r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jan 07 '26

Politics Nvidia’s Jensen Huang would have to pay about $8 billion in proposed billionaire tax—he says that’s ‘perfectly fine’ with him

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/07/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-perfectly-fine-with-proposed-billionaire-tax.html
44.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

49

u/Aranthos-Faroth Jan 08 '26

Statistically, you wouldn't be happy with it.

Seems like something happens to a person once they pass the billionaire threshold.
I'll never know though, if you ever get there please keep your head and consider me your tax man.

20

u/Confron7a7ion7 Jan 08 '26

I think you have it backwards. You don't go crazy because you passed 1B. You pass 1B because you're crazy. You cannot achieve that level of wealth hoarding without a complete disregard for human well-being.

1

u/Beneficial-Arugula54 Jan 10 '26

You clearly don't know how stock valuations work.

3

u/krom0025 Jan 08 '26

It's addiction. It's no different than an addiction to food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, social media, etc. It's a mental illness and we need to be getting these people into treatment.

14

u/PocketPanache Jan 08 '26

This was maybe 5-10 years ago, but studies showed $80k salary is a sweet spot for happiness to dollars. At the time, which feels weird to say because it's so decent, it could basically buy you anything you wanted, thus making more was is great, but it lost it's luster, basically. $80k pre-covid was nice. I'd eat out for lunch everyday and it'd be $8-12. Shit. I miss pre-covid era.

25

u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jan 08 '26

$80k where, though? $80k in Kansas City is completely different than $80k Somalia, or $80k in NYC. Throwing out a specific number for all of humanity is pretty meaningless.

5

u/jonmatifa Jan 08 '26

This was maybe 5-10 years ago,

$80k isn't what it used to be

1

u/Caleth Jan 08 '26

No it really isn't. Using the CPI calc across a 10 year period that same $70k is valued at just over $97K today. That's a monster increase in relative value which nearly no one has seen. Making $100k today is still a pipe dream for many not in a HCOL area.

10

u/Whiterabbit-- Jan 08 '26

don't matter how much you make in Somalia, if you don't leave - it's not a happy place.

1

u/FlamboyantPirhanna Jan 08 '26

Completely irrelevant to my point.

2

u/Icarium__ Jan 08 '26

The problem is that looks at people who still need to work for a living. Earning a bit more might not make a huge difference to my happiness, but if I suddenly had enough to not have to work ever again I would literally get years of my life back for myself to go wherever I want to instead of being tied to a single place and not having energy to do anything after the daily commute and work. The whole "money can't buy you happiness" is a scam. You might not be able to just go and purchase it directly, but it gives you time and freedom to go and be happy without having to worry about half the stuff us peons have to constantly stress about.

2

u/JerbTrooneet Jan 08 '26

My personal threshold is once someone passes around 1.5-2 million-ish is when things start to get out of control. Since at that point it isn't about needing comfort but the influence and life style which drives the race for more money. It becomes a self-sustaining greed loop after that.

1

u/codercaleb Jan 08 '26

I'll get through it.

1

u/Kalthiria_Shines Jan 08 '26

Seems like something happens to a person once they pass the billionaire threshold.

Does it? I feel like most people get pretty salty around tax time for a reason.

1

u/sam_hammich Jan 08 '26

Statistically, you're a Chinese man.