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Nick Hanauer Quotes
Nick Hanauer Quotes
Nick Hanauer
American
Businessman
Born:
1959
Economics
Me
People
Rich
Will
You
Related authors:
Bill Gates
Henry Ford
Jim Rohn
Les Brown
Peter Drucker
Stephen Covey
Steve Jobs
Warren Buffett
Greed is a sin because humans are social creatures. And they simply cannot survive without the opposite of greed, which is cooperation.
Nick Hanauer
Greed
Simply
Sin
Because
Without
Opposite
Survive
Cannot
Which
Social
Cooperation
Creatures
Humans
There is no earthly reason why Walmart and McDonald's and Walgreens and these other giant, profitable institutions should have one worker in need of public assistance. It's ridiculous.
Nick Hanauer
Other
Earthly
Giant
Institutions
Walmart
McDonald
Public
Worker
Should
Reason
Ridiculous
Why
Profitable
Assistance
Need
A lot of people think that persuasion is all about values and aligning values. I largely disagree. I think persuasion generally, and political persuasion more particularly, has much more to do with explaining in new ways and connecting dots in new ways than just invoking emotions and values.
Nick Hanauer
People
Emotions
Disagree
Political
Values
Think
Ways
About
More
Generally
New
Invoking
Particularly
Lot
Than
New Ways
Just
Explaining
Dots
Much
Persuasion
Connecting
Largely
Prosperity in human society is misunderstood. The difference between a rich and poor society is the number of problems that society solves for its citizens. That means technological innovation is the source of all prosperity, but with every tech innovation, you also get disruption - ultimately, social and civic disruption.
Nick Hanauer
You
Innovation
Prosperity
Problems
Rich
Every
Society
Citizens
Civic
Between
Also
Misunderstood
Source
Ultimately
Get
Human
Difference
Social
Poor
Means
Human Society
Tech
Technological
Disruption
Number
The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense.
Nick Hanauer
Better
Will
Made
Economics
Oppose
Rich
Increase
Everyone
Those
Claim
Minimum
Minimum Wage
Bad
Insidious
About
Better Off
Economy
Most
Nonsense
Wage
Off
Get
Any
Poor
Richer
Who
Thing
You see, we capitalists will never actually ask you to work overtime. I don't even track your hours. I just make it clear that I trust you to get your job done in the time allotted. And then I hand you twice as much work as you can reasonably do in a 40-hour week.
Nick Hanauer
Work
Time
You
Trust
Will
Job
Overtime
See
Week
Never
Clear
Hours
Make
Track
Hand
Get
Done
Just
Ask
Then
Much
Capitalists
Your
Reasonably
Even
Twice
Actually
No matter how wealthy a few plutocrats get, we can never drive a great national economy. Only a thriving middle class can do that.
Nick Hanauer
Great
Class
Matter
Drive
National
Few
Wealthy
Only
Thriving
Never
Economy
How
National Economy
Get
Middle
Middle Class
I'm not the smartest guy you've ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I'm not technical at all - I can't write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship.
Nick Hanauer
Future
Me
You
Word
Will
Met
Tolerance
Think
Sets
Intuition
Seeing
About
Guy
Risk
Entrepreneurship
Write
Student
Headed
Smartest
Essence
Where
Happen
Apart
Code
Technical
Ever
Things
Mediocre
I think the people who end up being extraordinarily successful - it's been my observation - tend to care enormously about status, particularly business people, right? Because the only point of money, you know, the only reason to have a 300-foot-long boat is because they're bigger than 200-foot-long boats.
Nick Hanauer
You
Business
People
Money
Care
Think
Extraordinarily
Status
About
Only
Tend
Point
Observation
Know
Particularly
Because
Been
End
Up
Than
Being
Bigger
Boat
Boats
Successful
Business People
Reason
Who
Right
The only really expensive thing in our family budget, frankly, is private air travel.
Nick Hanauer
Family
Travel
Our
Air
Air Travel
Frankly
Only
Budget
Private
Expensive
Really
Thing
It is true that rich people can spend more money than middle class people, but there's this upper limit on what we can spend. I drive a very nice car, but it's only one car. I don't own a thousand, even though I earn a thousand times the median wage. I have a few jackets, not a few thousand.
Nick Hanauer
Class
People
Money
Car
Drive
Few
Own
Rich
Nice
Earn
Spend
Though
Thousand
Thousand Times
More
Only
True
Limit
Wage
Very
Times
Than
Jackets
Upper
Middle
Middle Class
Rich People
Even
Median
The thing I've learned most about poverty is how expensive it is to be poor. It's super easy to pay rent every month if you earn enough to pay rent and have a decent job. It's super hard to pay rent if you need a coupon from the state and then need to go find an apartment that will accept that coupon and only that coupon.
Nick Hanauer
You
Will
Job
Poverty
Pay
Every
Enough
Earn
State
Month
Easy
Find
Super
About
Only
Most
Learned
Accept
Rent
How
Go
Decent
Expensive
Apartment
Poor
Then
Hard
Thing
Need
Like most plutocrats, I, too, am a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, cofounded or funded over 30 companies across a range of industries. I was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. I cofounded a company called aQuantive that we sold to Microsoft for 6.4 billion dollars. My friends and I, we own a bank.
Nick Hanauer
First
Own
Too
Sold
Range
Investor
Over
Like
Most
Industries
Proud
Am
Dollars
Friends
Microsoft
Bank
Capitalist
Across
Billion
Billion Dollars
Companies
Company
Founded
When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.
Nick Hanauer
You
Job
Rich
Creation
Benefit
Job Creation
System
Rates
Name
Most
Get
Tax
Happens
Which
Tax System
Richer
Richest
Lowest
Prosperity isn't something that squirts out of rich people.
Nick Hanauer
People
Prosperity
Rich
Out
Something
Rich People
I'm not the world's best philosopher. But I am one of the world's best strategists. I will put my strategic abilities against anybody on Earth.
Nick Hanauer
Best
World
Will
Philosopher
Earth
Ability
Put
Am
Anybody
Against
Strategic
I have absolutely no rituals or routines other than I work obsessively and think constantly about my work, to the dismay and discomfort of everyone I employ. And my family.
Nick Hanauer
Work
Family
Think
Other
Everyone
Constantly
About
Rituals
Absolutely
Employ
Discomfort
Than
Dismay
Routines
The higher the unemployment rate, the more leverage I have to 'encourage' you to 'do what it takes' to keep your job. And so you work even more hours, pushing unemployment up and wages down. And that, my friends, is one of the little tricks that keeps you poor and me rich.
Nick Hanauer
Work
Me
You
Job
Rich
Down
Tricks
Rate
More
Higher
Pushing
Takes
Hours
Wages
Encourage
Up
Friends
Unemployment
Unemployment Rate
Little
Poor
Your
Even
Keep
Keeps
Leverage
Tech innovation is something societies have to pursue as vigorously as they can. We have to innovate civically and socially at the same rate; otherwise, you create unfortunate disruptions, and that's where you have people opposing technological innovations.
Nick Hanauer
You
Innovation
People
Opposing
Otherwise
Innovate
Innovations
Rate
Something
Pursue
Same
Where
Unfortunate
Create
Tech
Socially
Societies
Technological
Disruption
The thing about us businesspeople is that we love our customers rich and our employees poor.
Nick Hanauer
Love
Employees
Rich
Our
About
Poor
Customers
Us
Businesspeople
Thing
The truth is that all civic and social change is friction. Politics is friction. The only way you can bend the arc of history is to create that kind of friction, which is something that makes most people incredibly uncomfortable but which, for whatever reason, because of my upbringing or because of my genetics, is something that doesn't bug me.
Nick Hanauer
Politics
Truth
Me
History
You
Change
Truth Is
People
Whatever
Bend
Incredibly
Way
Kind
Arc
Civic
Something
Only
Uncomfortable
Genetics
Most
Bug
Because
Makes
Friction
Upbringing
Which
Social
Social Change
Create
Reason
I make an eight-figure income annually.
Nick Hanauer
Make
Income
If Jeff Bezos and I had started Amazon.com in a poverty-stricken corner of Africa, there would have been no job creation because there would be no people to buy the stuff from Amazon.com. The difference here is the American middle class, which is by every measure the most extraordinary economic achievement in the history of the world.
Nick Hanauer
Buy
History
Achievement
Class
People
World
Job
Creation
Every
Corner
Extraordinary
Job Creation
Would
Would-Be
Economic
Had
Stuff
Most
Because
Been
American
Africa
Difference
Middle
The History Of
Middle Class
Which
Measure
Jeff
Here
Started
We became enthralled with the view that wealth trickled down from the top and that if you poured money into rich people, sort of like an ingredient, prosperity and jobs would squirt out of them like donuts. And if you understand economies in the 19th-century way, that view is plausible, and I think a lot of people accepted it.
Nick Hanauer
You
People
Money
Wealth
Prosperity
Rich
Down
Think
Top
Way
Out
Jobs
Would
Poured
Economies
Like
Sort
Became
Accepted
Understand
Lot
Donuts
Them
Rich People
Ingredient
View
Plausible
If low taxes were the way that people like me created wealth, then we'd be starting our companies in the Congo or Somalia or Afghanistan, but we're not. We come to places where there are lots and lots of customers.
Nick Hanauer
Me
People
Wealth
Our
Way
Somalia
Come
Like
Were
Lots
Lots And Lots
Afghanistan
Where
Places
Low
Customers
Taxes
Then
Created
Congo
Companies
Starting
During Seattle's successful campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage, our opponents would sometimes roll their eyes and snort, 'If $15 is so good, why not $50?' It was a straw man argument: Nobody was proposing a $50 minimum wage; it would have been too high, and we said so.
Nick Hanauer
Good
Man
Eyes
Sometimes
Argument
Too
Our
Minimum
Minimum Wage
High
Would
Proposing
Nobody
Hour
Said
Opponents
Wage
Been
Campaign
Roll
Successful
Straw
Why
Why Not
Seattle
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