Nick Hanauer is the scion of a small family fortune made in the pillows industry, the Pacific Coast Feather Company. He invested some of the feather money in Amazon and that has paid off well. Now he is, by all accounts, either a billionaire or a modest fellow trying to become a billionaire.
A Seattle-area native, Hanauer is an avid adventure traveler, who has visited more than 60 countries, a fly fisherman and an amateur astronomer. He and his wife, Leslie, reside in the Seattle area with their two children. Determined to be a civic activist, Nick was part of Seattle’s successful campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15. Nick hired David Goldstein, a friend as well s founder of and writer for HorsesAss. David has also worked as a writers and political planner for the $15 campaign. David is Nick’s ghostwriter. At least as well as I can understand, Nick is being painted by David as a rich guy trying to teach other rich guys that is in their interest to share the wealth.
from Wiki: “In May 2012, several online news outlets reported that Hanauer’s March 1, 2012 TED talk[12] was not posted by TED Talks. In the short presentation he spoke about rising income inequality in the US, and the problems it may cause to future business ventures, as he feels that middle class consumers are far greater job creators than wealthy entrepreneurs like himself.[13][14][15] Thus he proposed the necessity for higher median incomes for workers rather than tax breaks for the wealthy, stating that if lower income tax rates for the wealthy really worked “we would be drowning in jobs”, instead of unemployment being at current numbers.[15]
As justification for not posting the talk, Chris Anderson, curator of TED, a private organization, stated that he felt Hanauer’s talk was “explicitly partisan” and included “a number of arguments that were unconvincing”.[15][16] Huffington Post writer Jillian Berman expressed bewilderment since TED had previously issued talks by politicians such as former US Vice-President Al Gore or British Prime Minister David Cameron without hesitation.[15] TED reserves the right to post only the talks it considers to be most effective. Hanauer partially defended Anderson’s decision in an interview with Sam Seder, saying he could understand that the position he himself offered in his talk might be controversial to the business community and that Anderson might have received unproportional critique for his decision to hold back the talk.[17] The original presentation is available on YouTube.[18]
Anderson later decided to add Nick’s most recent, and longer, talk on a similar theme from TEDSalon NY2014. It was posted on August 12, 2014.[19] Anderson also posted an explanation for his decision and showed himself and Hanauer “burying the hatchet”.[20]“
Since I share with David Goldstein a sense of sarcasm, it would be all too easy to make fun of this relationship. On the other hand, imagine if it worked!
TED is a glorified HorsesAss.org for rich snobs. Chris Anderson charges six thousand bucks for a ticket to listen to people drone about their ideas. Clearly, he’s not trying to appeal to the masses. Therefore it’s hardly surprising that he thinks his paying customers don’t want to hear someone pitch higher taxes on the rich.
Tix cost HOW MUCH?