This so-called defense of the founders by Cuban is worse than Ro Khanna's direct assault, because it is the assault's enabler, as their exchange below illustrates.
Watch the sequence. Mark's first reply argued only mechanics. The founders are cash poor, the banks will not lend, capital will flee. Not one sentence said the wealth is not the state's to take. So Ro did what a man of consistent premises always does when handed the premise: he solved the mechanics. Sell the shares, or the state will sell them for you. That sentence was not a gaffe, Mark. It was your own argument, completed. You told him the problem was collection, and he collected.
And read your rage carefully, because its shape confesses the same surrender. Every line of it defends the founders' effort, their jobs created, their wages paid, their reinvestment. Which means the fortune must be earned twice, once by building it and again by social service, before you will object to its seizure. And your own contrast gives away the rest: Jensen and Lisa Su have liquidity, so taxing them raises no cry. Then your objection is not the taking. It was to the timing. A man who concedes that much has no answer when the state offers to fix the timing, and none when a politician measures the seizure against poor kids, since need as a claim on ability is the one premise nobody in this thread has challenged.
Here is the answer that ends the argument. The wealth is theirs. Not because they are illiquid, not because they create jobs, not because they suffered for it, but because they earned it in voluntary trade, and no need anywhere on earth converts another man's property into public revenue. Say that, and there is nothing left to negotiate. Refuse to say it, and your profanity is just the sound a pragmatist makes when his own premise comes back to collect.
Ro, “in your scenario, the founder could sell to pay a one time 5 percent tax or the state could sell it if he defaults on the loan”
Ro, this is the biggest fuck you in the history of entrepreneurship. Ever.
Creating jobs but don’t have cash. Fuck you
Can’t sell shares, we will sell it for you, to whoever. Fuck you.
Creating jobs. Paying great wages instead of taking cash out yourself. Fuck you
Reinvesting into your company and community. Fuck You.
Don’t you know that Jensen, and Lisa Su, and people who have vast amounts of liquidity already have no problem with it. Fuck You
There is a huge difference between someone with liquidity , running a huge public company, and someone who has dedicated every minute of who knows how many years, to building a company, to finally have a dream financing come true , only to be insulted by a politician. “We will sell your shares for you “
GTFO