Enterprise

It's not just Zuckerberg — Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield is a big fan of universal basic income

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Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield  Slack

Booming tech salaries and the resulting wage gap have put the greater San Francisco area at the center of conversations about income inequality in the United States. It's even become a central issue for a certain not-running-for-president billionaire, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In particular, Zuckerberg is an outspoken advocate for a universal basic income, which would guarantee all citizens a monthly stipend to cover basic expenses like food and rent. 

Advocates say the system is one of the surest ways to lift people from existing poverty, and it also happens to be a societal safeguard for when automation and AI take over more and more jobs. 

Turns out, Zuckerberg isn't the only CEO who thinks it's a good idea.

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield took to Twitter on Friday to further a discussion on the role that family money has played in some of the most successful businesses. 

"Doesn't have to be much, but giving people even a very small safety net would unlock a huge amount of entrepreneurialism," Butterfield Tweeted.

Butterfield, who is from Canada, went on to say that he thinks free healthcare is more vital than a free college education.

"Plenty of people are happy and successful without any college, whereas all dead people are just dead," he wrote.

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Becky Peterson was formerly a tech features correspondent focused on long-form profiles and investigations into the most interesting people and companies at the intersection of technology and finance.She's broken news on major tech stories including Palantir's work on Project Maven, Peter Thiel's $18 million estate in Miami (which was once featured on MTV's 'The Real World'), Jeffrey Epstein's tour of SpaceX, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's insistence that employees take "the D."Previously, she covered enterprise tech and tech investment banking with a focus on M&A, IPO and venture capital deals in San Francisco. She graduated from New York University with a master's degree in media, culture and communication with an emphasis on technology and society. ExpertiseSilicon Valley, Venture Capital, Investment Banking, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine MaxwellPopular articlesInside the turmoil at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where employees say divorce, Epstein, and vaccines have left some staffers polishing their résumésThe secret life of Ian Osborne, the shadowy 38-year-old cofounder of Chamath Palihapitiya's SPAC who has built the ultimate black book of billionairesSilicon Valley VCs are at war with the 'far left radicals' running CaliforniaInside the life of Ghislaine Maxwell's secret husband, a once-high-flying tech entrepreneur backed by Eric Schmidt who is now a central figure in one of the country's most high-profile legal casesRent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman, one of the most successful female founders, is fighting to save her companyJeffrey Epstein set Elon Musk's brother up with a girlfriend in effort to get close to the Tesla founder, sources sayA drunken late-night assault allegation has roiled the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg's private family office. Personal aides are speaking out about claims that household staff endured sexual harassment and racism from their colleagues.