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If you read the stories of self-made billionaires they strikingly have a lot in common. Also all the following billionaires had troubled times and if you read t

If you read the stories of self-made billionaires they strikingly have a lot in common. Also all the following billionaires had troubled times and if you read their stories, you will see how they overcame them. From the books I've read about the following self-made billionaires so far (Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Yvon Chouinard, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger) the most important things I've found they have in common are that: They avoid competition, think long-term, and don't copy others foolishly. Longer explanation: -They break down the world to the fundamentals, the essential, the Feynman method. When Musk wanted to build SpaceX everyone thought he was crazy. But when he broke it down to the raw costs for space shuttle manufacturing, the typical costs were too high and he saw opportunity. Many people tend to learn complex abstract concepts without truly understanding the building blocks or learning trees that it took to get there. There can be times when someone calculated incorrectly but everyone took it for granted and it became the status quo of knowledge. I believe these are one way to access the secrets in plain sight. Question everything. - They focus on the long game like the power of compound interest. They operate with a vision of what the future might look like 10 years down the road, and then they work backwards to create that vision. Did they see the future, did they just build it before anyone else, or both? - Most of the billionaires I've read about had humble beginnings. Yvon Chouinard used to sleep in his van. Elon Musk couch surfed during his worst times. Jeff Bezos started out in his garage and made tables from doors. - All of them have very strong beliefs. They are not swayed by what everyone else is doing which is how most, even big companies fail. Peter Thiel mentions mimetic theory, basically that people copy each other, even companies, and that's how you get competition. Buffett indirectly talks about it too. ExxonMobil hires a fertilizer expert and then all the other oil companies start hiring a fertilizer expert even if they don't really know why Exxon hired one in the first place. Or how big companies (GEICO) can lose focus of their circle of competence by getting distracted by what everyone else is doing and creating inferior copycat products - which eventually leads to value loss of their core competency and what actually drives value for their customers. I think that's one thing that makes them all special. They all took different routes to get where they are. To be tacky, they didn't follow someone else's road, they created their own. - They didn't do it alone. All those people knew how to build and lead a great team. If they didn't, they found someone who could. Books I'm getting this info from: Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard Zero to One by Peter Thiel Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone

wilsonnb 8y ago
> Jeff Bezos started out in his garage and made tables from doors. I was under the impression that Bezos founded Amazon after he graduated from Princeton and had worked for a hedge fund for a few years. Wikipedia also says that his parents invested an estimated $300,000 into Amazon. I would hardly call that humble beginnings. The list of the 15 richest people in America also include the two Koch brothers (inherited their wealth), three Waltons (inherited their wealth), and plenty of people with Ivy League educations who earned their wealth but did not have humble beginnings. You seem to have drunk a little bit of the kool-aid the comment you're responding to is talking about. I suggest spending some time reading about people who are NOT billionaires (and some less high profile billionaires) and you will see that there are plenty of poor people with the traits you describe and plenty of rich people without them.
- Regardsyjc 8y ago
  1. Humble and humility, more as a mindset. Even if it wasn't, according to the book, Bezos was very frugal in the beginning. 2. My list was for self-made billionaires. 3. I like reading about self-made billionaires because as an entrepreneur- why wouldn't you want to learn from the best? At the same time, I don't want to be a billionaire if that's the kool-aid you're referencing. I grew up in poverty and love reading about poverty because I want to learn more about the circumstances that affect my reality today. Why can some people like my mom work 60 hours a week at $10/hr and never become a millionaire or even afford to retire? While others can? I wish I knew. Poor decisions? Poor environment? Or both? I haven't met any billionaires but I've met many self-made millionaires who literally built their way from nothing. In my experience, most of them built their wealth over years or decades. It's very hard to build something from nothing overnight. If there's anything I learned from reading self-made billionaire stories- it's simply better decision-making. Can't do much about a poor environment but at least you do have control over the decisions you make.
paulcole 8y ago
How many stories have you read about people who tried to become self-made billionaires and ended up broke? The idea that predicting the future, humble beginnings, and strong beliefs are key to getting rich is pretty funny. It also sounds like a recipe for being a penniless misanthrope left wondering where everything went wrong. You’re really buying into the PR effort of these billionaires.

wilsonnb 8y ago

> Jeff Bezos started out in his garage and made tables from doors. I was under the impression that Bezos founded Amazon after he graduated from Princeton and had worked for a hedge fund for a few years. Wikipedia also says that his parents invested an estimated $300,000 into Amazon. I would hardly call that humble beginnings. The list of the 15 richest people in America also include the two Koch brothers (inherited their wealth), three Waltons (inherited their wealth), and plenty of people with Ivy League educations who earned their wealth but did not have humble beginnings. You seem to have drunk a little bit of the kool-aid the comment you're responding to is talking about. I suggest spending some time reading about people who are NOT billionaires (and some less high profile billionaires) and you will see that there are plenty of poor people with the traits you describe and plenty of rich people without them.

Regardsyjc 8y ago
1. Humble and humility, more as a mindset. Even if it wasn't, according to the book, Bezos was very frugal in the beginning. 2. My list was for self-made billionaires. 3. I like reading about self-made billionaires because as an entrepreneur- why wouldn't you want to learn from the best? At the same time, I don't want to be a billionaire if that's the kool-aid you're referencing. I grew up in poverty and love reading about poverty because I want to learn more about the circumstances that affect my reality today. Why can some people like my mom work 60 hours a week at $10/hr and never become a millionaire or even afford to retire? While others can? I wish I knew. Poor decisions? Poor environment? Or both? I haven't met any billionaires but I've met many self-made millionaires who literally built their way from nothing. In my experience, most of them built their wealth over years or decades. It's very hard to build something from nothing overnight. If there's anything I learned from reading self-made billionaire stories- it's simply better decision-making. Can't do much about a poor environment but at least you do have control over the decisions you make.

paulcole 8y ago

How many stories have you read about people who tried to become self-made billionaires and ended up broke? The idea that predicting the future, humble beginnings, and strong beliefs are key to getting rich is pretty funny. It also sounds like a recipe for being a penniless misanthrope left wondering where everything went wrong. You’re really buying into the PR effort of these billionaires.