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Rather, it's a result of the depth of the value we provide and the number of people we provide that value to. Outcome > input Not really. It’s mostly family co
by shawn 8y ago
Rather, it's a result of the depth of the value we provide and the number of people we provide that value to. Outcome > input
Not really. It’s mostly family connections.
- krkek29nx 8y agoYeah citation needed Unless all the scholarly work on “how is value determined” attempting to define this is wrong. Did we just solve it on a web forum by accident? Short answer is there isn’t an answer that’s reliable except “networking and feelings” making it seem arbitrary Economics and Wall Street are not free markets for ideas. They’re on rails financial walled gardens. One must recite the theories and have the right keys (money) to gain entry Nothing about the system is objective
- btilly 8y agoAccording to https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/two-thirds-of-billionaires-made-it-themselves.html https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/two-thirds-of-billionaires-m..., about 2/3 of billionaires have self-made fortunes. So clearly family connections help. But that doesn't appear to be most of the picture.
- bsder 8y agoIs Bill Gates self-made? Or was it the fact that his father could cut a $25,000 check on a whim? Having lots of ready liquid cash gets you the ability to make deals that normal people do not have access to. You don't even have to be that rich. Take a look at Craigslist at the end of the month before rent is due.
- petra 8y ago>> Is Bill Gates self-made? Or was it the fact that his father could cut a $25,000 check on a whim? And his mother had good connections with the IBM board, leading IBM to give the operating system business to Bill .
- aeternus 8y agoEveryone has certain advantages, one of the keys to creating value is to leverage those. The public & press love rags to riches stories, so even someone without any of the traditional 'advantages' can leverage that for publicity, fundraising, etc. And many independently wealthy business-people have.
- skookumchuck 8y agoAnd yet IBM went to Digital Research first, and DR couldn't close the deal. Of course, Gates was already successful when IBM came by, and there's no reason to believe he wouldn't have been greatly successful with or without IBM.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- wolco 8y agoLots of people can get 25,000 and anyone can get that amount if there was a billion dollars payoff at the end. Millions of people started a business with at least 25,000 and there are only a few billionares, most lost it all but some made a living and some got richs.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoMillions more were never given the chance, because they couldn't get that kind of funding.
- skookumchuck 8y ago> Is Bill Gates self-made? Yes. > Or was it the fact that his father could cut a $25,000 check on a whim? There are millions of Americans like that, and only one Bill Gates. There's no evidence, either, that his father bought the success of Microsoft. The early success of Microsoft did not require anything more than rather trivial amounts of cash.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoThat amount of cash is not trivial for the vast majority of Americans.
- skookumchuck 8y agoMillions can do it, rendering the notion that that was what enabled Bill Gates to be a zillionaire absurd. And then there are all those millions buying houses for over $500,000, and $30,000+ cars, who could invest $25,000 in a business instead. But that's why they aren't Bill Gates - they made different choices.
- ericd 8y agoThere are vastly more people with access to $25k in cash than there are people who end up making an impact as large as Gates had. It still takes an enormous amount of work and savvy to pull off what he did.
- skookumchuck 8y agoGates seemed to be the only one who understood the value of DOS initially. Not you, not I, not Gary Kildall, not IBM, not Tim Paterson.
- petra 8y agoAny idea how he got to that unique understanding? Is that something we can learn from?
- ksk 8y agoBillionaires are the outliers among wealthy people. Its hard to connect what they did or are doing, to anything that most people will ever know or experience. https://imgur.com/a/Bu8iLiz https://imgur.com/a/Bu8iLiz
- ejstronge 8y ago> According to https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/two-thirds-of-billionaires-m... https://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/03/two-thirds-of-billionaires-m..., about 2/3 of billionaires have self-made fortunes. > So clearly family connections help. But that doesn't appear to be most of the picture. That's a very simple view of the OP's statement - notice that OP did not say inherited wealth, but instead 'family connections'. For example, if you received personalized advice to invest a lot of money in a business that later became wildly successful, are you a self-made individual? There are even more subtle examples of how relationships can lead to wealth. Anyway, perhaps a better analysis is asking what happens to children who grow up either in poverty or in wealth: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-class-white-and-black-men.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...
- wolco 8y agoIf someone tells you to buy something and you risk your money you are responsible and can claim you are self-made. There is a lot of free advice if you followed all of it you would probably be broke or dead.
- megaremote 8y agoIf you have access to someone is giving out good investment advice, you are better off than 99.9999% of people.
- ericd 8y agoIt's as hard to know whether the person is giving good investment advice as it is to give good investment advice yourself, though. So generally, it's not very helpful.
- IggleSniggle 8y ago...doesn't this just reinforce that having family connections matter more? Are you more likely to follow the advice of your family or some stranger? If your family connections have insight and/or inside knowledge of markets, aren't you more likely to accidentally take good advice than the average joe? You're still not immune to bad advice, but you have a higher percentage chance of having higher quality information to act on.
- Veelox 8y agoYou do realize that 80% of people worth >$1 million had parents that were not millionaires right?