After a long time, the goodwill of the rich has become a hot topic in our society. On the 8th, Kakao’s board of directors Kim Beom-soo announced that he would donate more than half of his fortune to resolve social issues a day before Kakao announced last year’s results, and received media attention. It is said that he owns about 24.95% of Kakao’s shares, which is a little over 10 trillion won when evaluated based on market value. Accordingly, the media reported that the scale would be at least 5 trillion won. It is the largest in the history of donation in Korea. Of course, at the moment, we have only expressed our intention to donate, so it is not yet known when and how the actual donation will be made.
Daum Kakao is the largest in Korea among the digital platform companies that have achieved the highest performance due to the paradoxical opportunity of the disaster called Corona 19. In terms of market capitalization, Daum Kakao is ranked 10th in the ranking and 26th (10.6 trillion won) in terms of assets as of 2020, and the number of affiliates is 97, the second largest after SK Group. In past terms, it is a chaebol.
Naver is also ranked in the top 10 in the market capitalization, with a total assets of 9.5 trillion won, ranking 41st in the business world. Daum Kakao, which made the highest record ever, shared its results, and announced that it would pay 10 shares of treasury stock to 2,619 employees at the headquarters. As of February 5, the price is 455,000 won, which is about 4.55 million won per person, and 11.9 billion won in total. In addition to Naver, platform companies and telecommunications companies that have performed well with Corona 19 have received similar performance compensation.
As Chairman Beom-soo Kim’s announcement became known to the media, the narrative of’meabilityism’ as an entrepreneur from a self-made’dirt spoon’ was highlighted, and his Kakao Talk profile message, the aspect of a technology company manager hoping for a’better world’, received attention. do. Unlike the second and third generations of chaebols who have inherited a company from their parents for a long time, these passages have an innovative and progressive nuance.
Tech giants who want to make the world a better place
Technological giants that have grown on the basis of cutting-edge IT technology and have risen to the business world often become icons of’innovation’ and’progress’ not only in Korea but also abroad. Prominent entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and the founders of Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page), Peter Till and Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Mark Benioff are considered innovators and pioneers of a new future.
They often think they’re pioneering an unknown field, so they think they can dismiss existing government regulations or laws as obsolete and boldly ignore them. They believe that they have the ability to’self-regulate’. When controversy over the regulation of’Tada’ was raised in Korea, there were similar criticisms that the government or the National Assembly had ruined innovation by using the old standards of regulation. In addition, they show a lot more good-willed interest in society than traditional companies. Major Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Travis Callanic (former Uber CEO), and Sam Altman (founder of Y Combinator), are leading the way in the United States to support basic income.
They even show initiative by expanding their areas of interest not only in technology, but also in the environment and climate change. For example, Tesla’s Elon Musk announced that it would contribute to promoting the development of carbon capture technology by holding a carbon capture technology contest over the next four years with a prize money of about $100 million. Microsoft’s Bill Gates has been very active in the climate crisis, not just about the infectious disease. <기후재앙을 피하는 법(How to avoid a climate disaster)>He also published a book called.
Of course, in others, the tendency of the super-rich to show interest in climate change is dubbed’green rich’. For example, there are criticisms about how hypocritical it is to discuss the climate crisis by mobilizing 1,500 private jets that emit greenhouse gases and gathering in Davos, Switzerland to open a forum for the rich. Opened). It is also pointed out that, although not all, what they mainly propose to prevent the climate crisis are unrealistic technological solutions such as carbon capture technology and geoengineering, and are not very active in institutional solutions such as the transition to an ecological society.
Instead of a benign plutocracy, as an entrepreneur who follows the rules
There is no reason not to welcome the new (?) aspects of technology entrepreneurs, such as the willingness to donate the hard-earned money to society, the favor shown to progressive social welfare such as basic income, and sympathy for the problem of the climate crisis. It deserves a positive evaluation.
But isn’t it natural that a very common-sense question is raised in this passage? Given the interests and actions they give to society, it can be taken as disagreeing with Milton Friedman’s advocacy that at least the company’s sole purpose is to pursue profits. If so, isn’t the most basic way to contribute to society is to comply with the rules and regulations set by society, pay taxes well, and treat stakeholders including employees and suppliers with respect and equality?
As it is the current diagnosis of’K-shaped polarization’ due to Corona 19, some have performed far better than in the past, but overwhelmingly many common people are in a situation where their job and income losses are serious. However, platform companies such as Daum Kakao, Naver, and Daum of Delivery are on the upside of the K-shaped curve. In this situation, the’disaster solidarity tax’ initiated by Justice Party lawmaker Hye-young Jang may be an appropriate institutional framework for companies that benefit from disasters to contribute to society at this time. However, it is difficult to find any good-intentioned innovative entrepreneurs to agree with it.
The platform companies that are called’innovative’ around the world are trying to pay less taxes while depriving the world’s largest amount of money to tax avoidance areas, forming the largest lobby group to lobby the politics, and discriminating in the workplace. They also showed behavioral or backward labor sensitivity. Journalist Rana Foroohar wrote his book <돈 비 이블, 사악해진 빅테크 그 이후(Don't Be Evil)>In (translated by Kim Hyun-jung, published by Sejong Book), he criticized this behavior of innovative technology companies that change the world, and came to the following conclusion.
In addition, if large tech companies really want to make a social contribution, wouldn’t it be necessary to look more closely at the radical reduction of working hours, relief of labor stress, and the radical guarantee of their rights for workers working in their own companies and at suppliers?
Innovative tech entrepreneurs are not very innovative in this respect either. About 200 Google employees formed a labor union on January 5th, the first among Silicon Valley tech giants and the first in the company’s history. To create a union that had already gained legal status in the 19th century, Google employees said, “Like an espionage movie, we had to meet people one-on-one, talk about the union very carefully, and tell someone some of our stories. I need to think a lot about when to take it out.”
Why should a company always be a’share company’?
Of course, in Korea, labor unions were formed in Naver and Kakao in 2018, and there are delivery unions such as Rider Union, but there is still a long way to go. Some may be bruised like this. Why should a high-tech company that does innovative business create an obvious union with an old labor perspective? For them, even the social organizational method of trade unions may be subject to innovation.
But in this section, I want to ask one question. Why do tech entrepreneurs who say that they innovate so enormously that they make others so’creative’ and create businesses that are’innovative’, and why can only the form of a company be made in the form of a’stock company’ that the Dutch created 500 years ago? Why do you insist on the’old’ corporate method in which the profits belong only to the shareholders when the company becomes a unicorn company and the company succeeds? As long as the shape of the company remains as a joint stock company, it is no wonder that the shape of the workers’ organization remains as a union.
Of course, there are also entrepreneurs who insist on’stakeholder capitalism’, which is rarely better than the shareholder capitalism model. Salesforce manager Marc Benioff is one such person. Benioff says in his autobiography:
So, how did Benioff implement the stakeholder principle into his corporate sales force? Here is an example. When former President Trump separated the children of immigrants from their parents at the Mexican border in 2018, numerous American citizens were angry. Salesforce employees did the same, but it seems that Salesforce sold software to the US Immigration Service. Employees told Benioff to withdraw the contract right away, but what Benioff did was about establishing a new’ethics and humanitarian use department’ within the company. Of course, I think the executive personal benioff is great. But wouldn’t it be difficult to claim this as stakeholder capitalism?
So what do you do? It’s as simple as I said earlier. What citizens ask of innovative tech companies is not the kind of philanthropy arising from’mild cessation’. You just have to accept the appropriate regulations just like everyone else, pay the taxes owed properly, and ensure the right to work for your employees and stakeholders as stipulated in the law. Perhaps what citizens are asking of giant entrepreneurs is not so great. Personally, I would like to see more of a commonsense entrepreneur, not an innovative and compassionate entrepreneur.
* The welfare state that I create is a welfare organization that promotes the formation of grassroots citizens’ welfare bodies through solidarity activities by agenda.
