Ben Chestnut

Co-founder and former CEO of @Mailchimp. Father, husband, designerd, mountain biker and student of Objectivism 🇺🇸

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@draecomino @charlescwcooke The people who create get villainized.

[Stephen R. C. Hicks @SRCHicks]

Last year: 10%. This year: 50%.
They agree in principle; they differ in degree.
More here: https://t.co/TNEiVZTc97

[O’Shea Jackson Jr @OsheaJacksonJr]

I saw it. Now you have to see it. His name is Samuel. And he…is a king.

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@pedro_cristian @RaminNasibov It’ll come in handy when we’re battling the machines! https://t.co/iCF1dcBUvf

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@JoogSZN @RaminNasibov Remember the controversy when Descent 3 came out? You had to pay for the upgraded ship?

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

A quick Google search says your father in law is a billionaire thru Transtar Industries. Is he a hoarder? Also says “The millions of dollars in assets attributed to Ritu Khanna (and disclosed by her husband, Representative Ro Khanna) largely originate from investments, trusts, and inherited generational wealth through Mura Holdings.” Is generational wealth hoarding? Are trusts hoarding? Are trusts a way of avoiding taxes? Assuming your trusts benefit your kids, does that make them hoarders too? Why not move Mura Holdings from Ohio to California, so your assets can be “fairly shared” by the “community” in which you live?

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

😂

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

A guy sees 2 buildings on opposite sides of the street. One has the sign “Determinists’ Club.” The other building has a sign “League for Free Will.”

So the guy walks into the Determinists’ Club. When asked why he wants to join, he replies, “Because I choose to,” and he's thrown out.

Then he walks over to the League for Free Will. When asked why he wants to join, he says, “Because I had no other choice,” and again he's turned away.

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

“Greater good” is the oldest costume tyranny ever wore. Once sacrifice becomes moral, every atrocity becomes negotiable and every individual becomes expendable. Rights exist precisely to forbid treating human beings as fuel for someone else’s utopia.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

"Activism" is an engineered dead end for young people who would otherwise be getting in the game and for boomers who already won it and are concerned with the ultimate luxury good: moral superiority.

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

Billionaires exist under both communism and capitalism. Under capitalism they get rich by selling people what they want. Under communism the ruling class gets rich by controlling and confiscating property through force.

That’s the whole point of abolishing property rights: making theft legal for the political class.

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@LeftyWinter What economic system did those countries embrace to clean up their messes? 🤔

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

Mess created by Nazis (National **Socialist** German Workers Party): 6 million Jews killed.

Mess created by Union of Soviet **Socialist** Republics: 20-60 million

Mess created by Polpot’s attempted agrarian **socialist** state: ~3 million

Mess created by the **socialist** Mao Zedong: ~60 million.

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

Earth only holds 370 quintillion gallons! Regulate granola now!

[Blake Scholl 🛫 @bscholl]

Very concerned about Big Almond

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@LeslieBarandky @TomSteyer 1) Yes. 2) No.

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

Amen. Also, love that he’s doing this interview in front of one of his rocket engines.

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@RBReich Don’t believe resentful, left-wing academics. You absolutely can be a self-made billionaire, especially if you’re lucky enough to live in America. Some have even done it without investors.

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

@BernieSanders Shouldn’t you be happy? When it’s all robots, there’ll be no more “exploitation” of “surplus value!”

[Ben Chestnut @benchestnut]

She’s conflating actual wage theft (the withholding of pay to workers who earned it) and the Marxist concept of “wage theft” and “surplus value.” This is misleading, toxic to our culture and downright dangerous.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

The single largest form of theft in America is wage theft. $50 billion a year are stolen from American workers.

If a billionaire amasses their wealth by underpaying their full-time workers so severely that they must rely on food assistance and government programs to survive, then no, that wealth was not earned by one individual - it was a wealth transfer subsidized by underpaid American workers and the public who get stuck with the bill for large corporations free-riding off our systems.

The point is less about individual morality. It’s more about how our current economic reality of shattering inequality rewards screwing over workers and exploiting essential systems at scale.

We’re talking monopoly power. Rent-seeking. Wage theft. Profiteering. Stock buybacks. Destabilizing housing markets. Companies using SNAP/EBT to underwrite their wages. Massive government subsidies or contracts to corporations following lobbying and dark money in politics with little to no oversight or accountability.

Some people get enraged that I draw attention to this. That’s on them. Let them call me shrill, dumb, inexperienced, girly, uneducated - these folks will say anything to distract from or undercut the truth that working people are getting screwed, and giving people a fair shake means we must have a grown conversation about reigning in abuse of power.