGRADED the thing! Not only did they pump millions of dollars into making it NOT stink, but the more efficient facility has resulted in bare land that was turned into a PARK!!11!!1!

I bought my house next to a STINKPIT AND I LIKED IT!!!

Next thing you know my local property values will go up and my welfare neighbours will have to move out and take their stack of old car batteries and expired appliances with them! The new owners will prolly even mow the lawn! This isn't the view that I bought into darn it! And that guy with the rusty camero, loud exhaust, and squeeky fan belt? I'm gonna miss his stereo when he has to move!

Stupid urban development!

But yeah, I agree. People complaining about Google spending THEIR money making THEIR business more efficient/fun all because people living next to an airport have to hear an airplane once in a while?

Re:misuse of a public resource

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

Funnily enough, so's San Jose airport just down the road and San Francisco not far up the road. Are you suggesting that those are moved to rural Nevada or something?

Anyway, shouldn't Google have got themselves an airship if they're going to operate from there? There's convenient parking on-site...

RTFA

[hanssprudel]

The jets are not owned by Google, but by a seperate corporation (H211 Inc.) owned by the google executives themselves.

Money talks...

[Fuzzypig]

Jeez, how the top 5pc live!

Re:Money talks...

[zoewith2dots]

Top 5%? Hardly. To make the top 5%, your household needs to earn around $300,000 or $400,000 a year. Not quite enough to afford a private plane, let alone a 767. I'd guess that Sergei and Larry are in the top .001%.

Coveted?

[smittyoneeach]

We're never more than a heartbeat from our demise, any of us.
Remind me again, the point of this coveting?

Re:Coveted?

[smittyoneeach]

Meant more as a rejection of materialism than an embrace of fatalism. See Ecclesiastes.

How nice,,,,

[apodyopsis]

How nice it is to see ordinary, good people who can manage the responsibility of having vast sums of money without it going to their heads...

Re:How nice,,,,

[mdielmann]

How nice it is to see ordinary, good people who can manage the responsibility of having vast sums of money without it going to their heads... Frankly, with the amount they're paid, being able to save travel time to the nearest commercial airport for them and their various executives probably comes out as a good business decision. Kind of like how BillG would be taking a loss to stop and pick up a $100 bill.

Used to live near there

[Saint Stephen]

I used to live on San Ramon and Middlefield (Shadows apartments). Moffett field was where President Bush landed Air Force One when he came to speak in San Jose.

It's a big hangar where they used to (I think) work on Space Shuttle parts back in the 80s. All I can say is this: they never let Larry Ellison land his plane there. That says a whole lot. (The big story back in the early 2000s was Larry violating noise ordinances at San Jose airport.)

Re:Used to live near there

[Saint Stephen]

I love to be honest, when I thought of "coveted landing strip" the first thing I thought of was not a runway! ahem ahem ahem

Re:Used to live near there

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a zeppelin hanger. Biggest thing I've ever seen land there was that gigantic assed Antonov. Hmm... Actually LOTS of weird shit tends to fly in and out of there.

No wonder Communism got started

[Anonymous Coward]

Workers of the world, unite!

Ridiculous.

[mattgreen]

I love the implication that the American dream is all it is cracked up to be:

"Oh boy! Look at us! We have a private runway we can land on because we are *so* important and special!"

It is far more impressive to see people who don't take themselves so seriously. Obviously, this s a rare trait, given the human condition of thinking oneself is at the center of the universe.

Re:Ridiculous.

[Fishead]

How about:

Larry: "Hey Sergey, you wanna know what REALLY grinds my gears?"

Sergey: "America?"

Larry: "Shut up Sergey, you're such a geek. I was thinking about how much time we waste stuck in traffic, waiting at security gates, then sitting in our fricken plane at the end of the runway waiting for our turn to TAKE OFF!11!2!"

Sergey: "...um... we're fricken BILLIONAIRES, aren't we?"

I think its awesome that they can, and did that. I can just imagine how much international travel is required for their business, and how much wasted time that translates into waiting for their slot to take off, security checks, even traffic to the airport.

Meanwhile, NASA has to maintain a virtually unused airstrip for their operations. No reason Google can't rent it.

Re:Ridiculous.

[tlacuache]

Amen to that. I don't really see the appeal. I live with my wife and 2 kids in Idaho in a 1500 square foot house on 2 acres of ground. I work as a software engineer and make around sixty grand. I've got access to outdoors activities (skiing, hiking, hunting, fishing, golf), play guitar in a jazz combo, and commute about 7 minutes to work on non-crowded roads. My house payment is about a third of what a friend of mine living in California pays on his apartment lease. I work hard at a challenging and rewarding job where my skills and ideas are valued. You can keep your millions and private jet. I'm living my American dream.

Re:Ridiculous.

[SpectreBlofeld]

Oh, crabshit.

It's not a sign of being "important" or "special." It simply means they can afford it.

People with more money buy more expensive stuff. They merely have a larger budget than most.

I would FAR rather have them spend their money than hoard it. They are supporting industry.

When a wealthy person buys a private plane they create many jobs; development research, manufacturing, pilots...

My boss owns two, stored in hangars at our local municipal airport. Thousands of dollars a month go to the hangar space. His secretary makes a phone call and the plane is prepped, fueled, inspected, and ready to taxi out on the runway by the time he makes it to the airport. Thousands more a month go to his personal pilot.

You do the same thing with your automobile on a smaller scale.

As an aside, I wonder if this agreement was made easier by Google's existing relationship with NASA: here

Re:Ridiculous.

[SpectreBlofeld]

Oh, and I might add: He actually uses those planes. A lot. It's not about being 'important.' He flies all over the country on business, all the time. No doubt Google's execs are the same. If I had the money, I'd do it, too. It'd be worth it to avoid being fondled by the TSA four times a week, wouldn't you agree?

Perfect Sense

[franksands]

This is actually a very good measure. When attacked by zombies, what's the most important thing to secure: a clean and fast exit. Even president Bush is taking action against zombie attacks. I tell you, it's the only reasonable thing to do.

Government Runway?

[nurb432]

Excuse me? I'm paying for that with my taxes, why am i not getting a refund?

Re:Government Runway?

[Overzeetop]

Because the government has already spent that money, and if the government shut down completely for 5 years and we just paid off the deb with that money, we'd still have a balance.

Trust me...you ain't gettin' a dime of that money.

Re:Government Runway?

[muellerr1]

$1,300,000 / 300 million Americans = a refund check of about .0043 cents. Printing and administrative costs for 300 million refund checks? Well over 1.3 million dollars. That's why you're not getting a refund.

Do they get to use the blimp hangar?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I used to work at Aames, thought the blimp hangars were totally awesome. Are they still there? Are they filled with Google Jets(tm)? Will Google Earth let us peek at the jets? (I know I could check myself, but I think I'd get more mileage out of just pondering it).

Re:Do they get to use the blimp hangar?

[Animats]

The blimp hangar is abandoned and fenced off. The Navy wants to demolish it, and there's a "Save Hangar One organization that wants to preserve it. Nobody wants to pay for fixing its contamination problems.

Re:Do they get to use the blimp hangar?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Hey, Sergey! You have a few bucks lying around? You could keep your jet out of the rain. Just think about that big door opening before you roll out to the apron -- what a power fix!

So they traded access for something of value

[macz]

So what? They made a deal. The government must be getting something that it really wants from Google.

Re:So they traded access for something of value

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean like access to search data to help find the terrorists?

Don't Forget Security Restrictions

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I get to fly in economy, those guys get to fly in their own plane.

Not only that, but you and the other plebs get to be manhandled, groped and searched by TSA employees, while the elites like these pass through unimpeded at private airfields, as is their sovereign right.

Re:Don't Forget Security Restrictions

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno about that. I work at Moffet Field and it's a tremendous pain in the ass to get on the base every day. I've known a security guard for about 13 years and I forgot my badge one day and I was denied entrance. Sucks that my commute is 1.5 hours and I had to go back and get it.

nothing to see here

[mgabrys_sf]

Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they're in negotiations to develop 1 million square feet of office space on that land as well.

Oh gee - did everyone here forget that? No - it's just corporate excess and greed of course.

Carry on slashtards.

About right, actually

[Overzeetop]

I'd be willing to bet a dollar that looked at all the entrepreneurs that work really hard, less than 1% of them end up owning a company worth more than $1B.

MOD PARENT UP

[JordanL]

That was quite the reply... I completely agree, the shmoozing that some executives get for doing negative work at some companies is despicable, but I see many people who extend that bar to anyone who tries to succeed.

Greed is every bit as damaging as entitlement... but almost everyone indulges their entitlement, few indulge their greed.

So, is it blurred...

[Lars T.]

on GoogleEarth/Maps?

So what's next?

[Chemisor]

Air Force, this is Google-one, requesting fighter escort...
Sorry Google-one, all our fighters are currently in Iraq.
Air Force, would 13.4 million dollars help?
Your fighters are on the way, Google-one.

Re:So what's next?

[MS-06FZ]

Fighter escort, please shoot down Microsoft private aircraft in our flightpath...
Gonna cost ya, Google One...

Re:So what's next?

[Neanderthal Ninny]

Should we fly one into....

Re:So what's next?

[Chemisor]

This is a fine example of why it is so much harder to wage war in a free market society. You have to pay for it, and you can't just print money at the Federal Reserve. If government had to turn a profit, do you think we would have had so many wars in the past hundred years? I think not.

Re:So what's next?

[Walt Dismal]

Just to put some perspective on this, for Bill Gates to get to Microsoft in Mountain View, he'd have to fly to crowded San Francisco Airport and drive 35 miles, or to San Jose Airport which is closer. But in neither case can he just parachute onto the campus, which Sergey could probably do onto Google. (Accompanied by Evel Kneevil carrying his laptop.) Of course, Larry Ellison is probably steaming over this too, except he's planning to take the 'lost' Minot nuke, and sink the Bay Area, so he can just sail up to Oracle headquarters' front door in his yacht. All this appears in Spielberg's new movie, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Guys with Too Much Money".

Re:So what's next?

[RockDoctor]

Fighter escort, please shoot down Microsoft private aircraft in our flightpath...
Gonna cost ya, Google One...

GOOGLE-ONE : We've already booked the advertising slot on Slashdot for the announcement. Will that do?

GROUND-CONTROL : That'll do nicely, sire! And would you like a small asteroid impactor on Redmond with that, sire? We're doing a BOGOF on regional destruction at the moment - got some in from military surplus just this week.

GOOGLE-ONE : Ah, we'll pass on that. For this week."

close enough

[gryf]

They could alleviate their MASSIVE carbon footprint from flying a small jet by walking to the office from the strip or using segways. I've walked onto the base from my apartment which was further.

I'm sure...

[PunditGuy]

... that these very rich men have seen their share of landing strips.

Stanford, not MIT

[Anonymous Coward]

Sergei and Larry met at Stanford.

google servers "save" more energy than anyone

[peter303]

Google, mainly because they are cheap, have custom designed the lowest power per petabyte and petaop than any other server farm in the world (something like 3 million nodes in 60 data centers). The bad news is they have the most petas in the world, so their total carbon footprint is high.

On the other hand, as the most on-screen net application, someone calculated they could save a lot iof carbon just from change white background to black!

Re:google servers "save" more energy than anyone

[TooMuchToDo]

Just think about the power savings they're going to realize when they replace all those spinning hard drives with the up and coming flash drives.

Some actor decided to slam the door on Prosperity

[sethstorm]

When the door was effectively being (slowly) shut in the 1980's and Something about a "Generation of Greed" were the effective start of this. Not some standard "libertarian" excuse.

If there is no practical way up, something will take its place.

Re:[SJC access issues]

[apenzott]

That 15 minute ride from San Jose must be a bitch...

The longer ride is nothing. Think of the time they get to save with parking and airport security and a very crowded (and overworked) runway and air traffic control.

The black hole...

[Anonymous Coward]

For $1.3 million a year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin get to park their customized wide-body Boeing 767-200, as well as two other jets "Our primary goal isn't to make money. We're not evil." Said the trillion dollar company.

"The Computer and Communications Industry Association -- a trade group representing Google, Microsoft ..."

echo "127.0.0.1 google.*" >> /etc/hosts

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

He just happened to be the first one to found a working business around the model of selling computer processing time which eventually grew to be a full IT outsourcing company.

So he comes up with something new and works to implement it, and now this becomes another "just happened to be"? your world must suck

Land Tax

[dakirw]

Unfortunately, in those states where landowners need to pay property tax, the land tax is effectively being paid. Don't pay your taxes? Government slaps a lien against your property...

Re:Land Tax

[EatHam]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. I honestly don't mind income tax or sales tax (I mind that we have both, and the degree of income tax, but not the idea of either, in principle), but property tax infuriates me.

Just keep telling...

[Anonymous Coward]

yourself that. Oh, and clicking your heels might help too.

I don't want know.

[Oktober Sunset]

As much as I love Brazilian bikini waxes, I don't think this will suit them.

You mean.....

[Anonymous Coward]

They're finally getting laid?

or am I beating around the bush here?

I worked at NASA Ames - I think it's a good idea.

[jCaT]

Lest anyone think they are taking up valuable government resources that could be used for something else- Moffett has been essentially idle for the last twenty years. It was decomissioned some time ago, and now the only use that the runways get is the occasional research plane for NASA and AWACS flights.

I worked at NASA Ames (which has basically taken over the whole Moffett campus, since they're all together.) We did tours of the different areas there, and I think the most fun was touring "Hangar 1" and talking to the guys in the tower for the airstrip. They basically sat around all day drinking coffee, waiting for the one or two planes per day they had taking off or landing. The only excitement they ever got was the occasional presidential flight- when chelsea was going to Stanford, clinton would fly in to Moffett.

I think it's a great idea, and they should do more of it- lots of land developers are salivating at the huge chunk of real estate that moffett has there. On top of that, they're trying to demolish Hangar 1, since it's full of toxic substances, the upkeep on it is really expensive, and it's not doing anything (well, except being a stage for a recent Lexus commercial.)

That's not evil... except if you are a shareholder

[gnuman99]

This is good for NASA
This is "good" for the Goggle managers
This is BAD for Google shareholders

This and the reason that shareholders can't "kick these bums out" for wasting money is why Google is a bad stock. What is next, the board pays themselves 50% of the profits?

And finally, this is bad for geeks - Google's managers are wasting money that could go into R&D.

Bold

[Das Auge]

I believe that the old saying of, "Luck favors the bold" applies here.

Not Unique - Dozens of Other Companies Do it Too

[Anonymous Coward]

HP and Intel, for instance. The main difference is that in HP and Intel, the low level employees are allowed to use the company jets from their private facilities, too. Google just doesn't value the non-executives as much.

No Problem for Corporatist Democracy.

[OldHawk777]

We are the Corporate States of America (CSA), but Dixie did not rise ... just the slave-owners of US.

GOD BLESS THE IMPERIAL POTCSA George [AKA: King George].

Re:That's not evil... except if you are a sharehol

[davetd02]

This is BAD for Google shareholders

Last I heard, Larry and Sergey bought the plane with their own personal money and the AP story, http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gbqVOej9Cr2S_GYOFg6m6_PUn4jw makes it sound like they are paying for parking out of their own personal money as well. Therefore there's no direct impact to Google shareholders -- Google is not paying for the parking or the jet. If Larry and Sergey want to buy nice toys (and a place to put their toys) with their fortune then that's all up to them.

Narayan Murthy

[jagdish]

Meanwhile the CEO of Infosys flies economy class.

You misspelled recession

[sethstorm]

But taking into consideration the brat packs of the 80's, 90's and present day, the internet bubble, and subsequent and continuing recession. Corrected it for you ;)

Lesson for the ones who follow the Actor

[sethstorm]

Important lesson for left-wingers: It's not about how hard you work. It's about what you actually accomplish. Important lesson for (extreme) right-wingers: Starting a business does not imbue you with the power of $DEITY and you will be reminded of it should you forget.

Impossible...

[sethstorm]

...unless you add that to Sarbanes-Oxley.

Hey, you want to fire them, all you have to do is buy 51% of the shares. That will run you about eighty-one billion dollars. Let us know when you're ready to put your money where your mouth is. There is the nice thing called regulation that not only sticks a penalty to them that they can't escape, but they can't pass on. Something like a worldwide CGT that applies even if they do business here with a front company.

Go ahead, mod me down

[jollyreaper]

That's only because you know you can't refute what I said.

Oh, the disinformation

[Caerdwyn]

Disclaimer: I am a pilot. I fly within 10 miles of Moffett on a regular basis. This bit about Google getting to use Moffett is a smoke-screen at best. Lockheed, another big company which is located right next to Moffett, has been using Moffett for years. In fact, they're required to.

• The equipment made at the Lockheed Sunnyvale installation is of extremely sensitive nature. Military spy satellites, etc.
• Right next to Moffett and Lockheed (as in, they have a fence in common) is Onizuka Air Force base, also known as The Blue Cube. This is a satellite downlink station for NSA/NRO spy satellites.
• Equipment of such a nature is required to be shipped from secure airport facilities, and per definition of the law in question, no civilian airport qualifies.

Look up background for the above for yourself. Moffett used to be a Naval Air Station, which coincidentally my father (a career navy pilot, first on aircraft carriers flying Hellcats and later flying P3 Orion sub hunters) was stationed at in the 50's. As part of the post-Cold War base shutdown wave, Moffett was to be decommissioned. However, this would leave Lockheed in a bad situation; they would have to deliver their equipment all the way to Travis Air Force base for air shipping, and incoming equipment deliveries to the Blue Cube would also have to be trucked in from Travis. That's a bad, bad security situation. So, rather than just closing it odwn and putting up housing tracts, the feds let NASA (which has NASA-Ames right next door, a huge hypersonic wind-tunnel research facility also sharing a fence) run Moffett as "Moffett Federal Airfield". By dint of NASA running the facility, it is still considered a secure facility for purposes of the law. Okay, fine. Lockheed requires its presence, and we need Lockheed and what it builds in Sunnyvale. We also need to keep the equipment going in and out of the Blue Cube from coming anywhere near the feel-good rentacops we call the TSA at civilian airports. Let's complicate matters with money, since it's obviously not confusing enough. There is also a mandate for having this facility pay for itself to the extent possible. Lockheed pays a lot of money into keeping the airfield running, but there are still huge expenses such as environmental cleanup... there is significant contamination of the local aquifer from dumped chemicals going back to World War II and the early 50's (ask the people who work in Nokia's Mountain View facility what those funny smokestacks on their office buildings are for sometime). If Google wants to pay 13 million to park a SINGLE PLANE there, let them! That 13 million is doing important work, helping maintain a facility that is critical to both scientific and military purposes, and keeping the bill out of my pocket. Yours too. Unless you're not American, in which case this does not concern you.

Well, it would be gravesite rental...

[sethstorm]

It must be hell for the pilot when both Larry and Sergei want to have a go at holding the controls at the same time, and one of them wants to land the plane on the runway already but the other wants to have another go at flying around the tower in homage to the Cessna days from MS flight simulator V.1.2. Not only would they be renting the space, but they might inadvertently become a part of it.

this is about where american science is headed

[ezhihaVtumane]

I don't understand why this is all about "is this fair or not?" or "other execs turning green with envy" or "residents not wanting expanded airport at their doorstep" or "american dream"??? This is a completely different and bigger issue in my opinion. I guess it's because most people don't realize that NASA is in a deep hole right now and needs money badly. People in US were snickering when Russia space agency went for space tourism to cover costs, feeling all superior that we have more money here - well this is exactly the same!!!! How sad is it that NASA has to turn to private planes to run its scientific missions and private money to upkeep a runway?? Why isn't anyone worried about where this country is placing its priorities which are not on science these days apparently...

Hard work pays off

[mosb1000]

So what if not everyone can work hard and become a billionaire. You can still make a very nice living for yourself just by working hard and advocating yourself. That's something that just isn't true in countries that try to stop people from becoming billionaires. I don't care if someone else has a 767 "party plane" if living in a society that allows that means that I can live in a nice house, work reasonable hours and never go to bed hungry.

yes there is...

[slew]

Yes, 1.3Million and occasional access to a plane is a small price for google to pay to avoid paying property tax to mountain view for 1 million square feet of class A office space developed inside moffett field...

Three cheers Larry and Sergi for figuring out how to saving all that money for google share holders.

Three sighs for the citizens of mountain view who have to put up with all the extra airport noise and traffic congestion and get nothing.

Three boos for people who can't see through this scheme...

Re:yes there is...

[mgabrys_sf]

re:"Three sighs for the citizens of mountain view who have to put up with all the extra airport noise and traffic congestion and get nothing."

One plane must make for one hell of a noise aggregate eh? What plural is derived from one plane to make "all" (and last I checked it's already an airfield they have runways and everything - might be planes involved already methinks). Traffic congestion is also a hoot. Because as we all know - the 101 is known for being clog free like all major roads in the Bay Area. DAMN YOU GOGGLE FOR SULLYING OUR ROADWAYS WITH YOUR UNBEKNOWNST CONGESTION! This was a PARADISE until YOU SHOWED UP!

DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!

And you wonder why I use the term Slashtard? I'll use it again - you're a Slashtard!

Re:I never understood dipwads like you...

[Anonymous Coward]

In my opinion, Google has decided to take advantage of this area simple BECAUSE their millionare employees don't live there. You can bet your bottom dollar if there were $1M houses there and a significant number of their employees living there they wouldn't even think about it.

That's absurd. The landing pattern for Moffett field is directly over Sunnyvale, CA, where thousands of Google employees live. However, you can easily bicycle over to the base from Google's sprawling Mountain View complex.

An occasional Air National Guard Pavehawk, C-130, or rented Volga-Dnepr fly overhead, but on the order of once or twice a day. The Sunnyvale city council has fought hard to keep the base there because otherwise it would become a commercial airport, which would make Sunnyvale a very noisy place to live. This is despite the fact it's so expensive to live in the valley many ANG servicemembers drive hours from the East Bay -- so much so that most people there work 4 10-hour days.

Re:That's not evil... except if you are a sharehol

[skarphace]

And finally, this is bad for geeks - Google's managers are wasting money that could go into R&D.

So NASA doesn't do R&D anymore? Didn't I just see a story about how NASA came up with the new Silicon Carbide chips?

I think this is a good thing. Gives NASA some money they could put to good use.

oh the 13 million... NOT

[slew]

if only it were 13 million... It's actually 1.3 million every year for 2 years ($2.6 million total). That probably won't even pay to move a pound of contaminated soil (it doesn't even pay for the EIS).

In any case, if Google would have parked these airplanes (plural) at san jose, it probably would have cost them over $500K a year. I'm thinking if they paid 13Million a year. Then maybe that might make it worthwhile, but at 1.3M, if they accidently leak some fuel in the next 2 years, I think it would be a net loss. I don't have direct experience with jet fuel cleanup, but a friend of mine owned a gas station and cleaning up the soil after a tank rupture can be up to $250K so I think google is getting a steal of a deal at taxpayer expense at the rate they are paying...

FYI onizuka got decommisioned in the latest round

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW onizuka got decommisioned in the latest round of base cuts in 2006. I doubt lockheed will be there very much longer given this. That's why everyone is talking about Moffett field redevelopment.

There's still the california civil air patrol (group 2) that's based at Moffett (I would have thought that being a pilot you would have mentioned them). But don't think any squadrons are based at Moffett (just the headquarters)...

I'm guessing this is Nasa-ames just grasping at a thread (that google dangled).

Wait, there's more!

[Cervantes]

Since no-one is making note of this yet, I'll try and raise it's profile.

It's not just the money. They also agreed to let NASA put scientific instruments on the 3 planes to be used on some flights. Which is actually pretty damn snazzy... instead of having to spend on their own flights, NASA saves money by using someone who's already flying. And they get paid for it. This is, really, a smart move all around.

The whining NIMBY numnuts are complaining because now lots of other executives and private planes are going to want to land there too. And, frankly, if they pay, /AND/ let NASA put instruments on their planes, I say, go for it. The NIMBYs moved next to an airport, they deserve what they get. Whiners.

Re:FYI onizuka got decommisioned in the latest rou

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats funny - it got "Decom" alright, moved out all the old equipment, then a few weeks later we moved back into a portion of the building, all new equipment. Drive by and see dishes? arent they nice and clean (some of them)

Onizuka IS gone, but there is always need for us.

please mod up the parent response

[denobug]

for insightful "insider" information

Luck is the residue of design.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else remember a time in American history when people would here something like this and go "I want to try and become like them" instead of "I want what they have" or "they can't have that because I don't"?

Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness?

Because too many people now believe that

Its because making it big is 99% luck and less than 1% hard work.

Eliminating credit and eliminating blame are the heads and tails of the same fraudulent coin.

Of all the rationalizations for crime and the welfare state, that's one of the top 5. After all, if it's all about luck, there's no point in working for something -- and if someone else has more than you, it must all be luck, it's so unfair, there's no reason why Einstein should get all that recognition. It's not like he worked hard at math or anything. Besides, responsibility is scary!

American Dreamers

[yeranalyst]

Yes if we all work hard,believe in the American dream, and click the heels of Larry Craig's ruby slippers three times, we can all own a 767 and store it right next to work at the Federally managed airport. Let's see, thats 300 million wide body jets at 1500 Gal. fuel per hour. In three hours we could consume the entire annual world production of oil. Isn't it grand to be dreamers, stupid, and full of arrogance. What dismays me the most are the ninnies who are apologists for this immoral excess.