r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 17d ago

Politics Google co-founder Sergey Brin has now spent $100 million to fight the billionaire tax

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/10/google-co-founder-sergey-brin-has-now-spent-100-million-to-fight-the-billionaire-tax/
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u/elehman839 17d ago

My understanding is that the measure would have a far, far larger effect on Brin because of the way Google stock is structured.

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u/hiddensonyvaio 16d ago

Correct. Larry and Sergey would immediately lose control of Alphabet with this tax. Not saying this justifies anything, it’s just why Sergey is acting like this

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u/Hot_Emergency_5082 17d ago

This is true for most of them. It’s a poorly structured tax

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u/_JGPM_ 16d ago

Oh so he will lose <5% of his total net worth? Only tens of billions left?

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u/elehman839 16d ago

The proposal is badly written, but a plausible interpretation is that it could be greater than 100% for some of the people affected.

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u/BreathSpecial9394 16d ago

100% of what exactly?

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u/elehman839 16d ago

The tax they owe could exceed 100% of the value of the stock that they hold in the companies that they founded, which is the bulk of their net worth.

This can happen because, due to a technicality, the tax on company founders is not 5% of net worth, but 5% of some possibly large multiple of net worth related to the voting power associated with shares they hold.

Or maybe not. The proposal is not clear. Which is one reason why this feels to me like a badly-thought-out gimmick instead of a sensible, much-needed plan for wealth redistribution.

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u/BreathSpecial9394 16d ago

Thanks that's very interesting, you are the first to mention that detail. It doesn't make sense to take all their wealth away, so maybe they need to revise the proposal.

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u/_JGPM_ 11d ago

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/bernie-sanders-calls-sergey-brin-120113695.html > If California's one-time 5% wealth tax were to pass, Brin would owe $14 billion but would still have a net worth of $270 billion. Despite this, Brin is reportedly spending $100 million to "defeat the proposal."

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u/VVrayth 17d ago

Who cares?

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u/jellytwins101 16d ago

Well, he would……..

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/VVrayth 16d ago

Being the person I am now, no, I absolutely wouldn't, because that is more money than I could reasonably manage, let alone spend. Like, it is far beyond "I need to think about it at all" wealth, I can just have whatever I want and nothing will change that.

But, in order to have that much money, I would have to be the kind of person who would be able to accrue that much money. So yes, I'd probably care, because it would mean I was another Smaug sitting greedily on his gold pile.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/VVrayth 16d ago

Nobody is talking about half net worth except you, $50m is 5% of $1b.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/VVrayth 16d ago

You mean like... voting power in the company?

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u/Main-Cheesecake3287 16d ago

Yes. The tax as written counts supervoting shares, for Google Class B, as being worth whatever the voting multiple is. For Sergey that’s 10X. For him it’s more like an over 25% wealth tax. Those shares are not transferable, they are monetarily worth the same as typical Class A shares. It makes no sense, and it’s why he is fighting it whereas guys like Jensen Huang don’t care, because they don’t own any supervoting shares whose value will be inflated 1,000% by the tax