O’Farrell signs ‘Millionaires Against Pitchforks’ letter
DUBLINER John O’Farrell, who was third in the door at Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz (which likes to go by the moniker a16z), was a signatory to a letter released during the week by a group called ‘Millionaires Against Pitchforks’ to coincide with the Davos World Economic Forum.
Calling for higher taxes to alleviate growing economic inequality, which is helping to fuel the rise of populism, his name was listed alongside 120 others, including British actor Simon Pegg, writer-director Richard Curtis, telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim and Disney heiress Abigail Disney. Eagle-eyed Ergo didn’t see any other Irish names on the list though.
The letter stated bluntly: “There are two kinds of wealthy people in the world — those who prefer taxes and those who prefer pitchforks. We prefer taxes.”
It also highlighted how an estimated $8trn (€7.3trn) — almost 10pc of the world’s GDP — is hidden in tax havens.
“Extreme, destabilising inequality is growing across the globe. Today, there are more billionaires on Earth than ever before, and they control more wealth than they ever have. Meanwhile, the incomes of the poorest half of humanity remain virtually unchanged,” the letter continued.
O’Farrell regularly tweets about such matters, though didn’t mention the letter on Twitter, and said in these pages last year that he’d like to see a more equal distribution of wealth in the US and elsewhere. He told Ergo that he signed the letter in a strictly personal capacity, and it was nothing to do with a16z.