4 ms·

Why wouldn't it be easier? Someone who has more discretionary income can take on more risk than someone who can't keep their lights on, and a failed venture do

by rnovak 11y ago

Why wouldn't it be easier? Someone who has more discretionary income can take on more risk than someone who can't keep their lights on, and a failed venture doesn't have the same consequences. Just by virtue of taking more risk, those in the middle class are expanding their chance of success by orders of magnitude more. I'd dare say it's impossible for the middle class to not to become "mega rich" at a greater incidence than poor becoming middle class.

Swizec 11y ago
I agree. I'm just saying that a lot of the people who normally discuss these "But it's not that hard or impossible to become rich, what are you talking about?" stories, are the kind of people who somehow magically were able to go to an ivy league school or similar. They say they became rich on their own, and that most of the mega rich also became rich on their own, but forget that compared to the vast majority of the population, even confined to the US, they were already born rich and have a massive leg-up in the world from day 1. edit: As Donald Trump would say "I made all my own money. My dad only gave me a small 1 million dollar loan, and with that I was able to make my own fortune."
- JonFish85 11y ago
  The problem with that quote is that no entrepreneur now can say anything less. Any company founder at this point has likely taken over a million dollars in venture capital--are they not to be called self-made if their company does well? Nobody is ever "self made" if you take that argument.
  - Swizec 11y ago
    I would assume there is a big difference between your dad giving you a loan and investors who don't have social ties with you since childhood. The assumption is that the dad will be less stringent on due diligence, more forgiving in what he gets in return, and most importantly, will have brought you up all your life in such a way that you are primed for handling those kinds of money. The wider point is that someone who grew up in a trailer park, doesn't even have access to investors in the first place. For example: how are you going to get an investment, if you can't afford to to schmooze with investors? What if a $50 dinner is completely out of your price range? What if buying someone a $5 coffee is a big deal financially? And then there's the issue of safety net. There's a big difference between your venture failing meaning you end up living on the streets, or in your parents' garage.
    - meric 11y ago
      It does take several generations. 1. My great grandmother was a homeless woman after getting kicked out of the household because she was the second wife of a husband who had passed, leaving my grandmother in orphanage during WWII when the Japanese invaded China. 2. A couple of years later, her family came back for her. My grandmother worked odd jobs here and there, and my great grandmother gambles it away. My grandmother, fed up, left her to go live in Hong Kong with an uncle. 3. My grandmother's uncle was only employed from time to time. They lived on one meal a day, some rice, flavoured with a few drops of pig fat. My grandmother wanted a better life. She signed up as a labourer to carry tens of kilograms of dirt everyday on her shoulders[1], as part of a project to clear a mountain. Her uncle said she wouldn't last 3 days. It was such painful work she almost went home on the first day. But with such a stark challenge from her uncle and she didn't want to lose face, she stayed for 3 months. She was 14. She went on to work as a servant, but more or less treated as a slave, getting yelled at and beaten, and then finally someone taught her the business of picking up factory fabric scraps, weaving them into clothes to sell them. And that's the business she was in, even until the time I was following her around when I was 5 or 6. She bought factory scraps in bulk, using her sewing machine, made shirts and pants, and in 1995 or so, sold them for HK$10 each. It put my mother through school and nursing school. [2] 4. My mother was a nurse, and it was a well paid profession. However, my parents lost almost everything from their real estate investments in the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Debt can ruin you like that. They sold everything, my mother left her position as chief nurse in a hospital, and using a skilled migration visa, we moved to Australia, starting from zero. 5. Today I'm working as a software engineer in Australia. When I was tempted to slacken for my university exams, when I was tempted to lower my ambitions and stay in an unskilled job, when I was tempted to take an employer's low ball salary offer based on my living expenses, I remember what my grandmother had gone through, to put me here. And I will follow her example, and do the same for my family. "Stay hungry, stay young, stay foolish, stay curious, and above all, stay humble." [1] A carrying pole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_pole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_pole [2] My grandfather had an accident while fixing a lift, and lose control of his legs. Unable to provide for the family, he killed himself. My uncle, my mum's brother, grew up mentally ill. My mother also had a sister. My grandmother brought up three children and supported my great-grandmother, on her own.
  - rnovak 11y ago
    you mean except for all of the companies that are bootstraped, and never take a dime from venture capital, right?

by rnovak 11y ago

Swizec 11y ago

I agree. I'm just saying that a lot of the people who normally discuss these "But it's not that hard or impossible to become rich, what are you talking about?" stories, are the kind of people who somehow magically were able to go to an ivy league school or similar. They say they became rich on their own, and that most of the mega rich also became rich on their own, but forget that compared to the vast majority of the population, even confined to the US, they were already born rich and have a massive leg-up in the world from day 1. edit: As Donald Trump would say "I made all my own money. My dad only gave me a small 1 million dollar loan, and with that I was able to make my own fortune."

JonFish85 11y ago
The problem with that quote is that no entrepreneur now can say anything less. Any company founder at this point has likely taken over a million dollars in venture capital--are they not to be called self-made if their company does well? Nobody is ever "self made" if you take that argument.
- Swizec 11y ago
  I would assume there is a big difference between your dad giving you a loan and investors who don't have social ties with you since childhood. The assumption is that the dad will be less stringent on due diligence, more forgiving in what he gets in return, and most importantly, will have brought you up all your life in such a way that you are primed for handling those kinds of money. The wider point is that someone who grew up in a trailer park, doesn't even have access to investors in the first place. For example: how are you going to get an investment, if you can't afford to to schmooze with investors? What if a $50 dinner is completely out of your price range? What if buying someone a $5 coffee is a big deal financially? And then there's the issue of safety net. There's a big difference between your venture failing meaning you end up living on the streets, or in your parents' garage.
  - meric 11y ago
    It does take several generations. 1. My great grandmother was a homeless woman after getting kicked out of the household because she was the second wife of a husband who had passed, leaving my grandmother in orphanage during WWII when the Japanese invaded China. 2. A couple of years later, her family came back for her. My grandmother worked odd jobs here and there, and my great grandmother gambles it away. My grandmother, fed up, left her to go live in Hong Kong with an uncle. 3. My grandmother's uncle was only employed from time to time. They lived on one meal a day, some rice, flavoured with a few drops of pig fat. My grandmother wanted a better life. She signed up as a labourer to carry tens of kilograms of dirt everyday on her shoulders[1], as part of a project to clear a mountain. Her uncle said she wouldn't last 3 days. It was such painful work she almost went home on the first day. But with such a stark challenge from her uncle and she didn't want to lose face, she stayed for 3 months. She was 14. She went on to work as a servant, but more or less treated as a slave, getting yelled at and beaten, and then finally someone taught her the business of picking up factory fabric scraps, weaving them into clothes to sell them. And that's the business she was in, even until the time I was following her around when I was 5 or 6. She bought factory scraps in bulk, using her sewing machine, made shirts and pants, and in 1995 or so, sold them for HK$10 each. It put my mother through school and nursing school. [2] 4. My mother was a nurse, and it was a well paid profession. However, my parents lost almost everything from their real estate investments in the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Debt can ruin you like that. They sold everything, my mother left her position as chief nurse in a hospital, and using a skilled migration visa, we moved to Australia, starting from zero. 5. Today I'm working as a software engineer in Australia. When I was tempted to slacken for my university exams, when I was tempted to lower my ambitions and stay in an unskilled job, when I was tempted to take an employer's low ball salary offer based on my living expenses, I remember what my grandmother had gone through, to put me here. And I will follow her example, and do the same for my family. "Stay hungry, stay young, stay foolish, stay curious, and above all, stay humble." [1] A carrying pole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_pole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_pole [2] My grandfather had an accident while fixing a lift, and lose control of his legs. Unable to provide for the family, he killed himself. My uncle, my mum's brother, grew up mentally ill. My mother also had a sister. My grandmother brought up three children and supported my great-grandmother, on her own.
- rnovak 11y ago
  you mean except for all of the companies that are bootstraped, and never take a dime from venture capital, right?