Successful entrepreneurs provide employment opportunities while making their money. A report by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) found that successful entrepreneurs who have started multiple businesses tend to create more businesses than first time entrepreneurs. Additionally, a report from the World Economic Forum backs this report, as it is estimated that the top 1% of entrepreneurs in terms of business performance create approximately 40% of the jobs in their respective countries. Howard Shultz, the former CEO of Starbucks. 

Howard Shultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, has provided employment opportunities to underserved areas like Jamaica Queens, NY through the Starbucks community store initiative in 2015. A successful company like Starbucks could choose to open stores anywhere, but despite the lack of profit potential in these underserved areas, Starbucks is trying to make their money through uplifting neglected communities, through providing employment opportunities that would not be possible otherwise. 

This community store initiative has created over 300 local jobs, connected the youth to education & employment opportunities, generated more than $59.7 million in indirect economic development created from store construction and over 1,100 indirect jobs, helping improve the living conditions of a plethora of people, identified and eliminated barriers to entry that prevent diverse owned contractors from competing successfully to build stores for the company. 

Additionally, several successful business leaders have also helped uplift others through generously spending their hard earned money through philanthropy, because they feel bound to help the community. Andrew Carnagie said this best : “Surplus wealth is sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in the lifetime for the good of the community.” Many successful entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates have taken this close to heart and set up charitable foundations to tackle global problems such as poverty alleviation efforts using their own wealth. 

In 2020, the top 50 companies in the Fortune 500 list donated about $3.9 billion to charitable causes and in 2020, corporate giving in the US reached $20.77 billion. Several business leaders like Bill Gates, Melinda Gates & Warren Buffet started The Giving Pledge, encouraging billionaires to pledge majority of wealth to philanthropy and as of 2021, more than 220 billionaires from 25 countries have committed to giving away a significant portion of their wealth. 

Successful industrialist, Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata group, India’s biggest conglomerate, used his wealth to develop India through infrastructure development. Through his founding of the city of Jamshedpur, which was used to support the Tata steel operations, helped contribute to civic and urban developments which included investments in infrastructure such as housing, healthcare and education facilities for the community, which led to job creation, attraction of investment from both home and abroad - leading to further economic growth for the nation, but also enhanced the quality of life for India’s citizens, pulling several out of poverty and offered better life prospects for many. 

Jamsetji Tata is a prime example on how a successful business leader’s charitable contribution may not only change a myriad of lives, but could also contribute to the development and uplifting of an entire nation.

As amazing as it is that successful business people selflessly help uplift others while making and spending their money, not all of them have the same values. Some people have caused harm and destroyed several people despite knowing the consequences, because of their insatiable greed. One example is George Soros, the man infamous for making his wealth through collapsing economies.

Soros, is a short seller, who sells assets like currencies, betting that it will go down in value, so that he could buy the currency back at a lower price to return the borrowed asset and the difference between cost at which currency was borrowed & is replaced at lower price is the profit. 

Soros did this to several currencies, causing mass unemployment, bankruptcy and weakened several economies for years, despite knowing the potential consequences of his bets on these economies, rather than leaving them alone. 

In 1997, Soros was involved in the collapse of the Thai Baht which helped trigger the wider Asian financial crisis. In the early to mid 1990s, the Thai baht was pegged to the US dollar at a stable exchange rate. However, due to Thailand’s large foreign debt and current account deficit, made it vulnerable to a speculative attack, which was the case when Soros’s hedge fund started to short the Thai baht in large amounts - causing the currency to decline faster and lead to rapid consequences rather than if they had left it alone, the way it was. 

Soros’s response to the Asian financial crisis was : “I am having a very good crisis”, where he made over a billion dollars in profits while mass unemployment peaked in major Asian economies, such as from 2% to 8% in South Korea, 4% to 15% in Indonesia, and 1% to 7% in Thailand. Causing bankruptcy to several businesses - over 100,000 in South Korea, around 40,000 to 100,000 in Indonesia, and over 5000 businesses in Thailand, and also social issues like 10,600 people in Hong Kong, Japan & South Korea to commit suicide

This example shows how one person’s greed could destroy an entire continent. Selfish decisions as such for one’s own gain with disregard for others can have detrimental effects and devastating consequences. 

While there are successful business people who help uplift others while making their money, this may only be a minority as for other business people their success may come at a cost for others, such as exploitative practices to their labors such as low wages, neglection of worker rights and also poor working conditions. For example, there have been reports and investigations highlighting challenging working conditions at Amazon’s warehouses, with employees subjected to physically demanding tasks, long hours and strict productivity targets. Some workers have even expressed concerns about the pressure to meet quotas, limited break times and inadequate restroom access. In addition, factory workers in Amazon are uneased regarding the unlivable wages, especially considering that Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos is the world’s third richest man, yet employees don’t make a decent enough wage to earn a living. 

This is not only limited to Amazon, but also other successful businesses in our world. For example, in the US, the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio in the largest companies was about 320-to-1 in 2020. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2020, the top 1% of the world’s population holds over 44% of global wealth, while the bottom 50% collectively holds less than 2% of global wealth. This shows us that while successful business people become richer, this usually comes at the cost of exploitation of the work of others. 

One of the biggest global challenges that we face in our world today is the significant wealth disparity between the rich and the poor due to the inefficient distribution of resources. One of the main reasons for this is the unwillingness of successful business people to cooperate with the government to support the aid of poverty alleviation efforts. Despite the fact that successful and wealthy business people have more than sufficient income for themselves, they are still reluctant to pay part of their income that they legally owe to the government, and find loopholes by hiring specialist accountants and financiers to avoid and or evade taxes. One example of such is by parking their money in safe havens where there is little to no taxes. For example, in 2017, the Tax Justice Network estimated around $10 trillion to $20 trillion of global wealth may be held in offshore tax havens. In contrary, if the percentage of income they legally owe went to their government in the form of taxes, this can narrow the gap between rich and the poor as the government can support the poor by increasing welfare payments, provide skills and training workshops to help the poor find employment opportunities and also help the poor raise their standard of living.

Yet despite having more than sufficient money for themselves and their family, their greed prevents them to do what is legally and ethically the right thing to pay their taxes, which governments could use to narrow the wealth gap. 

To conclude, successful business people on average benefit others both while making and also spending their money. As successful people and their businesses grow, they employ more individuals, helping raise their living standards and prospects which wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Several successful business people also feel bound to help the less fortunate with their wealth and some of them even pledge to give 99% of their wealth away for charitable causes. However, this is not a generalization because as generous as some successful business people are, there are an equal minority that make their money through exploitation of their workers and from the downfall of others. 

However, one common ground, is that business leaders who do give away their money on top of paying their legal tax is a selfless thing to do, because providing welfare and opportunities to citizens is usually a government’s duty, yet it is good to see successful business people who have priorities to give back to the community. Therefore this matter of whether successful business people help others while making or spending their money is very subjective in nature and depends on factors such as their personal values, beliefs and priorities.