# "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 17, 2012, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503 "2012-07-17T08:54:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/341 "2012-07-21T20:05:14Z")
Ok I haven’t been reading this thread for all 340 posts so far, but are there people here who are actually arguing that it would be just as easy to open and run a successful business in the United States as it would be in some African country with no infrastructure or government protection of interests, etc? That’s all Obama was saying. We’ve all built up a great country by working together, which has made it easy for businesses to start, grow and thrive. Compared to many other countries that don’t have working roads, railways, navigable ports, etc, the United States is a much better place to try and open a business. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/342 "2012-07-21T20:09:44Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Nothing you wrote here contradicts what I wrote, although you certainly seem to be doing your best to make it seem as tho it does. Sure it does. You deny that Steve Jobs was uniquely responsible for Apple’s success. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/343 "2012-07-21T21:41:37Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I can see the scene at the post office. “Hello Mr. Snowboarder, you’d like a first class stamp? Certainly, that’s forty-five cents. Next! Oh, hello Mr. Jobs. You’d like a first class stamp. Certainly, that’s three thousand dollars, please. Next!” Or, in the world of fiscal conservatives: “Welcome to the IRS, Mr. Jobs. Your tax bill is $20,000. Thanks for being a job creator! Ah, welcome to the IRS, Marvin the Homeless Alcoholic. Your tax bill is $20,000. Looks like you should have studied harder in school! Will you be paying in cash or check? Why yes, you do have the same tax bill as Steve Jobs. That’s because everyone needs some “skin in the game.” Now seriously, cash or check?” ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/344 "2012-07-21T21:56:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Sure it does. You deny that Steve Jobs was uniquely responsible for Apple’s success. I think the problem is that we differ on what “uniquely responsible” means. What do you mean by the term? In my dictionaries, “unique” means “the only one of it’s kind” or “without equal or parallel”. Therefore, IMO, “uniquely responsible” means “the only one responsible”. And yes, I do deny that Steve Jobs was the only person responsible for Apple’s success. Perhaps, however, you mean something else entirely by the phrase, as you indicated in a previous post that you do not mean “solely responsible”. In that case, **Bricker** , I think you’ve chosen a very poor turn of phrase to express yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/345 "2012-07-21T22:19:04Z")
Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan. Romney is personally and uniquely responsible for his firm’s success…but had no part whatever in his firm’s firings and outsourcing. The Buck Stops Here…except if it would be discreditable to my renown, in which case it stops somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/346 "2012-07-21T22:19:49Z")
Jobs is (was) unique. No one else is responsible for Apple’s success in the way he is. He is the _sine qua non_ of Appleness. No Jobs, no Apple as we know it today. It would not be the success it is without Jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/347 "2012-07-21T22:34:23Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Jobs is (was) unique. No one else is responsible for Apple’s success in the way he is. He is the _sine qua non_ of Appleness. No Jobs, no Apple as we know it today. It would not be the success it is without Jobs. Which is not at all the same as saying " It would not be a success without Jobs", is it? Thanks for at least adding the qualifiers so many seem to want to leave off similar sentiments, **John**. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/348 "2012-07-21T22:40:38Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Can you justify your apparent belief that there is a zero sum game involved? Can you justify your belief that resources are infinite and there is no limit to the amount which can be harmlessly hoarded by an elite? Oh, you didn’t say that? That’s a straw man? So is throwing around words like, “zero sum game.” There are limits to growth, and those who concentrate wealth to themselves are not necessarily creating that wealth. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/349 "2012-07-21T22:43:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Jobs is (was) unique. No one else is responsible for Apple’s success in the way he is. He is the _sine qua non_ of Appleness. No Jobs, no Apple as we know it today. It would not be the success it is without Jobs. This is absolutely stark raving mad. Jobs was a human being of a particular education and ambition. There were others who would have done the same thing, but he got to that position in history first. If someone went back in time and smothered baby Steve Jobs in his cradle, history would heal around him with the same things happening in similar ways, directed by others who would fill his economic niche, even if in slightly different ways. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/350 "2012-07-21T22:58:47Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > How has the government taken away the power of the free market to incentivize investment through profit? You said if there wasn’t a lower capital gains tax, no one would take the risk, and simply work for wages. This implies they make no more on investments that they do from wages, and the only way anyone invests in the free market is because the get a tax break. If that is true, the free market ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. I’m not sure exactly what we are debating here. Econ 101 teaches that a tax, any tax, imparts an inefficiency in the market. Now, I’m not some loony tax protester. I understand that taxes are necessary for a government to run, but this is the basic reason to keep them as low as possible. Of course people MAY make more from investments than from wages but they also might have invested in Bernie Madoff, Inc. and lose everything. There is more risk from investment, so there must be more reward. The tax code recognizes this by taxing capital gains at a lower rate than regular income. Since the tax itself it what has screwed with the distribution of money in the first place, it’s not asking for despotism to say that the government needs to impose its tax in a way to not further screw up the system. I don’t see how this is a jab at the free market or a failure of it. I don’t think that there is an economist in the country that would believe that if you raised the capital gains tax rate to the wage rate that investment wouldn’t decline substantially. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/351 "2012-07-21T23:16:32Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > This is absolutely stark raving mad. > > Jobs was a human being of a particular education and ambition. There were others who would have done the same thing, but he got to that position in history first. If someone went back in time and smothered baby Steve Jobs in his cradle, history would heal around him with the same things happening in similar ways, directed by others who would fill his economic niche, even if in slightly different ways. I support the spirit of what you’re saying though the letter of it is unknowable and therefore flawed. In any case saying Apple would not be Apple has truth to it but much less true than saying Apple would not be Apple without the thousands of employees, extra-company suppliers, secure nations promoting consumer economies, protections from copyright infringement, protections form theft and other attack, science innovations funded by taxpayers and gifted or inherited by industry later, tax breaks, government contracts and other forms of subsidy, ect ect. A great captain is admirable but without people to make the boat, trade with, crew the ship ect he’s just a survivorman on a dingy, unless he’s an inventor himself not even that without prior people showing him how to build something that will float and steer well. The great individual paradigm in a fanatical religion pushed on humanity by a tiny elite who have had one skill greater than all others throughout history: monumental BS exaggeration of their own indispensability. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/352 "2012-07-21T23:27:40Z")
Am I to understand that the argument is that a guy like Bill Gates is a dime a dozen. If it wasn’t him then someone else would have started something close enough to Microsoft to make computers pretty similar to what they are today. Nothing to see here, keep moving. BUT, were it not for the janitor who replaces the urinal cakes at Microsoft headquarters, electronic commerce would come to a halt? (I know there’s a lot of straw here, but that seems to be the direction that people are going in this thread). ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/353 "2012-07-21T23:52:39Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > This is absolutely stark raving mad. > > Jobs was a human being of a particular education and ambition. There were others who would have done the same thing, but he got to that position in history first. If someone went back in time and smothered baby Steve Jobs in his cradle, history would heal around him with the same things happening in similar ways, directed by others who would fill his economic niche, even if in slightly different ways. You know not of what you speak. There were/are plenty of computer companies in the U.S. Did THEY make a computer that was intuitive? No. Did they figure out how people wanted to carry around their music? No. Did they change the face of the music industry by refusing to take no for an answer from the big 5? No. Did they usher in a smartphone years ahead of the competition? No. Did they create a tablet that people actually wanted to use and drool over? No. Did they open a chain of stores that would become THE most profitable stores in the world? No. Aside from all that, Jobs came back to the company and made decisions that save that not only saved the company, but he took it from about a 2-3% market share to whatever it is today. And that doesn’t even get into the whole Pixar/Disney thing. Fact is, Jobs was 1) a geek, a visionary, and an aesthete with excellent taste. He was, to use a phrase from _The Crazy Ones_, a round peg in a square hole. [It would serve you well to watch the video.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE) Perhaps it’ll have you see just how wrong you are. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/354 "2012-07-22T00:06:38Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > This is absolutely stark raving mad. > > Jobs was a human being of a particular education and ambition. There were others who would have done the same thing, but he got to that position in history first. If someone went back in time and smothered baby Steve Jobs in his cradle, history would heal around him with the same things happening in similar ways, directed by others who would fill his economic niche, even if in slightly different ways. Here’s the difference, though. Apple kinda stagnated when they kicked Jobs out. He came back later, and it’s success went through the roof. That’s not a coincidence. And you’re missing the point with your allusion to alternate reality. Fact is, we’re talking about Apple. Apple would not have been the success it was without Jobs. Maybe some other company would have been as successful, but probably not. It’s very hard in the tech world to have as many successful products as Apple does, year after year. Jobs also realized early on that content was as important as devices. Itunes was brilliant. It revolutionized the music selling industry, and made the whole battle between the Napsters of the world and the Music Companies moot. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/355 "2012-07-22T03:23:08Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Did they figure out how people wanted to carry around their music? No. This is just ignorant. Apple did not invent the mp3 format, nor did they produce the first portable mp3 player. [Cite](http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/MPThree.htm) > [@magellan01](#): > > Did they usher in a smartphone years ahead of the competition? No. More ignorance. Apple did not invent the smartphone, nor were they the first to market with one. [Cite](http://www.pcworld.com/article/199243/a_brief_history_of_smartphones.html) > [@magellan01](#): > > Did they create a tablet that people actually wanted to use and drool over? No. So now you include doing what someone else did, but in a more appealing way as being in the same league as creating something? :roll eyes: You are of course free to worship and show obeisance to whomever you want, but you should at least be able to accurately articulate why you do so, rather than spin myths and fairy tales. Of course, if all you care about is success, regardless of how it came about or who helped it to happen, you can carry on as you have been. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/356 "2012-07-22T03:26:50Z")
As is so often true, it seems like people are mixing up moral and practical evaluations here. I can agree that the business owner “deserves all the credit” for starting the business, while also affirming that \*in order for such people to continue starting businesses," infrastructure investment is necessary, and in order to invest in infrastructure, taxes need to be raised. The question of who “deserves credit” is completely unrelated to the question of “who should pay how much in taxes and where they should be spent.” ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/357 "2012-07-22T03:33:46Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The question of who “deserves credit” is completely unrelated to the question of “who should pay how much in taxes and where they should be spent.” So you would agree that Obama saying that “…you didn’t build that. Someone else made that happen” is ridiculous nonsense then. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/358 "2012-07-22T03:36:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Itunes was brilliant. It revolutionized the music selling industry, and made the whole battle between the Napsters of the world and the Music Companies moot. iTunes was not the first online music store where you could buy downloadable songs, tho. Jobs didn’t come up with that idea at all. [ > [@](#): > > The Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) was an organization that provided a venue for unsigned artists to share their music and communicate with their audience. IUMA’s goal was to help independent artists use the Internet to distribute their music to fans while circumventing the usual distribution model of using a record company. IUMA was started by Rob Lord, Jeff Patterson and Jon Luini from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1993. > > IUMA originally existed as FTP and Gopher sites, before the World Wide Web was widely used. On March 9, 1994 CNN featured IUMA in their “Showbiz News” segment. In 1998, IUMA was purchased by EMusic, and moved operations from Santa Cruz to Redwood City, home of the EMusic offices. IUMA provided artists who registered with a free URL and web page. The artists could present their music over the Internet in stream, download, and internet radio format. Further, it provided an easy-to-use home page for the band and the ability to distribute their music with no bandwidth fees. Some of the original file formats used to encode the music were WAV, AIFF and MP2. MP3 was added later as that format became more popular. ]([Internet Underground Music Archive - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Underground_Music_Archive)) Don’t get me wrong, I think Jobs was a genius, and a shrewd businessman, and deserves a whole buttload of complimentary labels for what he did at Apple. But he wasn’t the only person working there, and he didn’t have that many unique ideas, if he had any at all. If Apple hadn’t cornered the market on mp3 players, Creative Labs or Microsoft or Diamond Rio or some other company we’ve never heard of would have done it. Heck, Creative has had portable mp3 players on the market since 2000; the Rio was introduced in 1998. [Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_media_player). So if Jobs isn’t responsible for the creation of the devices that Apple now makes and sells, what is he responsible for? Successful marketing? Whoop-de-doo. If it was extraordinarily hard to market things successfully, think of all the useless stuff we wouldn’t have. If you’ll excuse me now, I have to talk to my Pet Rock with my Mr. Microphone while I cook some food on my George Foreman grill. I’ll be back to check this out later! ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/359 "2012-07-22T03:40:01Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > So you would agree that Obama saying that “…you didn’t build that. Someone else made that happen” is ridiculous nonsense then. That doesn’t follow from what I said. Whether “that” refers to the infrastructure or the business itself, the claim contained in your quotation marks is a practical claim, not a moral one. It’s a ridiculous practical claim if “that” refers to the business, and a true practical claim if “that” refers to the infrastructure. There’s the further question of whether the speech was written intentionally to cause the audience to draw moral conclusions from the merely practical claims it makes\*, but I haven’t seen that discussed here. \*I haven’t read much of the speech, so it may be he makes explicitly moral claims elsewhere in it. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503/360 "2012-07-22T04:03:13Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > This is just ignorant. Apple did not invent the mp3 format, nor did they produce the first portable mp3 player. [Cite](http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/MPThree.htm) Uh, no. I’m well aware that Apple didn’t invent the mp3 format or the mp3 player. In fact, I had a portable Creative Media mp3 player before the iPod even came out. So you’re reading things into my post that just aren’t there. What Steve Jobs did do was develop an mp3 player that everyone wanted. So, please pay attention to the words I type. > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > More ignorance. Apple did not invent the smartphone, nor were they the first to market with one. [Cite](http://www.pcworld.com/article/199243/a_brief_history_of_smartphones.html) Again, while there was a category called “smartphones”, Apple did it right and upon introducing the iPhone set the standard by which all smartphones were and are measured. > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > So now you include doing what someone else did, but in a more appealing way as being in the same league as creating something? :roll eyes: Apple also didn’t invent the computer chip, but the created computers that were more intuitive. The genius of Steve Jobs was seeing what people would actually want to use. As you point out, most of the inventions were already common knowledge, but he figured out how to put it in the right package and make it an extension of your life. The iPod is a perfect example. If you and others are right, why does Apple continually introduce products you say are already our there and immediately dominate the entire category. Why couldn’t the Zune and other later offerings even sustain themselves? Do yourself a favor and watch the video I linked to a couple of posts ago. Every now and then we get delivered an Archimedes, a Newton, an Edison, a Miles Davis, a Frank Lloyd Wright. Amazingly, he set out to change the world, and did. > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > You are of course free to worship and show obeisance to whomever you want, but you should at least be able to accurately articulate why you do so, rather than spin myths and fairy tales. Of course, if all you care about is success, regardless of how it came about or who helped it to happen, you can carry on as you have been. Watch the video. There are people who stand apart. But I understand that leftist statists like yourself just cannot embrace that idea, lest your bubble burst. I hope that’s articulate enough for you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/628503.md?page=19)