Thousands of workers took to the streets across the United States on Labor Day for the “Workers Over Billionaires” Labor Day protest, rallying against what they describe as the unchecked power of the ultra-wealthy and their influence on politics and policy.

What many of these protesters fail to recognize, however, is that a significant portion of America’s billionaire class started from humble beginnings—and their willingness to shoulder immense risk and build innovative companies has generated millions of jobs and substantial economic growth. Company founders—such as Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, and Sam Walton—began their careers with little to their names and built monumental enterprises from scratch. These leaders took personal risks, endured setbacks, and invested their effort (and often their own capital) to create something substantial in the American economy and they now employ millions of Americans.

The companies they founded, including Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, FedEx and Microsoft, now directly employ millions of Americans, provide benefits, pay taxes, and underpin entire communities. In aggregate, companies started by self-made billionaires are among the largest private employers in the country, and their existence creates not just direct jobs but entire ecosystems of opportunity.

The American story has always celebrated those who start with nothing, build something extraordinary, and in the process, create opportunities for millions of others. Many of these founders sacrificed themselves and families to gamble their time and money to build these companies. The money they have they worked for they certainly earned, and to insinuate that they should simply hand their earnings to others is not what they worked so hard to do. The simple question all these protesters need to ask themselves is whether they’d be willing to take risks, spend their own money and work overtime to give their earnings to somebody else.