Affirm founder reveals fat store clerks exposed Soviet socialism's inevitable corruption firsthand

What was said

"If you went to a government-owned store, and every store was of course owned by the government, you would very quickly notice that the people whose job was to sell you things from behind the counter were always very fat. While everyone you knew in your life was always very skinny. And you're sort of like, this doesn't make any sense. Like, how do these people who happen to work in food stores are always really well fed? It's like, well, because they're stealing."

The entrepreneur shares a vivid childhood memory from the Soviet Union that crystallized socialism's fatal flaw: government store workers with access to food were always well-fed while everyone else starved, exposing how centralized redistribution systems inevitably empower those in control to steal. This personal anecdote illustrates his broader argument that people tasked with fair distribution always become corrupt, regardless of their initial honesty, making socialism structurally doomed.