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Nick Hanauer

Nick Hanauer Quotes

Venture capitalist

Nick Hanauer is a renowned venture capitalist, born in 1959. He has over 30 years of experience in Silicon Valley and has founded several successful technology companies. Hanauer is known for his unique perspective and forward-thinking in the investment field, and he is also an active social activist and writer.

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Famous Nick Hanauer Quotes

“The only reason to have a 300-foot-long boat is because they're bigger than 200-foot-long boats.”

Long Reason Feet Bigger Boat

Author:Nick Hanauer

“My message is that the counterclaim - which is that if wages go up, employment will go down - is a scam. It's a con job. It's an intimidation tactic. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that it's true. On the contrary, where you find high wages you usually find low unemployment.”

Ifs Jobs Messages Lows Evidence Contrary Employment Unemployment Wages Tactics Intimidation Scams

Author:Nick Hanauer

“The fundamental law of capitalism is: when workers have more money, businesses have more customers, and need more workers. The idea that high wages equals low employment, it's absurd.”

Needs Ideas Law Lows Capitalism Fundamentals Workers Customers Absurd Employment More Money Wages

Author:Nick Hanauer

“You can go back 150 years and literally find the same people saying the same thing in the same way. "If we have to pay you more, it will be bad for you." And that's because saying that is a much more polite way of saying, "I'm rich, you're poor, and I would prefer to keep it that way."”

People Ifs Way Years Poor Pay Rich Polite

Author:Nick Hanauer

“Raising the minimum wage is very efficient. Everybody's on the same playing field, it's a very simple rule, it doesn't require a lot of administration, you don't have to negotiate anything. It just is what it is.”

Simple Fields Administration Efficient Minimum Minimum Wage Playing Fields

Author:Nick Hanauer

“I was more conservative when I was younger. But I don't think that I've moved left - I think the country has moved right.”

Thinking Country Left Moved Conservative

Author:Nick Hanauer

“I think the idea that giant profitable corporations should pay their workers enough so that they don't need food stamps - since when is that left wing? How did that become "leftie?" That doesn't seem leftie to me. That seems common sense.”

Thinking Needs Should Ideas Enough Seems Left Common Pay Wings Workers Common Sense Corporations Giants Stamps Profitable Left Wing Food Stamps

Author:Nick Hanauer

“If you care about real change, deep structural change, that involves politics, and all politics is friction. It takes leadership, and the willingness to create that friction, that leads to social change.”

Ifs Real Care Social Willingness Social Change Friction Real Change If You Care

Author:Nick Hanauer

“I was at the forefront of the effort to pass $15 minimum wage in Seattle, and have been collaborating with the people who are trying to make that happen across the country.”

People Trying Has Beens Country Happens Effort Minimum Minimum Wage Seattle Collaborating

Author:Nick Hanauer

“The idea that high wages equals low employment, it's absurd.”

Ideas Lows Absurd Employment Wages

Author:Nick Hanauer

“Fast food workers are all the governor has power to enact. Your state legislature is held hostage by the same nitwits that hold hostage the federal [government]. People who have confused suffocating collectivism, which is bad, for a necessity to solve collective action problems, which is what all human endeavor is based on.”

“Raising the minimum wage a lot across the board would make a big difference. It's not the only thing, but it's an indispensable part of solving the problem.”

Problem Bigs Differences Boards Minimum Indispensable Minimum Wage

Author:Nick Hanauer

“The person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 isn't going out to eat at restaurants. They're not taking piano lessons. They're not going to the gym or the yoga studio. They're not sending mom flowers on Mother's day. What good is this person in the economy? If you raise it to $15 an hour, they're doing all of those things. And all of a sudden, not just business thrives, but small business thrives.”

Ifs Persons Mother Hours Economy Flower Mom Lessons Yoga Raises Studios Piano Restaurants Thrive Gym Going Out Minimum Earning Small Business Mothers Day Minimum Wage Piano Lesson

Author:Nick Hanauer

“Raising the overtime threshold - something that is about to happen. This is more complex so not as many people understand it, but it's equally consequential.”

People Happens Complexes Threshold

Author:Nick Hanauer

“The overtime threshold is to the middle class as the minimum wage is to low-wage workers.”

Class Middle Lows Workers Middle Class Minimum Threshold Minimum Wage

Author:Nick Hanauer

“Now one person doing the job of one and a half. So as an employer I can get two people to do the work of three, and think about what that does for profits.”

People Thinking Persons Doe I Can Two Jobs Three Half Profit Employers

Author:Nick Hanauer

“When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it's a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it's the other way around.”

Way Facts Jobs Wealth Evolution Creating Credit Squirrels Creating Jobs

Author:Nick Hanauer

“If it was true that lower taxes for the rich and more wealth to the wealthy leat to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs.”

Ifs Would Be Today Jobs Wealth Rich Creation Taxes Wealthy Drowning Job Creation

Author:Nick Hanauer

“But can we please stop insisting that if low-wage workers earn a little bit more, unemployment will skyrocket and the economy will collapse? There is no evidence for it. The most insidious thing about trickle-down economics is not the claim that if the rich get richer, everyone is better off. It is the claim made by those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage that if the poor get richer, that will be bad for the economy. This is nonsense.”

“The most pro-business thing you can do is to help middle-class people thrive.”

People Helping Can Do Class Middle Thrive Middle Class

Author:Nick Hanauer

“Raising the minimum wage allows business people to stop thinking about workers simply as costs to be cut and allows you to start thinking about workers as customers to be cultivated.”

People Thinking Cutting Cost Workers Customers Minimum Minimum Wage

Author:Nick Hanauer

About the Author

Born: 1959
Known for: Venture capitalist
Quotes: 21

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