5 ms·
What percentage of entrepreneurs are wealthy?
by pohl 16y ago
What percentage of entrepreneurs are wealthy?
- Joakal 16y agoThat would be hard to tell due to a common issue of confirmation bias. eg during the WorldCom era, there were a lot of wealthy entrepreneurs.
- rokhayakebe 16y agoI guess 5%. That is the success rate for businesses. What I would like to know is how the other half got wealthy.
- pavel 16y agoI would guess hard work and working up the corporate ladder to some executive position at some big company. Or someone working in finance and putting on risky trades which yield in massive bonuses.
- Periodic 16y agoIf 1 million people take a large risk, which has a 5% chance of making them a millionaire, then we'll end up with 50,000 millionaires. What is really interesting is what they did differently, if anything.
- fhars 16y agoInheritance. There is a page by Phil Greenspun about how even Bill Gates only became rich by having rich parents (I'd post a link if this stupid cell phone supported copy and paste, so I must rely on your google fu instead).
- Benjo 16y agoHere's the link: http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/
- marilyn 16y agoYou must consider too that many entrepreneurs start several businesses through out the course of their lives. For each attempt, an entrepreneur would increase his/her chances at attaining wealth by 5%, no?
- aliston 16y agoWell, if you wanted to be a real geek about it, given n attempts, your chances of a single success are 1 - (.95 ^ n)... but I'd also like to think that an entrepreneurial endeavor is not pure chance.
- electromagnetic 16y ago> I'd also like to think that an entrepreneurial endeavor is not pure chance. Agreed, I don't think you'll ever succeed in your business attempts if you're not providing something new, original or just not established in the area. You'll make a killing opening a coffee shop in a moderate sized town - as long as there's not 3 Starbucks already there. There's a lot to business beyond the idea, hence it's important to be a businessman once you've succeeded your entrepreneurial dream of getting a company started. You don't want your company to fail just because you fucked up and didn't file your taxes.
- VladimirGolovin 16y agoSo, one needs just about 13.5 attempts to attain 50% chance of single success: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.5+%3D+1+-+%28.95+^+n%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.5+%3D+1+-+%28.95+^+n%...
- keefe 16y agoIt's also not useful to take some aggregate 5% of businesses succeed so I have a 5% chance. Some business lack the talent, idea or plan to make it and have a virtually zero chance while others are way on the other end.
- dedward 16y agoNo... not if you are implying this because of a 95% failure rate, your odds improve with each attempt. Statistics have no memory. You are statistically part of the same group every time. You don't increase your chances of flipping a "heads" on a fair die by flipping tails first. The odds stay at 50%. That's not to say that multiple attempts at starting profitable businesses won't teach you things, and increase your chances of success, your chances of picking the right strategy out of the gate, etc - but there is no simple "Hey if you list yourself as "entrepreneur" and keep trying, you'll end up rich.". Many people just end up wildly in debt and failure.
- LiveTheDream 16y agoFTA: - Only 16% of high-net-worth individuals inherited their stash (high-net-worth = USD millionaire) - Another 23% of the world’s millionaires got rich through paid work
- philwelch 16y agoWorldwide? Honestly, cronyism explains a lot. Carlos Slim, and virtually all the Russian oligarchs, are as rich as they are because they knew the right people when vast parts of the economy were "privatized" right into their hands.
- vegai 16y ago> What I would like to know is how the other half got wealthy. I know people who are typical labourers (both white and blue collars) who saved money and invested and got pretty wealthy like that. And of course, there're more blatant ways to gamble.
- benohear 16y agoThere's an Italian saying which goes something along the lines of "There's three ways to get money: You can marry it, inherit it or steal it". I suspect that accounts for a lot of the other half, especially if financial services counts as stealing.
- erikstarck 16y agoWhat percentage of entrepreneurs are happy?
- theBobMcCormick 16y agoThat's actually a much more interesting question.
- sliverstorm 16y agoCould HN have a feature that lets me sacrifice my karma to give extra up-votes to a comment?
- zaidf 16y agoNobody's happy in this town except for the losers. Look at me, I'm miserable, that's why I'm rich. -Ari Gold
- sorbits 16y ago”Obsessions Make My Life Worse and My Work Better.” Think this quote can be attributed to this artwork: http://www.segd.org/design-awards/5200/5223.html http://www.segd.org/design-awards/5200/5223.html
- alinajaf 16y agoTake away their money and see how happy they are.
- derrida 16y agoWhat percentage of people with negative net worth are entrepreneurs? I would get it would approach 90%.
- patio11 16y agoThis is most definitely not the experience I have had when doing volunteer financial counseling. (I ran out of ways to say "If your take home pay is $4,000 and your "absolutely mandatory" expenses are $5,000 then you will lose.")
- joshkaufman 16y agoFour easiest ways to have a negative net worth: 1. Borrow a lot of money for a college credential. (Bonus points for going to grad school.) 2. Borrow a lot of money for a house or home improvements. 3. Borrow a lot of money to start a business, using loans that are personally guaranteed. 4. Accumulate credit card debt by spending more than you earn each month. Any other methods I missed?
- space-monkey 16y agoBe unfortunate enough to get seriously ill without medical insurance.
- Mz 16y agoGet seriously ill regardless of what kind of medical coverage you have. My ex was career military. We had very few medical expenses -- the occasional pharmacy copay for items not carried at the military hospital (items on base were dispensed free). My health crisis still created financial problems.